Forest Fire Management Victoria’s Bendigo-based assistant chief fire officer, Scott Falconer, has been awarded the Churchill Fellowship from the Lord Mayor’s Bushfire Appeal to travel to the US to explore the involvement of indigenous people in land and fire management.

The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning will fund someone from the Dja Dja Wurrung community to undertake the trip alongside Mr Falconer.

Mr Falconer said he hoped the trip would help further the use of traditional Aboriginal practices in Victoria.

“I’m looking forward to finding out how traditional burning and other land management practices are being undertaken in America and how Forest Fire Management and Dja Dja Wurrung can apply some of those learnings in Australia to create jobs for indigenous people to work on-country,” Mr Falconer said.

This year, FFM Victoria and the Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation collaborated on an initiative believed to be a first in the state for some 170 years: the reintroduction of traditional burning practices to the land.

The first burns were undertaken in May in Maryborough and Whipstick, where an area of land has since been named Djandak Wi, or ‘fire country’.

In July, Mr Falconer described the partnership between the government agency and the traditional owners as an example of “walking together”.

At the burn at Whipstick, FFM Victoria district planner and Dja Dja Wurrung man Mick Bourke said the return of traditional burning practices would not only heal country, but heal people, bringing back elders who had been forcibly disconnected from country and providing an avenue for younger people to learn traditional knowledge.

The use of traditional practices will sit alongside contemporary fire management practices.

Mr Falconer has worked in fire, forestry and fisheries for more than 20 years, and was appointed Loddon Mallee assistant chief fire officer with Forest Fire Management Victoria in June last year. 

The Churchill Trust aims to provide the chance for Australians to travel overseas to conduct research when opportunities are not readily available here, and reward achievements by providing further opportunity to pursue excellence to enrich Australia.