Big Sky Country

It’s a two-day drive from Darwin to Robinson River, on Garawa Country in the NT, just south of the Gulf of Carpentaria. While the road there can be long, the destination is worth it. The annual Waanyi Garawa Biodiversity and Culture Camp brings together Elders, rangers and kids together to keep their culture and language strong.  

While remote communities face many challenges without easy access to country, these camps create an opportunity for dance, storytelling and play, and for community leaders to pass down important ecological and cultural knowledge to the next generation. 

Featuring Aunty Nancy McDinny, Uncle Jack Green, Karen Noble, Donald Shadforth, Dr Terry Mahney, and Kelly Retief. 

Produced by Will Sacre and Eliza Herbert. 

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In 2021, Wiradjuri Elder Uncle James Ingram and Bush Heritage’s Aboriginal Partnerships Manager and Yuin Walbunja woman, Vikki Parsley, walked across Tarcutta Hills Reserve in southern NSW in search of cultural artefacts. Immediately, they called for a cultural burn. The land was in need of controlled fire, and it presented an opportunity to get Wiradjuri people back out on Country.  
 
This was to be the first cultural burn held on a Bush Heritage reserve in New South Wales, and the beginning of a significant conversation about how fire has and hasn't been used in the continent’s southeast for centuries.

Featuring Uncle James Ingram, Vikki Parsley, Dean Freeman, and George and Win Maine.
Produced by Will Sacre and Eliza Herbert. 

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It might seem strange for an ecologist to spend time on pastoral lands, but that’s exactly what Imogen Semmler does. She ‘meanders’ across paddocks to measure the health of their ecosystems and quantify their biodiverse value. 

With over 58% of Australia managed for agricultural production, Imogen’s work is part of a new ‘natural capital accounting’ initiative that recognises that if we are to feed and clothe our planet, while protecting it, then we need to be looking at innovative ways to boost ecosystem health across agricultural lands. Part of the solution? Putting biodiversity on the books.  

Featuring Imogen Semmler, Associate Professor Jim Radford, Angela Hawdon and Anna and Gus Hickman.
Produced by Bee Stephens and Eliza Herbert.

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What does it take to restore a native woodland? A bucket, hammer, trowel, seedlings and a whole heap of people power. These ingredients are abundant at Scottsdale Reserve on Ngarigo and Ngunnawal Country in New South Wales where for over seven years, volunteers have been showing up week after week to help plant over 40,000 trees. While their efforts might seem small in a global context, what they prove is that where there’s a will, there’s a way. And where’s there’s people, there’s the power to change the world for better.  

Conservation is a people issue; we’ve caused the problems and we have the power to fix the problems – while having a whole heap of green-thumbed fun.  

Featuring Phil Palmer, Kim Jarvis, Antia Brademann and Scottsdale volunteers. 
Produced by Coco McGrath and Eliza Herbert.

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Amongst inland wulo (rainforest) and on islands in the North Kimberley, Wunambal Gaambera Country, lives an unassuming group of animals. The species slime their way along the forest floor eating decaying leaf litter and are part of why this extraordinary region is listed as an area of national heritage significance – they are an incredibly diverse group of... snails!  

Since the late eighties, Wunambal Gaambera Traditional Owners and scientists have led a series of expeditions to the archipelago off the coast to better understand their rich biodiversity. The findings? 'The Galapagos of the Kimberley,' and remarkable ecosystems, all protected by Wunambal Gaambera people.  

Featuring Tom Vigilante, Jeremy Kowan, Desmond Williams, Frank Koehler and Norm McKenzie. 
Produced by Bee Stephens and Eliza Herbert. 

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Can you imagine nature without sound? No bellbirds, or lyrebirds. No bleating frogs or whispering leaves. No nature’s call to tell the story of the wonder of the forest.  

For some scientists seeing is believing, but for Bush Heritage ecologist Daniella Teixiera it’s hearing that is believing. With the support of Woodland Bird Ecologist Courtney Melton, Teixiera is leading a large-scale acoustic monitoring project to measure the condition of woodland bird communities in Queensland.   

Their ethos is that a rich soundscape, is a healthy landscape, and that sound is a vital solution to land management and protection.  

Featuring Dr Daniella Teixiera, Dr Courtney Melton and Professor Paul Roe.
Produced by Coco McGrath and Eliza Herbert.

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Join us in April 2023 for season two of Big Sky Country, bringing stories from the bush to wherever you get your podcasts.

Join conservation organisation Bush Heritage Australia to travel the vast Australian continent: from the flanks of the Mighty Murrumbidgee River in New South Wales where over 40,000 trees have been planted in an effort to restore a native woodland, to the “Galapagos of the Kimberley” where some slimy snails and their genetic evolution have scientists extremely excited, and across to the ancestral lands of the Waanyi and Garawa people where Elders and rangers are keeping culture and biodiversity alive. Meet the people on the ground who are experts in ecology, culture, conservation and Country and how they are finding solutions - old and new - to some of our most pressing environmental issues.    

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If every scent tells a story, the Australian Sandalwood Tree (Santalum Spicatum) must be a library; rich with ecological, cultural and economic history books.  

But today, much of this history is at risk, with unsustainable harvesting, climate change and feral predators pushing the tree perilously close to extinction.  

In this episode, we drive down the Gunbarrel Highway to the Birriliburu Indigenous Protected Area in WA's central deserts to find some of the oldest sandalwood trees in the world. Underneath their scrambling canopies, we ask: How are they going in the wild? What makes these trees so special? And what does their future hold?

Produced by Eliza Herbert and Kate Thorburn.

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When you think of the seasons, does Spring begin on the first day of September? Summer on the first of December? Or is it the Wet season on the first of November? The Dry season on the first of May?  

Unlike Gregorian or Western Calendars, Aboriginal calendars are not based on structural time, but ecological time, and they are strongly embedded in place.  

Different phases of plant and animal lifecycles, variations in animal behaviours, cloud formations and wind directions can indicate the right time to harvest different plants and foods, and the right time to burn different vegetation types. But lately, with an acceleration of climate change, the seasons aren't always as they used to be. 

In this episode, we take you to central Arnhem Land to hear from Rembarrnga and Dalabon people about their seasonal calendars and community-wide effort to keep language, culture and country strong. 

Produced by Eliza Herbert (host), Katie Degnian and Amelia Caddy.

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When there's one single population of a species left in the world, what do you do? Do you let it go extinct? Or do you do everything you can to save it?  

In central Queensland, a collective effort is bringing one teeny, tiny fish back from the brink of extinction: the Red-finned Blue-eye. 

In this episode, we take you to its home, where water, deep in the mantle of the earth below, has travelled up to the surface of an arid, inland environment and given rise to what some scientists have called the 'most significant natural springs for global biodiversity in the Great Artesian Basin.'  

So, how did the fish come to be here in the first place? And what's being done to save it? 

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Learn more about our work at www.bushheritage.org.au or follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook.