AUSTRALIANS need to learn the lessons of millennia of indigenous land management of the continent, a Landcare conference in Warwick was told last weekend.
David Parsons said several speakers at the conference had mentioned Aboriginal land management practices during the annual conference.
Mr Parsons said noted authors and consultants Julian Cribb and Bill Gammage had referred to these practices as they addressed issues of land management and food security at the conference.
“Some of what we can learn is the spiritual or religious aspects of traditional culture, whereby people were obliged to follow the rules of good land management,” Mr Parsons said.
Local Githabul woman Kim Charles gave the Welcome to Country at the conference, telling participants it was tradition to welcome visitors to country so that they had the spirit of the country in their heart and “would love it and care for it like those whose home country it was”.
“We want everybody to work together to keep country clean and healthy,” she said.
“Country needs to be remembered, needs to be listened to, and needs to know that we can still speak its language.”
Mr Parsons said former Governor-General Major General Michael Jeffery, who discussed the preservation of soils, told the conference we must learn from the many valuable ideas in Aboriginal culture, such as how their spiritual beliefs nurture the land.
