What is Aboriginal conservation knowledge?

Aboriginal conservation knowledge is the practical expertise that Aboriginal peoples have built up over more than 65,000 years of caring for country across the Australian continent. It covers the use of fire to manage vegetation and reduce wildfire risk, the management of water in dry country, the protection of breeding cycles for plants and animals, and the cultural protocols that regulate hunting, gathering, and access to fragile sites.

Cultural burning, sometimes called cool-burn or cultural fire, is the most prominent example. Aboriginal land managers across northern Australia and into the south have used low-intensity burning at the right season for tens of thousands of years to shape grasslands, encourage particular food plants, drive game, and reduce the fuel loads that lead to catastrophic summer wildfires. Modern fire science has confirmed the effectiveness of these techniques. After the 2019 to 2020 Black Summer fires destroyed 18.6 million hectares and killed 33 people, state and federal governments accelerated programmes that partner with Aboriginal rangers to apply traditional burning across public lands.

The Indigenous Protected Area programme, run by the federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, supports Aboriginal communities to declare and manage their own conservation reserves. As of 2026, more than 80 Indigenous Protected Areas cover about 87 million hectares, more than half of the National Reserve System. Each is managed by traditional owners using a combination of cultural and Western conservation techniques. The Indigenous Rangers programme, established in 2007, employs more than 1,900 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in cultural land management roles across the country.

Aboriginal conservation knowledge also covers marine and freshwater systems. The Yawuru people of Broome have established a sea country plan that integrates traditional fishing knowledge with modern fisheries management. The Gunditjmara people of south-west Victoria built the Budj Bim aquaculture system about 6,600 years ago, an engineering achievement of stone weirs and ponds for trapping and storing live eels that is now World Heritage listed. Modern sustainability policy increasingly draws on this depth of Indigenous expertise.