In October, Mulloon team members joined Back to Country – a Yuin-guided organisation dedicated to healing Country and people – for a camp at Yambulla in southern NSW, exploring how landscape regeneration opportunities could align with the emerging First Nations Water Skills Certificate.
Back to Country are an Aboriginal organisation guided by Yuin teachings and dedicated to healing Country and people that have been part of the Mulloon journey for many years (revisit this blog post about a workshop in 2022). They are also one of the collaborating partners in our project to create a First Nations Water Skills Certificate.
In October, members of the Mulloon team joined several members of Back to Country for a camp at Yambulla, a property being managed with a vision of joint custodianship of Country bringing together First Nations Culture, conservation, research, education and knowledge-sharing. Yambulla is in Southern NSW, not far from the Victorian border. It occupies a beautiful valley with many waterways and is a landscape with a varied history of pastoralism, mining and forestry. On this camp we wanted to discover how the opportunities for regeneration at Yambulla could dovetail with the skills pathway we are creating together.
The camp brought us in touch with a landscape filled with bird life, swamps dense with phragmites, native grasslands and grand old trees. We examined the erosion caused by feral pigs and deer, and the hillsides that had until recently been logged for timber pulp. We also investigated many hydrated ponds and explored a ridgeline topped with an in-tact patch of native woodland. We tracked the magical way water flowed in many directions before leaving the valley, drawing understanding from a painting Uncle Lenny had produced having spent time on Yambulla during flood.
We were all enriched by spending time in the Yambulla classroom, and threading together opportunities for regenerative work, such as addressing the deer problem, supporting the rehydration and recovery of bushland on the logged slopes, managing erosion within flow lines, cultural mapping and hosting healing camps for young people on-site.
This event was supported by the Australian Government through funding from the Climate-Smart Agriculture Program under the Natural Heritage Trust.
Pictured at right, from left: Uncle Bruce, Felix, Jack, Nathan, Laura, Robert, Uncle Greg, Tam, Tasi, Uncle Lenny (and Bundi).
Click on images to enlarge.
