Walking together: Bridging Western and Aboriginal paradigms for cultural fire revitalization and bushfire resilience in Victoria, Australia

Sammanfattning

The increasing severity of bushfires in Australia is driven by past land management failures, compounded by accelerating climate change impacts. Rapid shifts in fire regimes have outpaced the adaptive capacity of current systems, highlighting the need for more proactive and inclusive approaches to disaster risk reduction (DRR). While Indigenous fire knowledge has gained renewed attention for its potential to support ecological and community resilience, its implementation in mainstream fire management remains limited and hindered by systemic barriers. This thesis explores the relationships between Western fire management institutions and First Nations fire practitioners and their connections to cultural burning and bushfire risk reduction in Victoria, Australia. Guided by a novel hybrid framework combining community resilience with Indigenous and decolonizing concepts, the study aims to understand the current extent of Indigenous knowledge inclusion, along with key drivers and barriers, and future pathways for respectful collaboration. Eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives from government agencies, NGOs, and academic institutions involved in land and bushfire management. Thematic analysis reveals seven interrelated themes: the need to confront legacies of colonization; reframing fire from risk to relationality; the foundational role of relationships; the revitalization of knowledge in contemporary systems; structural and bureaucratic constraints on cultural burning; institutional change and power asymmetries; and the importance of co-creating imaginative and transformative fire governance and management that enables community well-being and resilience. Findings highlight the deep work involved in building trust, recognizing First Nations sovereignty and self-determination aspirations, and institutional reform to support more equitable, community-led fire management. The study contributes to growing efforts to decolonize disaster risk reduction and supports calls for more inclusive, culturally grounded approaches to bushfire resilience.