Echo
NetDaily,
11
June 2021:
Local
Minjungbal Indigenous leaders are asking the National Parks and
Wildlife Service (NPWS) to consult with them over a planned hazard
reduction burn at Billinudgel Nature Reserve but a scheduled meeting
was cancelled by NPWS.
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Billinudgel Nature Reserve where the hazard reduction burn is planned by National Parks and Wildlife Service.
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The
hazard reduction burn was originally scheduled for the Billinudgel
Nature Reserve on 3 June with neighbours being informed by letter on
2 June.
‘We
got notification that Billinudgel was going to have a hazard
reduction burn which gave me time to get in touch with NPWS to
discuss some options and ask them to sit down with traditional owners
to look at cultural issues in the reserve,’ said Rachael Cavanagh,
a Minjungbal woman and traditional owner that covers the Billinudgel
Nature Reserve.
Rachael
said a meeting was originally set up but was then cancelled by the
NPWS who said that they would only speak to the Tweed Byron
Aboriginal Land Council (TB ALC).
‘They
are not the traditional owners,’ Rachael pointed out. ‘Everyone
deserves a voice. We are on the Native Title claim for the Five
Rivers and the Tweed Bundjalung people. We are the traditional owners
who hold the cultural knowledge on the land values. We still have
fire law that has been continued in our family,’ she told The Echo.
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Billinudgel Nature Reserve. |
‘NPWS
legislation states that they need to engage with traditional owners
and knowledge holders. By their own legislation they are supposed to
meet all registered parties.’
Rachael
has been a fire fighter for 20 years with the Queensland National
Parks and Forestry Corporation and is engaged with the Firesticks
Alliance Indigenous Corporation.
‘I
am in a senior leadership team for National Fire Sticks Alliance. We
support and build capacity with Indigenous groups nationally to
support cultural fire practices and traditional land management for
people on country. We look at the whole picture.’
Having
been denied the option to meet with NPWS Rachael told The Echo that
their lawyer has now sent a letter to NPWS to seek a meeting between
the traditional owners and NPWS in relation to the burn.
‘Pretty
much our family are fighting to be at the table and be part the
discussion,’ she said.
‘They
are planning to for a 70 per cent hazard reduction burn over two days
which means it will be very hot, raging and overall health of the
forest and the cultural values will be at risk, the understory will
be and the canopy will be scorched, the animals will have nowhere to
go to.
‘Regardless
of whether it is Billinudgel or Cudgen. I will be fighting to have a
say over the management of Minyungbal Country.’
‘Regardless
of whether it is Billinudgel or Cudgen. I will be fighting to have a
seat at the table.’…...
BACKGROUND
Billinudgel Nature Reserve was created in April 1996. It's current size is 789 ha. Approximately 75% of the Reserve is within Byron Shire with the remainder in Tweed Shire in the NSW Northern Rivers region.
The Reserve protects the following features:
· a large tract of natural lowland coastal vegetation, a significant remnant in an
otherwise highly modified environment;
· an extensive wetland containing Melaleuca swamp forest;
· a diversity of habitat which supports a wide range of fauna and flora including rare,
threatened, significant and migratory species;
· Aboriginal sites and landscapes of significance; and
· features of scientific interest.
In the 2016 Byron Coast Comprehensive Koala Plan of Management the North Byron Koala Management Area encompasses an area of approximately 2,814ha located to the north of the Brunswick River and includes the Billinudgel Nature Reserve along with the localities of South Golden Beach, Ocean Shores and Billinudgel.
localities of South Golden Beach, Ocean Shores and Billinudgel as indicated by Figure 3 of the
Northern Rivers Region Billinudgel, Marshalls Creek, Jinangong, and Brunswick Heads (north) Nature Reserves Fire Management Strategy (Type 2) 2016 at: