Traditional knowledge helping to save high-country species

A project to connect Aboriginal communities with Country is also helping conserve three critically endangered species, the Tumut Grevillea shrub and the Southern and Northern Corroboree Frogs.

The ‘Buugang Wambal’ project in Tumut and the Snowy Mountains is one of nine projects in NSW contributing to the understanding of how ecosystems can be improved when Aboriginal people are involved in looking after traditional lands.

The local Aboriginal community had identified the Southern and Northern Corroboree Frogs as culturally significant but many had never been able to see the critically endangered amphibians in their natural habitat of the sphagnum bogs and wetlands in Kosciuszko National Park.

The project, by the Department of Planning and Environment’s Cultural Fire Management Unit and Saving Our Species program, is helping conservation efforts by maintaining and improving large enclosures for the frogs in the Khancoban area of Kosciuszko National Park after previous enclosures were threatened by bushfire. The project is assisting with the release of juvenile frogs bred at Taronga Zoo, and monitoring and surveying the frog population.

The project is also helping save the Tumut Grevillea by collecting seeds around Tumut and testing how the plants and seeds react to low-heat traditional burning led by traditional owners. It will also investigate if cultural burning around the frog enclosures could protect frogs from larger bushfires.

Two coordinators are leading a project group of up to 25 Walgalu and Wiradjuri adults and 10 children, with support from organisations including Aboriginal Affairs NSW, the Department of Regional NSW and the Rural Fire Service.

Quotes attributable to Steve Kamper, Minister for Lands and Property Steve Kamper:

“The Buugang Wambal project is connecting and teaching young people about traditional Aboriginal culture while supporting the protection of endangered animal and plant species.”

“The program has brought young people to see Northern Corroboree Frogs in their high-country landscape and hear the Corroboree Frog story from their Elders, and with this traditional knowledge they have been keen to continue their age-old cultural custodianship of the frog and its habitat.”