Zoe Webber is a PhD student under the restoration theme of the ARC Training Centre for Healing Country. Her project centres on cultural burning practices on Noongar Country, and the socio-ecological impacts of these burns on the soil, flora, and vegetation composition. This project is focused specifically within the Perth metropolitan region.
Planning phase for the cultural burn with Stakeholders and Noongar Elders.
My research aims to develop practical methods that local governments and private landowners can use to implement cultural burning that revives Banksia Woodland and traditional practices absent since colonisation. A major milestone was successfully conducting what we believe was the first cultural burn at this site since colonisation – a profound achievement in bio-cultural restoration.
The research wove together Western scientific knowledge – botanical monitoring, fire ecology, soil science and bird surveys – with Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Spiritual Knowledge of fire and burning. My methods included Yarning with Community, site walks, personal reflections, quadrat and transect vegetation surveys, seedling recruitment plots, soil analysis, fire scar mapping and bird surveys using a before-and-after control impact study design.
Post-burn seedling recruitment plots.
I plan to develop a cultural burn implementation guideline for local governments and private landowners, and will be working with the Town of Victoria Park to implement my findings into local government policies. The research demonstrates pathways for ongoing community engagement through this Culturally Significant heritage site, promoting Indigenous Cultural practices and wider cross-cultural knowledge exchange.
For Western Australian society, this work provides a replicable model for urban cultural burning that bridges Indigenous knowledge systems with contemporary land management while fostering reconciliation.
This work was only possible through amazing partnerships. The Town of Victoria Park provided crucial local government support, while the Department of Fire and Emergency Services brought expertise through their cultural burning program. Most importantly, this project was co-led with Whadjuk and Menang Elders, particularly Roni and Simon Forrest, along with other Whadjuk Rangers and Traditional Owners deeply connected to Country. There were challenges– weather-dependent timing, insurance complexities, fire behaviour that shifted my monitoring plot locations, and adapting to the expectations and concerns of neighbouring urban residents and even people camping on my research transects! Success required incredible flexibility, strong partnerships, and learning to trust the process and let collaboration naturally unfold.
Flowering Firewood Banksia (Banksia menziesii) identified during flora survey.
