Back to the Bush Indigenous Corporation

Back to the Bush Indigenous Corporation An Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Corporation (ICN 10152) & registered environmental charity. Governed by a board representing multiple clans.

Official social media channels are subject to the notices & disclaimers available at backtothebush.org.au. Based in Lithgow NSW, Back to the Bush Indigenous Corporation is an indigenous-led and backed registered environmental charity that actively focuses on Australia's diverse environments, including advancing conservation, heritage and bush culture across all land and community frameworks. Estab

lished in 2010, Back to the Bush's community philanthropy extends to a wide-ranging social enterprise strategy. That includes volunteering time and deploying physical resources in imperiled communities and environments. Additionally, the charity engages in grassroots community initiatives and First Nations interests in partnership with the Treaty Council Worldwide and the Sacred Sites Preservation Project, as well as myriad land management practices and frontline responses to natural disaster arrangements. It focuses on promoting: grass-roots issues outside of the metropolitan bubble [including every aspect of Australia's bush culture and heritage]; the spirit of volunteering and community philanthropy; assisting grassroots indigenous mobs on Country; advancing Australia's diverse environments; and actively assisting communities impacted by natural disasters and natural disaster arrangements. Back to the Bush Australia also fosters every aspect of my commitment to preserve our natural heritage and to educate Australians on the importance of cultural and sustainable agriculture and land management. Additionally, Back to the Bush Australia’s mission is to bridge the gap between rural and regional communities, the government and the citizens of metropolitan Australia. Earth’s most ecologically unique and diverse environments are found on the continent of Australia. For this reason, it is imperative that every Australian profoundly upholds the core principles of conservation. Conservation:
Every Australian must become a custodian to the principles of conservation. Our commitment is to fight for, and defend Australia's environment and the extraordinary life-forces that exist within our living biospheres for future generations. "Conservation must be mutual, balanced and emanate from the soul of every Australian. It must be backed by sensible science and observed, tried, and tested practices that are politically and ideologically neutral." Australia has recently become an urbanised nation. Little dare to venture far from their comfort zones in the city. Our demanding lives and technology are distractions of reality and distance us from developing a genuine connection for the Aussie bush. Mission:
Understanding and appreciating: the core principles of sensible environmental conservation and protection; community values and volunteering; the farm-to-plate story you don't see in supermarkets; and the challenges, successes and the beauty of everyday life in the Aussie bush.

'Back to the Bush' calls for an exodus of the young and old from the smoky urban sprawls; to see what lies over the hills and beyond. There is no better time or excuse to come ‘Back to the Bush’ and see, appreciate, preserve and protect the Australian environment and way of life. Back to the Bush Australia advocates for free and regulated access to all our public lands. This includes managed access for responsible and accredited recreational 4WD touring and camping activities through a lock and key system in environmentally sensitive national parks. Finally, we advocate for unrestrictive Aboriginal and agricultural land management practices which are sustainable through their inherent symbiotic relationships with the environment. Back to the Bush Australia unequivocally disapproves of extreme 4WD activities, maliciousness and misuse of fire trails in all public reserves, forests and national parks and private properties. This includes malicious damage to gates, other public assets and environmental destruction.

With the culling of horses recommencing, we reshare our letter to the Environment Minister from 2023 RE: Horse Cull in K...
16/06/2026

With the culling of horses recommencing, we reshare our letter to the Environment Minister from 2023 RE: Horse Cull in Kosciusko National Park in 2023.

This week, The Daily Telegraph reported that whistleblowers have exposed the culls as “inhumane and horrific.”

We share the same concerns expressed by the Animal Justice Party NSW RE: the culling program.

Penny Sharpe MLC must also consider the lived testaments, holistic management and experience of local and adjoining land holders to the national park estates. Land holders who are on the front line.

Equally, the Minister and bureaucrats must respect the wishes of the local grassroots Aboriginal voices, Ngarigo Nation, when it comes to the management activity and policy in the park.

28/04/2026

“We don’t burn off enough.”
Uncle John explaining the situation across Ngarigo Country, in the NSW Snowy-Monaro region.
Over one million hectares of Ngarigo Country is experiencing ecological decline much of it ‘protected’ as ‘wilderness.’
To lean more about the greatest threat to our environment. Check our socials and subscribe for Environmental Truth Telling.

Lest We Forget ✝️“ANZAC forces witnessed the genocide of the Indigenous Armenian, Greek and Assyrian Christians of the T...
25/04/2026

Lest We Forget ✝️

“ANZAC forces witnessed the genocide of the Indigenous Armenian, Greek and Assyrian Christians of the Turkish-Ottoman Empire. Australians are unaware that they contributed profoundly to humanitarianism. They saved the lives of my kin and built orphanages to shelter sole survivors of entire families. As a migrant and a descendent of persecuted survivors, I could not be more proud to call Australia my home.”

A Arakelian (Bushy)
Director
Back to the Bush Indigenous Corporation

22/04/2026

Environmental Truth Telling with an elder.
A yarn with Uncle John Casey, Ngarigo Elder.
We spoke about the health of Country and how it’s transformed from the cool temperate rainforests on the western fall to the sickly country of the inherited national park. Uncle John highlights the change in fire structure and fuel loads, the profound effects of environmental change and the loss of the big old ‘magnets’ unravelling the hydrological cycle and the shifts in the micro climate affecting fire regimes, snowfall and ground temperatures.

How we define fire regimes & management Endemic management prescriptions1. Natural fire regimes Lightning and geography-...
22/04/2026

How we define fire regimes & management

Endemic management prescriptions

1. Natural fire regimes
Lightning and geography-driven fire patterns of endemic Country.

2. Harmonious (cool) fire regimes
Low-intensity fire and active stewardship working with Country.

Includes Aboriginal management, natural fire behaviour, and practical stewardship by private landholders, regenerative graziers and sustainable foresters.

We mostly lump Natural and Harmonious Fire regimes together and refer to them as ‘Endemic Fire Regimes.’

Passive management prescriptions

3. Fire-debt regimes
Passive or restricted management that lets altered structure, thickening and instability build.

4. Destructive fire regimes
Hot, unstable and catastrophic fire moving through changed environments. These fires can completely and permanently destroy the environment and rapidly trigger a completely foreign structure of environmental change.

The cycle of environmental change.This country was first adulterated from the late 1800s, regrew as an altered floristic...
21/04/2026

The cycle of environmental change.

This country was first adulterated from the late 1800s, regrew as an altered floristic community into the mid-1900s before annexation into conservation. After active management was suppressed by rigid legislative frameworks, fire debt in this vast altered landscape resulted in catastrophic fires in 2003. It regenerated, but it did not recover. What came back was a younger, altered and less stable structure. The integrity of the environment had already been compromised.

So when it burnt again in 2020, it did not burn through healthy endemic Country. It burnt through a changed biosphere. That is why successive destructive fire regimes cause deeper damage. Each severe fire strips more structure, weakens habitat, reduces resilience, and leaves the next generation of trees and wildlife in a poorer position than before.

This is what too many people still fail to understand. Regeneration is not recovery. A landscape can turn green again while still going backwards. A young regrowth forest can look alive from a distance, yet be structurally weaker, more fuel-connected, more prone to hotter fire, and further removed from its endemic form.

That is the ecological disaster plaguing Country across public reserves. Not just one fire. Not just one drought. Not just one macro force. A cycle of environmental change where fire, passive management, altered structure, and debt keep compounding each other until dead stands, dieback and collapsing habitat become normalised.

The old myth says lock it up and leave it alone. The truth is different. ‘s biota was shaped over tens of thousands of years by natural & Aboriginal fire regimes, the loss of that management increased the frequency and area burnt by high-intensity bushfire while compromising ecosystem health.

“The ideology of Wilderness destroys Country in Australia.”
Professor Michael-Shawn Fletcher

Protected on paper does not mean healthy on the ground.

Country will not heal through slogans, metrics or passive preservation. It needs active stewardship, the right fire, the right structure, and the courage to admit that what is happening in our national parks is not recovery.

Environmental change is not recovery. It is a cycle of decline dressed up as protection.

Restoring cool fire regimes in VIC Parks. Credit to Parks Victoria and VIC Department of Energy, Environment and Climate...
21/04/2026

Restoring cool fire regimes in VIC Parks.
Credit to Parks Victoria and VIC Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action and Robert Onfray Writer for the piece.

A spectacle of the fire ground.This dead stand is called a ‘candle’ and it can burn for days or weeks, spewing embers in...
20/04/2026

A spectacle of the fire ground.
This dead stand is called a ‘candle’ and it can burn for days or weeks, spewing embers into the air which can be carried by the wind, igniting fires beyond the burn area. Fire helps shape hollows in dead and live stands of maturing trees.

This candle was well within the burn area. As a precaution, we still monitored it, then after naturally felling, managed with water. It has now produced dozens more new hollows for ground dwelling vertebrae.

Address

Blue Mountains National Park, NSW

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