Back to the Bush Indigenous Corporation

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Blue Mountains National Park, NSW
Back to the Bush Indigenous Corporation

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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. Established 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.

14/10/2026

A great day out surveying Country along the Wollondilly River with Gundungurra Elder, Aunty Kazan.

Always thankful to the team at K2 River Island Nature Retreat for their hospitality and flexibility in supporting practical care for the rich biodiversity within their boundaries.

Managed private properties like K2 are shining examples of what committed stewardship can achieve, and what our national parks should strive towards.

Country cannot be shackled by laws and rigid conservation frameworks. Its needs must guide how we care for it, drawing on interdisciplinary skills, knowledge and holistic management principles while respecting the rights of landholders and the apical traditional owners of the area.

10/09/2026

Protect koalas. Absolutely.
But “koala” cannot become a blank cheque for the environmental industrial complex and environmental intervention without demonstrated net environmental benefit.

$12 million spent on a koala underpass. Five months later, zero koalas recorded using it.

This is not an isolated question about evidence.

A 12-month study of wildlife crossings on Queensland’s Toowoomba Bypass detected only one koala, while a staggering 75% of animals recorded using the structures were feral and invasive species.

Yet the NSW Government has committed another $26 million of taxpayer money to koala-friendly crossings, we expect the price to inflate beyond that with how everything else is above budget.

Then remember the failed NPWS reintroduction program. The Government’s own review identified cumulative stress from capture, captivity, transport and release as contributing to the risks and resulting in the death of over half of the koalas in captivity.

A completed project is not an environmental outcome. A media release is not an ecological return on investment.

Stop playing God. Stop gaslighting taxpayers. Show us the outcomes.

11/08/2026

We are grateful to the generational farmers who sustainably and actively manage Country. In the Snowy Mountains - Ngarigo Country, many farmers have maintained biospheres since 1788. Many of their properties resemble environments and biodiversity seen only before 1788 and harbour significant Aboriginal sites and artefacts that were lost in the national park.

In the adjoining Kosciusko national park, the Wilderness Act has contradicted itself. After over 30 years of “declared wilderness” the landscape is sick Country - riddled with millions of dead trees, pests, disease and a few hundred thousand hectares undergoing irreversible ecological decline. The land is void of endemic biodiveristy and its true custodians and rangers.

We don’t trust the legislation that shackles Ngarigo Country. We trust the methods of a growing number of private conservationists and generational land stewards with managing Ngarigo Country on their respective properties. We are proud to work with them to continue managing country on their properties.

07/08/2026

Regional Force Surveillance Units working together with Australian Border Force and the ADF for the defence and surveillance of the northern border. Director Alex Wymarra and Aunty Wymarra attended an event visited by the Defence Minister today at the 51 Far North Queensland Regiment on Thursday Island.

14/07/2026

Director Alex Wymarra met with the team from 4WD 24/7 on his country Gudang Yadhaykenu - Cape York. Alex and the team spent the day visiting some of Alex’s hidden gems.

Truly God’s Country at the Cape. Thank you for reaching out and respecting our Country team 🙌🏿

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.

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.

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.

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.

Address

Blue Mountains National Park, NSW

Website

http://www.backtothebush.org.au/

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