The Earth?s distress is evident. To care for her, Australians need to adopt First Nations values | Jack Pascoe

The state of environment report is grim reading. Nightmare stuff for those of us who care. But surprising? Not at allI?m very grateful for the handful of days I spent with a senior Yuin lore man. He taught many of us to live by three virtues: patience, tolerance and respect. Simple to say, but difficult to master and rare to see embodied. The lessons of patience and tolerance came hard to me, for I?m neither by nature. But I?m getting better, Unk, I promise, at least on good days when no one argues with me too much.A few months before he passed into his Dreaming, I called him. I was worked up about the way fire was being used for hazard reduction burning. The fires I was seeing were hot, exposing the Earth, making her vulnerable to erosion during rains, scorching old trees and causing a germination flush of shrubs and young trees which, ironically, would rapidly replace the forest?s fuel loads. Continue reading...