Our approach
Firesticks is an Indigenous-led, not-for-profit enterprise and registered charity. We support a growing national network of Indigenous communities and practitioners by promoting the revitalisation and use of traditional knowledge systems and practices, particularly Cultural Fire, to improve Country and community health and wellbeing.
For the last 10 years, Firesticks has partnered with more than 35 communities, in Australia and abroad, empowering them to restore the cultural health and identity of their Country.
Through these collaborations, we demonstrate the tangible power of Indigenous knowledge and practices to heal and strengthen landscapes, bolster community wellbeing, and address critical environmental, biodiversity, and climate issues.
Our work is guided by Indigenous leadership at every level — from local knowledge holders to our majority-Indigenous Board and cultural governance structures.
We don’t deliver programs to communities, we work with them: building trust, supporting self-determined pathways, and respecting that meaningful change takes time.
We have a strong vision for the future
Our purpose is simple: to strengthen a national network that restores Country through Cultural Knowledge Systems, now and for generations ahead.
Join us“I want to build a worldwide network of practitioners to apply pressure on Western science and assert our right as custodians to manage the land with the thousands of years of knowledge we hold.”
Matthew Whitelock
Bundjalung Man and Cultural Fire Practitioner
We are guided by four key focus areas:
Country and Indigenous Knowledge Systems
Self-Determined Communities
Leading Change
Growing Sustainably
We pay our respect to the Kuku Thaypan Elders who passed their cultural and ecological knowledge onto Victor Steffensen, Co-founder of Firesticks, setting him on his life’s journey to revive and practice Cultural Fire.
“The knowledge is in the landscape. The Elders have not passed. The land is an Elder too.”
Victor Steffensen
Tagalaka man and Co-founder of Firesticks