VICTOR STEFFENSEN LISTENS TO THE LAND
SUBJECT
Victor Steffensen
OCCUPATION
Filmmaker & facilitator
INTERVIEWER
Nathan Scolaro
PHOTOGRAPHER
Ben Lister
LOCATION
Cairns, Australia
DATE
June 2018
ANTIDOTE TO
Destructive cycles
UNEXPECTED
Dreamed of being an actor
Victor Steffensen knows the land that he spent his formative years on like it’s a family member. He can tell when it’s sick, what it needs in order to heal, how healthy the relationships are between the species that occupy it. And he knows the stories that his ancestors have imbued in it for thousands of years. As a teenager struggling with a Western education system, Victor set out to get to know the land and relationships of his grandmother’s family: the Tagalaka people of Northern Queensland. On a chance fishing trip, he came to befriend two elder brothers who would teach him everything they knew about the land and how to look after it.
“You can have fire trucks and boots and all the things in the world that protect you from fire, but nothing can protect you more than knowledge.”
That knowledge had a huge impact on Victor—he saw how valuable it was for living a connected life. But he was somewhat of an anomaly among his generation. He realised that he needed to record the wisdom of the elders before it was lost, so he started filming them on country talking about the different plant and animal life, and storing it in digital archives. The project, now known as Mulong, has been mirrored in indigenous communities across the world.
Today, Victor travels around Australia teaching indigenous and non-indigenous people to listen to the land the way he was taught—focusing on fire management for regenerating country. With destructive wildfires becoming increasingly common around Australia and the world, Victor says traditional fire practice will bring balance to our ecosystems and better prepare the land and communities for climate change. I’m reminded that we need to get proximate to the land and pay attention to it to give it its best chance at survival. We need to be learning about our environment “in its classroom,” as Victor says, immersing ourselves in the brilliant network of life in order to see our place and responsibility in it more clearly.
NATHAN SCOLARO : So whereabouts are you—are you in Cairns proper? Or out of town?
VICTOR STEFFENSEN: Oh I’m just on the outskirts. Up in the valley at the moment. But I’m living close to Cairns because I’ve got to be close to an airport. I have to fly out quite often for the workshops. That’s the only reason why we’re here. If I had my way I’d be back in the sticks living away from people. My preference is living in the bush.
Say more about that.
Well I grew up loving the bush, and I always will be a part of the landscape and country. Once the demand for the work I’m doing has quieted down, I’m looking forward to getting into the country more and in that peace of just living with landscape. That’s the dream. It always was my dream.
[Laughs]. You got pulled in a few different directions!
Well when I left school and I ended up with the old people out on country, I thought that was my life forever. I was going to stay in the bush ’cause I was really happy. There was no bills, nothing to worry about.
