Budj Bim Cultural Landscape

Budj Bim Cultural Landscape

• The Budj Bim Cultural Landscape features one of the world's oldest and most extensive aquaculture systems, crafted by the Gunditjmara people approximately 6,600 years ago.
• European colonization in the 1840s disrupted the Gunditjmara people, impacting their traditional practices and land management.
• The Budj Bim site was included on the National Heritage List of Australia in 2004.
• In 2019, Budj Bim was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, acknowledging the cultural importance of its aquaculture systems and the long history of indigenous engineering.
• The Budj Bim landscape was initially formed by volcanic eruptions around 27,000 years ago
• The volcano erupted at least 10 times, with the most recent eruption approximately 7,000 years ago.
• Budj Bim's lava flows created lakes, ponds, and swamps and formed Tae Rak (Lake Condah) and Condah Swamp.
• It is located in the traditional Gunditjmara Aboriginal country
• The Gunditjmara people built a stone system of channels, weirs, and traps, utilizing their knowledge of seasonal water level changes to trap food for thousands of years.
• Long, funnel-shaped woven baskets in weirs were used to trap eels, turtles, and fish
• Eels were a valuable food source and trade item
• Circular stone-walled houses remain throughout the landscape

Colonisation impact

• Around 1810, European colonists began affecting the Gunditjmara people
• The 1840s saw conflict and violence between European settlers and the Gunditjmara
• During the 1850s, Aboriginal people were moved into church-run missions
• The Gunditjmara people refused to settle at the Framlingham Mission, and instead wanted to stay in Tae Rak (Lake Condah)
• The Lake Condah Mission was opened in 1867, near the Gunditjmara's traditional lands
• The Aborigines Protection Act 1886 (Vic) caused the population to drop after stating that Aboriginal people of mixed descent could no longer live at the mission
• Although the mission closed in 1918, the Gunditjmara people remained there until 1939
• In 1987, the mission lands were returned to the Gunditjmara

Gunditjmara aquaculture

• The Budj Bim Cultural Landscape is located in the traditional territory of the Gunditjmara people in south-eastern Australia
• It is made up of three serial components containing some of the world's largest and oldest aquaculture systems
• The landscapes lava flows provide a system of channels, weirs, and dams used by the Gunditjmara
• These systems store and harvest kooyang (short-finned eel – Anguilla australis)
• The aquacultures were an important for the Gunditjmara for six millennia
• The Gunditjmara narrate the landscape as a deep time story that has existed for at least 32,000 years
• The Gunditjmara harnessed the wetlands for aquaculture by creating, modifying, and maintaining a hydrological engineering system
• Stone-walled kooyang (eel) husbandry (or aquaculture) facilities. are recognisable in this area

Other Facts

• According to Gunditjmara tradition, ancestors witnessed the eruption of the Budj Bim volcano 30,000 years ago, and the Ancestral Being, Budj Bim (Big Head), became part of the landscape.
• Modified channels diverted water and kooyang (short-finned eel) into holding ponds
• Kooyang were harvested with woven baskets set in weirs built from volcanic rocks and wood lattice structures.
• The freshwater ponds and wetlands provide ideal conditions for eels and eels migrate to the mouth of the river before going out to sea to spawn near Vanuatu
• The Budj Bim cultural landscape was accepted onto the UNESCO World Heritage List in July 2019.
• It is located about 80 kilometres from Port Fairy.
• UNESCO accepted the site for both its natural and cultural significance.
• The seasonal presence of whalers and sealers impacted the Gunditjmara people starting around 1810
• The Gunditjmara people were in conflict with settlers in the 1840s during the Eumeralla Wars
• By 1846, the Gunditjmara resistance had been suppressed
• The Gunditjmara were traditionally fine hunters and fierce warriors and used spears for war and hunting
• They used wattles extensively and used the gum as glue to construct hunting implements and weapons
• They used flaked stone tools for shaping objects made of wood, bark and bone, used as spear tips in hunting weapons, as knives to butcher game, used to scrape and prepare animal skins for cloaks, containers and decorative items.
• They ground basket grass seeds for damper and uses its leaves for weaving and making baskets
• The Gunditjmara caugh blackfish and let them grow to larger size in specific ponds
• Tupong fish were an important source of protein that the Gunditjmara people caught in fish trap systems near Lake Condah.