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Hillview Bushland, East Victoria Park, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Ryan Borrett
Latitude: -31.994505°
Longitude: +115.907459°
- Hillview is a remnant urban bushland in Boorloo (Perth), Western Australia. This place is culturally significant to Whadjuk Noongar First Nations people. The Hillview bushland is one of few remaining habitat pockets in the area, surrounded by roads and buildings. Many bird, mammal, and insect species can be heard calling in dawn and dusk choruses and throughout the day, over nearby traffic. Zoe Weber’s PhD project is using cultural burning with Whadjuk Noongar collaborators to improve the health of the site, with soundscape monitoring by Ryan Borrett and his PhD project.
- Hillview is a banksia woodland, a type of ecosystem that was once widespread but now survives only in smaller patches across the wider Boorloo region due to land clearing and development. Its vegetation and wildlife is highly biodiverse, including many endemic and endangered species such as Ngoorlark (Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo). Hillview is a significant place for Whadjuk Noongar people, and was part of a much larger woodland prior to European colonisation. Cultural burning is a fire management practice that has maintained the health of these ecosystems for thousands of years, where fire is part of normal ecological cycles. Zoe Weber’s PhD with the Australian Research Council Training Centre for Healing Country at Curtin University is exploring how the revitalisation of this fire management can lead to better outcomes for Country and people. She is working with local knowledge holders and other collaborators through experimental and qualitative approaches. Part of Ryan Borrett’s PhD, at Murdoch University and also through the ARC Centre for Healing Country, is exploring how this cultural burning may affect the soundscape as a way to monitor ecosystem change.