Indigenous Desert Alliance CEO, Samantha Murray, recently joined the Mongabay Newscast to discuss the IDA's recent nomination for an Earthshot Prize. The alliance is a network of 70 ranger teams across the Australian desert, covering 270 million hectares (667 million acres), an area almost as large as Argentina. This makes it the largest Indigenous-led conservation corridor on the planet.

Murray and her network of 885 rangers have helped restore biodiversity to 140 million hectares (346 million acres) of land over the past four years using the practice of cultural burning, a cultural and ecological management practice that has been present in Aboriginal culture for millennia. The IDA administers this through its "Right Way Desert Fire" program.

Murray discusses the various ways in which this cultural knowledge is shared among ranger teams and the IDA via the guidance of Traditional Owners, the Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islands individuals with ancestral, physical, or spiritual ties to the land. Traditional Owners may accompany rangers to what's known as Country — the Indigenous concept of a holistic, living entity encompassing the physical land, waters, skies, and all living things — and direct where and how to burn, in part because the knowledge is passed down through oral storytelling.

"We don't get handed down a manual or a handbook on how to do [the] right way of burning all that knowledge," Murray says. "And so we are very much [following] an oral history and showing practically what to do. So for that knowledge to get passed down, it requires spaces and times on Country to share."

They weave together technology and local wisdom in the form of "yarns," the conversations or collaborative dialogues where knowledge is shared, which Murray highlights in the story of Kiwirrkurra ranger Scott West, who guides burning exercises from a plane.

"Scotty would've started that yarn up on the ground, being guided really strongly by TOs and the old fellas who would've been doing that country burning," she says. "Scotty probably would've went ... for a walk with an elder or an uncle... pointing out places where to go, where to burn."

Cultural burning, as Murray explains, helps manage fuel loads and thus bushfires, and helps protect and restore biodiversity to certain areas and is "usually guided by elders or Traditional Owners who have very deep knowledge of that country that they're applying the fire to."

"They're very aware about those animals and special places that are amongst that landscape. So how that's applied is not done in a random process," she adds.

Murray describes it as "a natural regeneration process."

"It helps those plants renew themselves, come back again. The animals, they come back and eat those freshly grown sprouts and plants that pop up. It protects fire getting closer to those special places so that they don't get destroyed in really hot summertime wildfires."

Murray emphasizes the vast amount of land the ranger network conserves, saying it's conservation for all Australians.

"We're actually caring for such a big part of Australia, like a third of Australia, and we're caring for animals that really need our love and our care. And I think, instead of it being boxed into, 'Well, that's just Indigenous conservation. That's just over there,' or, 'That's just in the middle of Australia,' more of a different change of attitude to go, 'Well, there are some really committed professional people that are looking after animals and country,'" she says.

"Australians should be proud of rangers. They should be proud of people working on the ground."

Mike DiGirolamo is the host and producer for the Mongabay Newscast based in Sydney.

This article was first published by Mongabay.