It’s Time to Clean Up the Mess

What if the knowledge we need most for the future is something we’ve spent centuries forgetting?

Meet Victor Steffensen, Tagalaka man, author, filmmaker, musician and co-founder of the Living Knowledge Network. For decades, Victor has worked with Indigenous communities in Australia and around the world to revive traditional ways of reading and caring for Country. His new book, The Knowledge, asks a much bigger question: what have we lost by separating ourselves from the natural world - and what might happen if we learned how to listen again?

From why the climate crisis may actually be an identity crisis to how Western science and Indigenous Knowledge Systems can work together and the deceptively simple idea that everything we create should help nature flourish - this is a conversation about Indigenous knowledge as you might never have heard it before. Not as something that belongs to a select few, but as the wisdom that underpins us all.

In this episode:

Why Victor believes we’re all Indigenous to the planetWhy he thinks the climate crisis is, at its heart, an identity crisisWhat happens when a landscape loses its identity and how you bring it backHow ancient knowledge and modern science can strengthen each otherThe possibilities of reviving cultural memory and practiceAnd why, instead of arguing about who created the mess we're in, it’s time to get on with cleaning it upTimestamps:

00:50 Introduction to Victor Steffensen

05:21 Why Indigenous Knowledge is for everyone

09:17 The moment that sparked 'The Knowledge' for Victor

13:00 Indigenous Knowledge v Western Science

17:32 What Victor has learned from apply the Knowledge in different countries

20:06 Midpoint Reflections

22:40 The Knowledge Triangle