Last month Sweltering Cities convened a one-day First Nations Heat and Storytelling Workshop. The gathering in Sydney brought together First Nations communicators, creatives, organisers and health advocates. It was an unhurried space for conversation, storytelling and reflection, a space designed not to extract or perform, but to listen.
Too often, First Nations voices are invited into climate or health conversations that already have the frame decided (medical, technical or deficit-based). This gathering flipped that approach.
Participants were able to tell what heat feels like, physically, emotionally and culturally, and how these experiences are shaped by colonisation, housing and access to space. One participant, an Aboriginal nurse, spoke about the exhaustion of working in healthcare systems that treat heat as a pathology rather than a community issue. Another, a Queer regional artist, described how creative practice offers space to process the emotional toll of living through climate change on Country. Together, their reflections reminded us that resilience isn’t only about surviving high temperatures but about maintaining culture, care and connection in a warming world.
We began by reflecting on how conversations about heat usually take shape. We asked: how is heat usually talked about? Participants noted that mainstream narratives frame it as a “silent disaster,” or a biomedical issue, missing the cultural and political layers that define how First Nations communities experience it. They began identifying the strengths and adaptations already present in their families and communities, from shading techniques and water care to collective coping practices rooted in knowledge of Country. As the conversation deepened, the focus turned to the landscapes themselves, how shifts in the natural environment are eroding access to long-held places of refuge and connection.
Across different parts of the continent, participants described the slow disappearance of cooling spaces: rivers once safe for swimming now turned unsafe by bacteria and rising temperatures, edible and medicinal plants struggling to survive, and the quiet grief that follows when these changes take with them stories, practices, and the sense of belonging tied to place. Participants spoke of how antiracist practice and sovereignty-centred care directly shape climate outcomes for everyone.
They named the ongoing displacement of local knowledge systems: cultural fire management replaced by extractive approaches that too often worsen the very dangers they claim to prevent. First Peoples are brought in to lead response and recovery, but rarely invited to design the systems that could have prevented harm in the first place. The workshop confirmed that extreme heat cannot be separated from the health of Country.
Participants spoke of sacred places under threat, the grief of cultural loss through land degradation, and the spiritual exhaustion of watching Country change. Climate resilience, for First Nations people, is inseparable from cultural survival, it’s about caring for Country so that Country can care for mob.
The gathering strengthened trust between Sweltering Cities and First Nations storytellers, communicators, and advocates. It reminded us that the most powerful climate leadership often begins in rooms like this, small, grounded, generous, and deeply connected to stories of Country.
We would like to thank the Climate Action Network Australia (CANA) who supported this work through their Small Grants Program.
