Latest Media news from Bushcraft Survival Australia

Survival skills: The Australians turning to bushcraft in wake of Covid-19 pandemic

05/06/2020

Gordon Dedman, the senior instructor for Bushcraft Survival Australia, says interest in survival courses has peaked following the pandemic.

“If it’s one thing this pandemic has highlighted, is our disconnection to the environment across the world,” he told Reuters. “Our over-dependence on the way we use modern technology and the lack of community and people looking after people and, our main focus has been on economy, rather than community.”

On a three-day intermediate course led by Dedman near Ku-ring-gai National Park, Ingleside, north of Sydney, participants learn not only how to provide heat and shelter, but also solar and celestial navigation, signalling for help, and knot tying.

“That’s why I think this course is pretty popular now with people. So just to connect with nature and learn different skills and be a bit more prepared, I think,” said participant Victor Mossely.

“I was a bit of a prepper anyway, in the first place, so, collecting things. So when this happened (pandemic), I said ‘Oh, finally.’ Oh, not finally something’s happened, but you know, you talk to people at work and they go, ‘oh yeah, yeah, you know, you prepping this, prepping this, nothing’s going to happen,’ and then so, yeah, a little bit happened, so yeah.”

Australia has been less heavily impacted by the coronavirus than many other countries with 7,240 recorded cases and 102 deaths but like most other nations introduced strict lockdown measures and saw panic-buying of essentials, such as toilet paper, at the start of the pandemic.

After lockdown, Australians seek to learn survival skills in the bush

Check out this article about the recent Sydney 3 Day Basic Bushcraft Survival Course we ran. Thanks to Jill and Reuters. Click on the image below.

Here is an article about Primitive Technology’s John Plant I was interviewed about last year. For those that have not seen Primitive Technology, it is an amazing channel with skills that go way beyond bushcraft and into subsistence living.

It was great to catchup with @paulkirtley in Melbourne in January 2020 and do a recording for his podcast “The Paul Kirtley Podcast”. 📷 by Paul Kirtley.

How long can you survive in Australia’s Outback? 5th December 2019

Safety in the Outback interview after three people were recently lost in the outback.
3rd December 2019

Listen to this podcast about getting kids out of gadgets and into bush skills below

Gordon was on The Living Room with Chris Brown on Ch10 31 August 2018.
Click on image to download Factsheet.

See Gordon Dedman teaching Chris Brown from The Living Room how to survive a night in the bush.