The Wakka Wakka, Jarowair and Barrumgum tribes are the traditional owners for the bunya mountains and have inhabited and managed the mountains through traditional land-use management for thousands of years which included the cultural significant 'Bunya Feasts' which would see thousands of people from surrounding tribes from Queensland and New South Wales come to the bunya mountains for these gatherings. The Bunya grasslands are unique relics of a much cooler climate and have existed since the last ice age and have persisted due to regular burning by Indigenous people over many thousands of years known as 'fire farming'. Recent core samples confirmed that Indigenous fire management was occurring on the Bunya Mountains as far back as 9,000 years ago during the Holocene era. Evidence suggests fire farming created the largest estate management in the world of the vast state and territories of Australia, performed in ceremonies, for land control, food control and farming, and produce (native yams) harvesting by Aboriginal people for thousands of years. Fire management has enabled the grasslands to maintain their treeless characteristic, preventing rainforest and woodland species from becoming established. The balds are considered a cultural landscape and an enduring symbol of indigenous land management which still hold significance to Indigenous people today.