A teacher of traditional Aboriginal law in the Hunter Region says if more people understood Indigenous culture, there would be less racism and discrimination.
Shawn Stowe, of Salt Ash, has been teaching Aboriginal culture for more than 30 years.
Mr Stowe, of the Worimi people, teaches Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people about the ancient rock art and artefacts in the Yengo National Park.
He works with other Aboriginal people, who also know the old ways.
"We don't care if you're black, white or brindle. If you want to learn our culture, we will happily show it to you.
"We don't mind showing anybody, providing they want to learn this stuff properly.
"How are they going to understand our culture, if we don't show them? We'll never close the gap if we don't start coming together like this."
Even many Aboriginal people don't know the culture, he said, "so we want to teach them as well".
"A lot of Aboriginal people think they know a lot of culture, but haven't spent the time to know the traditional old ways that made us who we are."
He said a lot of Aboriginal people "find whitefellas to be racist".
"I've encountered a lot of racist people, but I've encountered a lot of people who had no knowledge about our people," he said.
If more non-Aboriginal people "understand where we come from, we won't have as many people discriminating against us".
"That will be a powerful thing for Aboriginal people."
He and his people have uncovered many Aboriginal art sites in the national park.
"I've walked that country for years," Mr Stowe said.
Last year's bushfires revealed more sites.
He said the desire to protect and conserve sacred Aboriginal sites was not about money.
"We just want to protect our sites, which are thousands of years old," he said.
"There's no amount of money that can give us what we've got out there in the bush to teach our young fellas."
Some people find sacred sites in the bush, expose them and "the sites end up getting damaged and destroyed".
Unthinking people sometimes carve their names beside artworks, desecrating them. Other incidents involve people inadvertently damaging relics through lack of care and awareness.
"That's why we like to expose the sites only to people who really want to learn and respect the area."
Mr Stowe said his people know hundreds of Aboriginal sites in the national park, which they often use to teach people - including children - about the culture.
"There'd be at least 800 of those sites that no one would know about, except for those who handed down the knowledge from the old days," he said.
"I've got all that knowledge. I learnt that stuff as a young kid."
A big motivation for Mr Stowe's teaching is that "our elders weren't allowed to teach Aboriginal culture before I was born".
"My uncles told me they weren't allowed to teach culture and speak their language.
"Our elders knew the ceremonies, dances and songs, but they weren't allowed to perform them."
In Mr Stowe's youth in the 1970s and 1980s, his uncles were teaching the culture but only on a small scale.
During the 1990s, he became more involved with Aboriginal ceremonies and traditional law.
This culture is honoured with the name "sacred and secret men's business".
Nonetheless, Aboriginal women are now more involved in learning about the culture.
"I've been taking our women out and showing them some Aboriginal art and they've been really embracing it," Mr Stowe said.
"We have more than 30 women going out on a regular basis every fortnight. They know where these sites are now. They want to learn."
Mr Stowe grew up on an Aboriginal mission at Karuah.
"Back in the 1800s to early 1900s, they herded Aboriginal people on reserves, fencing them in," he said.
"Karuah mission was one of those areas."
These reserves were used by governments of the day to separate Aboriginal people from white people.
"The Aboriginal people weren't allowed to leave the mission unless they had a piece of paper around their neck that gave them the right to leave the reserve and work," Mr Stowe said.
"That finished before I was born."
Mr Stowe said he enjoyed growing up on the mission.
"I had all my family - aunties, uncles and cousins. We were very poor," he said.
"Only the men could work. They built the oyster industry in Port Stephens. If it wasn't for the local Aboriginal people, there wouldn't be oyster farms in Port Stephens."
Giant Kangaroo
One of the most interesting pieces of art in Yengo is an engraving of a procoptodon on a rock.
"They were giant kangaroos with heads as large as a cow," he said.
The Aboriginal people who did the engraving in that time would have "killed it, laid it down and traced around it".
The procoptodon lived in the Pleistocene epoch. It was thought to grow about two metres [6.6 feet] tall. It weighed more than 200 kilograms and was mainly known for living in NSW and South Australia.
The species existed at least 45,000 years ago before going extinct. Some research suggests it survived up until 18,000 years ago. Its extinction may have been due to climate shifts or human hunting.
