1.4 Aboriginal fire management
For thousands of years, Aboriginal people have managed the Australian landscape using fire. Cultural burning, cool burning or ‘firestick farming’ involves lighting small fires during cooler periods to clear the underbrush and regenerate the landscape.
Cultural burning is a vital practice for Aboriginal people that promotes many ecological and spiritual values on CountryFor Aboriginal people, the term Country encompasses all living things and all aspects of the environment, as well as the knowledge, cultural practices and responsibilities connected with this. The term contains complex ideas about law, place, custom, language, spiritual belief, material sustenance, family and identity.. Its benefits include:
- reducing the likelihood of severe bushfires during hotter times of the year,
- improving biodiversityThe variety of all life and living processes in the environment. and ecosystemA biological community of interacting living and non-living things. health by creating patchy habitats for small animals and encouraging grass and herbs to grow,
- keeping CountryFor Aboriginal people, the term Country encompasses all living things and all aspects of the environment, as well as the knowledge, cultural practices and responsibilities connected with this. The term contains complex ideas about law, place, custom, language, spiritual belief, material sustenance, family and identity. more open and easy to travel through, and
- protecting the ‘spirit’ of CountryFor Aboriginal people, the term Country encompasses all living things and all aspects of the environment, as well as the knowledge, cultural practices and responsibilities connected with this. The term contains complex ideas about law, place, custom, language, spiritual belief, material sustenance, family and identity. and promoting community health and wellbeing.
Aboriginal communities have different fire-starting and burning methods depending on the landscape, season and type of vegetation present. The knowledge required to effectively manage burning is based on thousands of years of observations, reflections, and planning. Stories, SonglinesSonglines can be visualised as corridors or pathways of knowledge that crisscross the land, sky and water. They provide navigational routes through Country, connecting significant stories and sites for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Songlines trace the journey of Ancestral Spirits and how things came to be. and cultural activities transfer this knowledge between generations, and are a vital part of how cultural burns are managed.
When Europeans arrived in Australia, they ignored Aboriginal ways of managing the environment. Colonisation has had profound impacts on Aboriginal people’s ability to maintain traditional fire practices, and this continues today.
However, cultural burning is increasingly being incorporated into fire management in southern Australia. Since 2015, the ACT Government has worked with Aboriginal people to reintroduce traditional land management through cultural burning.
In recent years, Ngunnawal man Adrian Brown has led a series of cultural burns at Birrigai with members of the Ngunnawal community. These events help to pass on knowledge to younger generations and strengthen Ngunnawal people’s intrinsic connection to place – healing community by healing CountryFor Aboriginal people, the term Country encompasses all living things and all aspects of the environment, as well as the knowledge, cultural practices and responsibilities connected with this. The term contains complex ideas about law, place, custom, language, spiritual belief, material sustenance, family and identity.. It is important to keep the practice of cultural burning alive to ensure ancient knowledge is preserved and CountryFor Aboriginal people, the term Country encompasses all living things and all aspects of the environment, as well as the knowledge, cultural practices and responsibilities connected with this. The term contains complex ideas about law, place, custom, language, spiritual belief, material sustenance, family and identity. is kept healthy for generations to come.
Managing small fires in the cooler months is far better for the environment than uncontrolled severe fires during summer. We can learn a lot from Aboriginal methods of fire management.