Photo credit: Daily Mail
Restoring Indigenous cultural burning could help break a “catastrophic fire loop” plaguing Australia’s southeast forests, a new study has found.
Researchers reconstructed the past millennium of vegetation, fire and erosion in Victoria’s Croajingolong National Park in East Gippsland, one of the country’s most fire-prone forests.
The study, published on Thursday by the University of Melbourne, found that long-term environmental shifts should not be blamed on climate change alone, with the crisis linked to colonial land use.
“Climate records show that seasons of comparably dangerous fire weather, such as those seen during Ash Wednesday and Black Saturday, occurred in the region repeatedly before colonization, yet the open landscape maintained by cultural burning protected the land from catastrophic fire,” lead author Professor Michael-Shawn Fletcher said.
“When colonization ended that care, the forest expanded and thickened across the region, loading the landscape with fuel. It is that transformation that has handed control of fire to climate.”
The study was sparked by the 2019-20 Black Summer fires, which burned through more than 1.5 million hectares and claimed the lives of five people in Victoria.
Researchers worked with seven Aboriginal communities, focusing on wetlands, lakes and forests.
A conceptual model labelled a “catastrophic fire loop” was also developed and found to be affecting many parts of southeast Australia.
The paper also suggested that restoring cultural burning practices and supporting Traditional Owners to care for the country are essential to mitigating fire risk.
