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Fire Stick Farming
Fire Stick Farming
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Indigenous Fire Revolution - Nature Conservancy AustraliaAnalysis of the latest northern Australia fire scar data* by scientists from The Nature Conservancy demonstrates how Indigenous land managers across northern Australia are making significant progress in reversing the destructive spread of late dry season wildfires.
This contains data for use and analysis.
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Indigenous Fire Management 'Locks Up' CarbonScientists have revealed Indigenous fire management can "lock up" more carbon than other methods of native bushland management and the practice could prove very lucrative for landholders.
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An economic model of Aboriginal Fire Stick FarmingAborigines burned vegetation at regular intervals to ensure their food supply. This meant opening up dense vegetation to facilitate new growth, which directly provided plant foods and indirectly provided animal foods.
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Indigenous fire management started 11 000 years agoModern scientific techniques have provided unprecedented insights into how an Indigenous fire regime reduced risk and increased resources.
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March 16, 2024 "Ancient Australian Fire-Stick Farming: A Tradition of 11,000 Years"In the heart of Australia's northern ecosystems, an ancient practice has been shaping the landscape for over 11,000 years, and its significance cannot be overstated. Indigenous Australian fire-stick farming, deeply rooted in culture and history, has left an indelible mark on the country's ecology.
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Aboriginal Fire Stick FarmingFire, the result of a combustion reaction, is important in ecosystems as it promotes the recycling of nutrients. This process is well-known by Aboriginal people. They have been using fire for millennia to control the transfer of matter and energy through the ecosystem in a practice known as firestick farming.
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Australia - Fire Stick FarmingAustralian landscapes were managed with the firestick for thousands of years until the practice succumbed to colonisation by European settlers beginning in 1788.
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Firesticks Alliance Indigenous Corporation - Case StudyThe Firesticks Alliance Indigenous Corporation (Firesticks) is an Indigenous-led network that works with Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to re-invigorate the use of cultural burning, protecting Country and improving ecosystem health by applying traditional knowledge to land management practices.
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The “fire stick farming” hypothesis: Australian Aboriginal foraging strategies, biodiversity, and anthropogenic fire mosaicsAboriginal burning in Australia has long been assumed to be a “resource management” strategy, but no quantitative tests of this hypothesis have ever been conducted. We combine ethnographic observations of contemporary Aboriginal hunting and burning with satellite image analysis of anthropogenic and natural landscape structure to demonstrate the processes through which Aboriginal burning shapes arid-zone vegetational diversity.
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A Changing Climate: Indigenous Engagement with Climate Change – Impacts, Related Regulations and the Green EconomyThe very existence and endurance of Indigenous peoples for thousands of years on one of the driest continents on earth is a fitting starting point for this discussion on the challenges posed by climate change.
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Forging Preferred Landscapes: Burning Regimes, Carbon Sequestration and ‘Natural’ Fire in Cape York, Far North AustraliaFire management is a right and responsibility shared by all land managers in Cape York Peninsula, far north Australia, bringing together Aboriginal traditional owners, Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service rangers and settler-descended cattle graziers. The landscape of Northern Australia has been socialised by fire over millennia, resulting in a fire-adapted and fire-dependent landscape. While fire knowledge originated with Aboriginal traditional owners, decades of engagement in the multi-ethnic pastoral industry have resulted in contemporary burning practices that have been interculturally mediated. The Australian government’s carbon sequestration scheme has further transformed local burning practices, precipitating new forms of burning and new forms of critique.
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So, what’s so cool about “cool burning”?For tens of thousands of years, Indigenous Australians have actively managed the savanna using cool burning techniques. Their knowledge of the seasons and local conditions has enabled them to manage the land through the effective use of fire
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Traditional knowledge and modern science combine to reduce emissionsAustralia’s savanna fires release greenhouse gases, including methane and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. Low-intensity, early dry season fires release less greenhouse gases than those produced by high-intensity, late dry season fires. Planned early dry season fires also increase the carbon stored in dead organic matter, such as logs and branches, that would otherwise burn in the uncontrolled fires.
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Bringing Indigenous Fire Back to Northern AustraliaIndigenous fire management benefits biodiversity and reduces climate emissions.
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Traditional Fire ManagementTraditional fire management has been used for over a thousand generations to domesticate plants and promote their growth, influence animal movement across Country, and prevent uncontrolled wildfires. Due to colonisation and the removal of First Nations people from traditional lands, these practices have decreased over time. Now we face unprecedented wildfires that destroy important ecosystems, threaten lives and devastate communities across Australia.
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New study confirms Indigenous Fire Management equals success against fires in the Kimberley - WWF AustraliaIn the iconic endlessness of the region in Northern Australia, unique forms of are once again taking place. After decades of interruption due to colonisation, the ancient practice of cultural burning is returning to not only reduce the impact of destructive wildfires, but also offer a powerful solution to global heating mitigation.
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Traditional Owner-led Cultural Burning (Cool Burning) in AustraliaCultural fire is now seeing a revival across Australia. After being suppressed for over two centuries
due to colonisation, Indigenous fire knowledge is being rekindled as Traditional Owners lead burns on their ancestral lands once again.
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Videos
This film reminds us all as Landcarers that there are many ways of looking at Country and that Country will be healthier if we work in partnership and trust together. People are part of the Country and that means that if we want to heal landscapes, we’ve got to heal people with the landscape. Australia has evolved over thousands of years, with people burning the right way. People have been part of the evolution of all its ecosystems. That's what Aboriginal farm management means. It means being holistic, and embracing interconnectivity and opportunities. It's seeing what’s working with the land, living with the land, being part of the land, and it’s putting people back into the land.
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Indigenous fire practitioner Victor Steffensen wants to see a change in the way Australians manage the land. Learning from and with Elders across the country, Victor runs workshops around Indigenous fire practices. He spoke to reporter Stephanie Boltje before the bushfires broke out in Queensland and New South Wales.
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Six months after the Tathra bushfire, a pioneering cultural burning project is reveals how traditional Indigenous fire can heal and protect the landscape.
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