In various locations across Victoria the bush is barking (no pun intended) a warning that rainfall deficiences indicate a dryness that is likely to extend into next summer. Question is, will Victoria be ready?
Two interesting, if salient, views on management of land prepared by representatives of indigenous people, the first concerning the current fires in Canada and the second, of most direct concern to Australia.
“Hundreds of wildires are burning in Canada — and they could change the way the country looks.
“Scientists say the blazes could transform parts of the Canadian landscape, as more intense and more frequent fires push forests to adapt and prevent certain common Canadian trees from regrowing.”
This account, if not a cry for help, is from Canadian Indigenous people threatened by wildfire.
Plate 2: Trees burned by wildfires in northern Manitoba are visible during a helicopter tour in the surrounding area of Flin Flon on Thursday. (Mike Deal/Canadian Press/AP)
Excerpts from the story:
1. “It depends on what kind of tree is facing fire. The white spruce, an evergreen that can grow more than 180 feet tall, doesn’t fare as well in fire-filled environments, said Ellen Whitman, also a fire research scientist with the Forest Service. Other trees, such as the jack pine and the lodgepole pine, are more resilient to fire, she said, but young trees are often the weakest after a blaze.
“If you burn that young stand before it has cones, or before it has enough cones, the regeneration will be very poor,” Whitman said.
2. “For centuries, people allowed forests to burn, making fires less intense because they happened more frequently. For example, Parisien said, Indigenous people used to start controlled fires in the area now known as Wood Buffalo National Park in the early spring, when the snow made burning less risky. This created patches of land that were kept open, encouraging bison to graze and berries to grow. Now the place is more of a thick, coniferous forest that could burn at high intensity.”
3. “Even though Indigenous people are the most impacted, we have very little power to change the situation,” said Amy Cardinal Christianson, a senior fire analyst for the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, who led the report.
“She expressed frustration over permits needed to do intentional burning and said Indigenous communities aren’t involved enough in budget decisions or decisions on fire suppression. She said that some fire managers have tended to dismiss their knowledge of the land as outdated. But they stand to lose the most from these catastrophic burns.
“For us as Indigenous people, if we don’t have culture, we don’t have anything,” Christianson said. “And our culture is connected to the land.”
The second discourse is the 2022 NARRM ORATION “Our Country,Our Way”, by Associate Professor Michael-Shawn Fletcher, University of Melbourne, Published 26 November 2020. Important opinions expressed in this Oration, opinions that need consideration by agencies responsible for fostering community safety and protecting the land, particularly the public land manager DEECA to avoid the devastation shown in Plate 4 (below) and the CFA with its statutory fire prevention responsibilty.
Excerpts from the Oration:
ENVIRONMENT 
1. We have one of the fastest rates of biodiversity loss on Earth. Species have been going extinct in this continent since the late 1700s. We also are experiencing, particularly in the southeast, but all over our country, an accelerating rate of catastrophic bushfires that are becoming more frequent, more intense and larger.
2. The language around fire is ‘fighting fire’, but fire is integral to the Australian landscape.
3. Fire was first used by humans, or our progenitors Australopithecines, 1.7 million years ago, and the evolutionary trajectory of humans or hominids is inextricably linked to fire. It has been our main tool and still is our main tool for landscape management.
4. ENVIRONMENT But the challenge comes from both sides. And perhaps more insidiously, from those who purport, and espouse an empathy for Aboriginal culture and the impact that the British Invasion has had on us.
I’m referring to the wilderness or conservation movement.
Learning to live with fire
Yet this knowledge of how to live on country faces challenges. Now, you might assume this challenge comes from the overtly racist, the deniers, the history revisionists, those who seek to and cannot recognise that Aboriginal people are humans.
5. SCIENCES & TECHNOLOGY
How do we protect our unique biodiversity from megafires?
6. Australia has an accelerating rate of catastrophic bushfires that are becoming more frequent, more intense and larger.
Shrubs and trees have increased across the landscape, resulting in high fuel loads. So that when climate shifts, when droughts occur, when we have high fire weather or extreme fire weather, the fires are getting larger and larger. And hotter and hotter.
7. POLITCS & SOCIETY
Safeguarding our shared cultural heritage
We understand that if we care, look after, and fulfil our obligations and responsibilities in our country, we benefit, and country benefits, and we are both healthy.
In terms of fire, there’s reduced landscape fuel loads, less connectivity between the ground and the canopy, so you don’t get these big catastrophic fires.
8. This is really obvious in our attitudes towards fire. The whole language and attitude around fire is fighting fire. But fire is integral to the Australian landscape. And the futile attempt to fight it is just creating more and more problems.
9. The public needs to embrace Aboriginal people and Aboriginal knowledge, and the media has to wake up. It needs to cast off antiquated notions of wilderness, antiquated notions that country is better off without people, notions that we can win a war against fire.
We need to know that this country needs fire.
A full You Tube version of the Oration is available here.
Plate 4: This photograph is part of the Angora Range directly above the Tambo River, between Ensay and Tambo Crossing. The bare patches were forest before the 2019/20 fires. That patch of land, along with others, had never been logged or had a machine on them. This area burnt with such intensity; if you blow the pictures up you can see the massive gully erosion.
WEB SITE DEVELOPMENT PROTOCOLS:
1. The bolding of text was done during preparation of this posting — matters of particular significance.
2. Use is made of ChatGPT to explore certain issues. Any reference to ChatGPT AI responses will be identified — a relevant story concerning AI in The Australian today, but more on this later.
3. Use of photo-manipulation software is limited protection of privacy where appropriate and making photographs clearer to the viewer.
A long posting but it raises important issues concerning the management of land. The Howitt Society recognises indigenous burning practices but wants to ensure that it is honestly included in protection arrangements for the bush and Australians. Here, the We need to know that this country needs fire statement above raises questions for government land managers.
Finally, The Howitt Society would appreciate your comments on this important issue utilising the Leave a Reply provision below or using the Making Contact provision.
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