The following essay is from, and by, David Ward of Western Australia. Thanks David.
Before Europeans arrived, Noongar people managed our south-west dry forests and woodlands very well without fire trucks, water bombers, helicopters, television journalists, concerned politicians, the Conservation Council, hundreds of firefighters, or the Salvation Army to give them all breakfast. They did this by burning frequently, in most places as often as it would carry a mild, creeping fire.
Even where there were no Noongars, most of the bush would have burnt frequently by unimpeded lightning fires, trickling on for months. Such large lightning fires continued up to the 1920s, before there were any Bushfire Brigades. They could travel a hundred kilometres before autumn rain doused them. Most of the landscape would have burnt as often as it could carry a fire. Fire suppression and exclusion are unnatural, new fangled notions.
Frequent fire made the bush safe, and promoted grass for yonka (kangaroo), and a host of bush tucker plants. It produced byoo, the red fruit of the djiridji, or zamia. Frequent light smoke germinated seeds, and provoked flowering of kangaroo paws and balga grasstrees.
Kangaroo paws and byoo are increasingly rare, under a muddle headed advocacy which claims that we should exclude fire from large bush areas for long periods. This phoney idea makes the bush very dangerous, as we have recently seen. Fire cannot be excluded indefinitely, and the longer it has been absent, the fiercer, and more damaging it will be.
Ecomythologists claim that, left alone, the litter will all rot down to enrich the soil. The truth, as any Perth Hills resident will testify, is that there is some decay in winter, but the summer blizzard of dead leaves, bark, and capsules is far greater, so litter builds up. After twenty years or so, there is a mulching effect, and build up ceases. However, by then most wildflowers are smothered and straggly, and most of the nutrient is locked up in dead matter. Frequent, mild fire releases the nutrients, sweetens the soil, and prunes the plants. Gardeners will appreciate that.
In the 1840s, the early West Australian botanist James Drummond wrote “When I was a sojourner in England, I never remember to have seen Australian plants in a good state after the second or third years and that, I think, is in a great degree owing to their not being cut down close to the ground when they begin to get ragged; how for the pruning knife and a mixture of wood ashes in the soil would answer as a substitute to the triennial or quaternal burnings they undergo in their native land, I am unable to say, some of our plants never flower in perfection but the season after the ground is burned over…”
There are many historical references to frequent, widespread burning by south-west Noongars. In 1837 Lt. Henry Bunbury mentioned “…the periodical extensive bush fires which, by destroying every two to three years the dead leaves, plants, sticks, fallen timber etc. prevent most effectually the accumulation of any decayed vegetable deposit… being the last month of summer… the Natives have burnt with fire much of the country… ”
In 1975 Mr. Frank Thompson was interviewed about his memories of fire near the south coast, before the First World War. He said “You see, the Natives …they used to burn the country every three or four years… when it was burnt the grass grew and it was nice and fresh and the possums had something to live on and the kangaroos had something to live on and the wallabies and the tamars and boodie rat …It didn’t burn very fast because it was only grass and a few leaves here and there and it would burn ahead and… sometimes there?d be a little isolated patch of other stuff that wasn’t good enough to burn the time before, but as it burnt along perhaps there might be some wallabies or tamars ?those animals didn’t run away from fire, they’d run up to it and you’d see them hopping along the edge of the fire until they saw a place where the fire wasn’t burning very fierce...”
It is hard to imagine wallabies hopping along the flame front of the recent Karagullen fire, looking for a way through. Long fire exclusion is causing fires of unprecedented ferocity, and many avoidable wildlife deaths. The longer fire has been excluded, the longer the bush takes to recover when it is eventually, and inevitably, burnt.
Over the last decade, research in south-western Australia by the Department of Conservation & Land Management (CALM) and Curtin University into fire marks on hundreds of balga grasstrees has confirmed traditional two to four year fire in dry eucalypt areas. Ridges with pure jarrah burnt every three to four years, slopes with some marri every two to three years, and clay valleys with wandoo every two years. There would have been thousands of small refuges, in rocks or near creeks, which would have burnt less often, perhaps never. Recent fierce fires destroy these, and the fire sensitive plants they protect. The ecomythology of long fire exclusion over large areas, is destroying the very plants and animals it claims to care for. Equally guilty are those ‘talking heads’ in politics, and the news media, who unthinkingly promote ecomythology.
The oldest balga records go back to 1750, and show traditional frequent, mild fire until measles epidemics killed many Noongars in 1860, and 1883. In some places two to four year burning continued until the First World War. In others, it continued up to the 1930s, and even the 1950s. Some old Perth Hills families remember when any fire could be put out with wet bags or green branches. This is only possible when fires are in litter no more than four years old, with flames less than a metre high.
Far from destroying diversity, this frequent burning enhanced it, by creating a rich mosaic of different aged patches. Animals had both food and shelter, and wildflowers flourished. Today’s muddle headed blanket fire exclusion leads to an eventual single, blanket, fierce fire, which simplifies the ecosystem down to a single age.
By insisting, through our political representatives, that CALM burn the bush more often, and more patchily, we will make it safer, see more wildflowers, avoid most animal deaths, and avoid dense, choking smoke from fierce wildfires. We will have to live with occasional light smoke from prescribed burns. If most litter were less than five years old, smoke would be minimal, and arson would be futile. All it could cause would be a mild, creeping fire, which would benefit the bush.
Think of the savings and benefits by working with nature, instead of fighting it. No more squadrons of aircraft, anxious home owners, and choking smoke for a week or more. The police could get on with catching burglars. More young Noongar people should be employed by CALM to help manage the bush with fire, restoring their culture and healing their self esteem.
Copyright David Ward
10th April 2005
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Forget about being employed by CALM or any other government department ‘bottom-up’ indigenous employment initiative; based on Australia’s record of indisputably-sustainable land management practices, the world’s longest surviving human culture should be acknowledged and ‘in-cultural-ised’ by replacing environmental bureaucracy with traditional custodianship.
What greater step can be taken towards reconciliation?
Any fear of ecological disadvantage will be relieved (and to the greatest possible extent) by the removal of political opportunism and bureaucractic ineptitude and inaction.
Er,
How many full blood aboriginals do you personally know Neil?
I gather you don’t like bueaucrats Neil, but in this instance those evil-doers have held the line against total fire exclusion in WA. Only here has the government department prevailed over the public opinion and political pressure to go the way of the eastern states and try to exclude fire.
They could do it better and Dave makes valid points here. However CALM will always be pushed towards saving money in the short term, which means a 5-7 year burn frequency with almost all of it done in spring when conditions are best for reduced labour costs. The Karagullen fire Dave referred to was about 10 year old fuel that CALM has always tried to burn more frequently. It was started by a pyromaniac who lit multiple fires in hot weather to overwhelm the resources quickly as the several fires joined into a very large single fire.
Being close to Perth, public opinion here had a greater influence and the burning interval was stretched too far. The recent fire will help bring reduce the public influence in that direction.
In the end the public gets the public service it deserves. You may be one of the minority who can see failings in this, but most people don’t think burning off is desirable. WA bureaucrats have managed to hold the line against this bullshit. So far.
I think Dave’s proposal is worth serious consideration as it contains multiple benefits, social and ecological.
With the arrival of humans in Australia 40 000 to 60 000 years ago the landscape has been altered. The fires that the ancient aboriginals started favoured the fire resistant eucalypts and they ended up dominating the landscape.
The original inhabitants made a terrible mess of the continent until by trial and error and keeping a hunter gatherer lifestyle they managed to achieve a symbosis with the landscape. They left large ‘dreaming’ areas where hunting was not allowed so prey animals could breed. They did not develop agriculture like in New Guinea perhaps because most of the experiments they tried failed in Australia’s poor soils.
The problem now is that the invasion of their country left very few people capable of passing down the oral traditions. The invaders brought traditions adapted for a very different climate and soil and suffered many failures as did the original inhabitants.
What Loius said, minus any racial conontations, is true. Modern aboriginals are almost totally urban and the pitiful remnant of their rich tradition is only preserved by a few individuals with a passion for their heritage. Also the Noongars could burn without regard to property as they had none.
Perhaps the solution is to apply what we know of the burning frequency of the Noongar people from archeological information combined with what Noongar traditions remain. We should set aside areas that no-one enters perhaps as they did.
Most important of all we need to educate the people of Perth that although their washing is getting dirty from smoke this is not a reason to stop burning. The usual pattern is that if Perth is veiled in smoke an inquiry is launched and someone get sacked. This makes the next person far less likely to burn at the proper interval.
Louis,
For more than seven years I lived amongst and learnt continuously from the Ngarringman, Warlpiri and Guugu Yimithirr, within the East Kimberley, the Tanami Desert and Cape York Peninsula.
In answer to your question, I know a few thousand traditional homeland aborigines. Your reference to racial purity has no bearing on the value a person attaches to either themself or their ancestors.
Rick,
I have what I believe to be a healthy contempt for bureaucracy, which doesn’t mean that all that are so employed are contemptible. Ender’s last sentence, though, epitomises bureaucratic contemptibility. Employed in the public’s service to conserve the environment, the bureaucrat would rather protect their pay-packet through a deliberate dereliction of duty than perform their duty and suffer wrongful dismissal. The difference is a measure of integrity.
Ender,
How do you reconcile ‘the terrible mess of the continent made by the original inhabitants’ with the western-cultural footprint of the past two-hundred years? The order of magnitude difference is unambiguous.
Australia’s homeland indigenous people exist in many tens of thousands. In a little over seven years, I lived amongst some 2,300 and I can assure you that they are very far from being urbanized. Granted, there has been a devastating impact from over two-hundred years of oppressive government policies, but aboriginality remains, nonetheless.
I disagree with your assertion that the Noongars had no property. I believe that the infinite recesses of the traditional aboriginal mind are occupied to the greatest possible extent with the full breadth and width of the country of their dreaming and its every nuance, interrelationship and memory. So perfectly is the familiarity with the natural environment laid that elders are able to traverse between the two and interact with their ancestors, immortally. The greatest investment Australia could make to the preservation and revitalisation of indigenous intellectual and cultural property would be through a conservation economy to drive traditional land uses, rather than the careers of public protected area administrators with questionable commitments.
Neil,
Interesting comment, “know a few thousand”. That is fantastic – I can only manage to know personally, say, at the most 100 individuals.
As for the rest of your comment, I never wrote any such thing, I just asked how many full bloods you know personally. I know one – Laurie Wainer, (and he still owes me $20 I lent him in Kelly’s Bar at the Country Club Hotel some years back).
If you interpret my question “How many full blood aboriginals do you personally know Neil?” as racist, then I start to suspect we might have a communication problem, based on our understanding of literature. I come from the school that what I say is what I mean, or to put it more specifically, the Keith Windschuttle school of literature.
Neil,
In your response to Ender that tribal aboriginals had no property is part of the problem. Private property is a construct invented by a civilised society to avoid social unrest from individuals stealing from others. Private property is essentially a legal device to allow individuals to survive in a large population organised on the basis of the division of labour.
In a tribal society where everyone knows everyone else and living at the limit of existence, the concept of private property is unnecessary.
From your last para’ I don’t think you understand what “property” is. In fact reading it forces me to conclude that you did not answer Ender’s question.
I recall vividly the comments by some Halls Creek based Aboriginals when I indicated I would be exploring and drilling on the black soil country – parraphrasing “you are exploring in that shit country? Hey if you find water, tell us!”
Neil – I think you misunderstand me. The Noongars had not fixed houses or cars or status symbols that we wish to preserve when burning is considered. The nomadic hunter gatherer lifesyle that they had could not accomodate anything that could not be carried. If an area burnt they just moved.
Also they did through deliberately set fire, destroy the lanscape as it was then. Just because they were primitive in our eyes does not mean that they can cause damage. Our technology just allows us to destroy is faster and more thoroughly. They learnt the relationship with the land through trial and error over thousands of years.
And thank god that some of their culture remained. Imagine the richness of the original before we arrived. I only wish the invaders could have hepled to preserve more.
Louis,
Your post, “Er, How many full blood aboriginals do you personally know Neil?” was anything but explicit. I read it as an expression of dubiousness with a distinct flavour of condescension. Perhaps I’m overly sensitive (hope Steve wasn’t referring to me).
Your reference to full-bloodedness, though, is racially self-evident; Ender referred to your post’s racial connotations.
Property is that which is one’s own. Material possession and freehold title are examples just as surely as intellectual and cultural property. Traditional aboriginal burning was (and still is in many places around Australia) conducted according strict protocols to protect intellectual and cultural property.
Ender,
The Aboriginal use of fire conferred an understanding of natural processes that brought food to the campfire and consequential habitat recovery that yielded vegetable productivity. There is a greater sophistication than a hunter-gatherer culture implies. Burning was carried out strategically and systematically. Its purpose was subordinate to the care for the country of their ancestors, which I perhaps unsuccessfully described as being of critical importance to their spirituality.
‘Thanking god’ is a subject matter that I would love to explore, but taking into account Jennifer’s dislike of editing, is probably best left alone. The tragedy of lost wealth of traditional culture is ongoing. Mainstream Australia still disregards the enormous body of indigenous wisdom that remains. Insofar as aboriginalisation of protected area management is concerned, the pattern resonates with notional limitations on administrative capability. Ascension through the ranks comes at the price of aboriginality. It has only ever been subordinate to the cultural contradictions and overriding will of non-Aboriginal command.
I have found the comments on my essay interesting. It’s amazing who reads blogs. Thanks for your support, Rick. I should have mentioned that the three historical quotes are thanks to Dr Lachie McCaw, Dr Sylvia Hallam, and Dr Ian Abbott.
Anyone interested in Noongar burning could well start with Sylvia’s “Fire & Hearth” (1975).
Predictably, Sylvia has met some hostile criticism from those who claim that Aborigines did not deliberately use fire, but she is well able to defend her position.
Without, I hope, being personally abusive, I would class such critics as disciples of the “ignis nullius” belief, very similar to, and about as valid as, the “terra nullius” belief.
A common glib dismissal of Aboriginal burning knowledge is that it is irrelevant, because “the context has changed, so we can never go back to that”. I find this shallow thinking. There are stil vast areas of southern Australia where something like Aboriginal burning could, should, and, in my view, must, eventually be restored.
Given the flammability of the vegetation, the only alternative to planned, frequent, mild, beneficial burning is unplanned, infrequent, fierce, destructive burning. Perhaps a third logical option would be to clear all native vegetation, but I don’t think that would be a winner.
LOUIS , most studies of traditional Aboriginal people confirm private and communal ownership of of both land, water and objects . this is not known by most Australians unfortunately .
thanks for the work neil .
Again Neil despite trying I do not seem to be able to write a post on this subject without putting my foot in it. It is most likely my almost total lack of knowledge of Aboriginal people as I have had very little contact with them.
I acknowledge that the original inhabitants had a systematic knowledge of exactly what they were doing when they burned. And there are large tracts of land that would benefit from the retained knowledge of the Noongars.
Anyway I will shut up now before I have to change feet.
The use of fire by aboriginal cultures is well documented but not well understood. I think Wards article goes some way between reconciling the practical reality of fire and the public opposition to ‘damage’ to the environment.
The opposition to the use of fire is not resticted to Perth and indeed classic examples have been displayed in NSW and Canberra were the resriction of fire in natural ecosystems has caused massive ecological and private property damage. The fact that 3 500 000 hectares were damaged (some almost irrepairably)in 2003 alone seems to highlight the serious problem we are facing in terms of ‘environmental management’.
The model of ‘locking it up and throwing away the key’ is not helpful in the Australian environment. Unfortunately, political burecrats do not see the link between on the ground manager and evinvonmental sustainablity. I am all for national parks but due to ‘resource constraints’ they can not managed effectivily. By ‘locking up areas’ or even ‘returning them to the dream time’ is ludicrous at best and environmental valdalism at worst.
Currently in Queensland, the powers that be have taken the stance that the State forest system(including sustaniably harvested timber and grazing livestock)is unsustainable and that ‘state control’ is the only answer. As a result ‘lease holders’, bee keepers, trail riders etc are being locked out of some areas due to supposed environmnetal degradation. The use of fire has been resticted and in some cases will be banned. Unfortunately the political cycles which last 3 years will not reflect the environmnetal degradtaion which wild fires and mismanagement generate.
Fire is an essential managment tool. Fire has and should be continued to be used by humans to control and manage the environment. Human activities, including timber harvesting and livestock production, play an integral role in not only the economic sustainablity of the community but the environmental sustainability of our natural environment.
Unfortunately, the people in the cities are too worried about getting their washing dirty and in most cases do not understand or even care about the travesties which are occuring with Australian landscape management policies.
A good book which covers the long term effects of fire on Australian ecosystems (plus a lot of other stuff on Australia) is “The New Nature” by Tim Lowe.
Neil
Calling some one Full Blood means simply that what it means.
There is no racism in this. It is the same as announcing that an Oyster, is. An Oyster.
Louis,
No, it is not. Callling someone human is the same as announcing that an oyster is an oyster; inferring traditional custodianship is the exclusive capability of racially pure indigenous Australians is sometheing quite different.
Neil
Your last sentence is rhetorically not different to a statement that priests of religion assert exclusive authority to interpret holy texts.
Of course we must never say out aloud that secret men’s business is all about sodomy of the young men, something Fred Hollows alluded to some years back.
In todays society there is no such thing as a full blood . WE ARE ALL ONE MOB —- ABORIGINAL