THE Tiwi Islands (Bathurst and Melville) are off the north coast of Australia. They are mostly covered with grassy savanna, much like that in parts of southern Africa. In Africa, this savanna is the result of thousands of years of burning by humans.
If burning is interrupted, then woody shrubs thrive, and the savanna turns into thickets. Due to lightning, fires will still occur, but they will be at longer intervals, and much fiercer, potentially lethal to both humans and wildlife, as in Kruger National Park (http://ag.arizona.edu/oals/ALN/aln54/govender.html ).
I have never been to the Tiwis, but I suspect that they are very similar in this respect to Africa, or Madagascar, where Dr Kristian Kull (Isle of Fire 2006) has eloquently described the political ecology of regular burning by humans.
My attention was caught recently by a television news item about the ‘Tiwi Carbon Project’, in which CSIRO is working with the Tiwi islanders to reduce the carbon released by their fires, and so win them large amounts of cash as ‘carbon credits’. I pursued this back in time, and found a few events which may relate. In 2006, the ABC’s Catalyst program carried a story about a similar scheme in the Northern Territory. The then Northern Territory Environment Minister, Marion Scrymgour (a Tiwi woman), seemed to be working with several Aboriginal Elders, and Dr Jeremy Russell-Smith, a scientist at the CRC Tropical Savannas Management, to promote mild traditional burning, early in the season, to avoid fierce fires later on – wonderful.
According to Dr Russell-Smith, the Australian Greenhouse Office considers such burning technically feasible for carbon credits. The narrator said that ‘A hectare burnt in May releases half the greenhouse emissions of a hectare burnt in a hot November wildfire’ (www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1769056.htm).
Further searching found that Marion Scrymgour, in June of this year, left the Labor Party, removing the Henderson government majority. I don’t know the details, but the rift seems to have been over Aboriginal policy. In August of this year, Marion Scrymgour suddenly rejoined the Labor Party, and, as far as I can determine, the Tiwi Carbon Project was announced soon after.
A few questions occur to me:
• Does the Rudd Government now recognize the merits of traditional mosaic burning, as opposed to uncontrollable megafires?
• If so, can state government departments and local government Bushfire Volunteers, now claim carbon credits for any prescribed burning they do?
• As Federal Environment Minister, was Mr. Peter Garrett involved in the Tiwi matter?
• If so, how about a press release from his office, setting out the environmental benefits of regular, early burning, as done by Aborigines in southern Australia for thousands of years?
• Was there any connection between Marion Scrymgour rejoining the Labor Party, and the approval of the Tiwi project?
• Is there a connection between funding for the Tiwi project, and the recent axing of funds to the Bushfire CRC, established after the 2002 NSW bushfires?
Green Davey lives in Perth, Western Australia
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The 2009 Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission has today handed down its Interim Report: http://www.royalcommission.vic.gov.au/getdoc/9d5fb826-b507-4fed-a7f7-86bab961992f/Interactive-Version . I have not yet read the report, but flicking through I can’t see a heading that relates to prescribed burning.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
When driving through your fair country at certain times of year esp. up Queensland way Im astounded by the number of little fires totally unattended burning about the place.
Fires are a way of life for Aust. in fact the whole south eastern seaboard is inflammable. Rudd had better admit his country is naturally a bigCO2 (now called Carbon) emitter already.
That’s without the furnaces and factories.
i
The news report on the Victorian bushfire Royal Commission report was a whitewash. It focused on what to do after the horse has bolted rather than on keeping the stable door shut. The causes of the fires were ignored, because the news media, the major political parties, and the bureaucrats busily and evilly help the greens to stop fuel reduction burning, and the focus was on government responses that were made when it was already far too late to prevent the damage.
Chris
At least hopefully homeowners will not be prosecuted for clearing bush from around their homes.
What a tragedy to reestablish that little bit of freedom with a chainsaw.
Davey,
The CRC has run its 7 year funding course, I don’t think that there is anything sinsiter there. Very few CRC’s are able to obtain a second term, they usually have to change their focus for funding to be forthcoming often with a name change.
The savannah burning project is/was a worthwhile endeavour not only due to its potential to minimise CO2 emissions ( a by product of its main aims) but the resulting cooler early season fires burnt in a greater mosaic pattern than the hot late season fires. So ecologically they are better. Early season fires also produced more char which assists moisture retention in comparison to late season fires that consumed everything.
Of note is that early season fires would be more akin to managed fires as we know in the south east or in the south west where as late season fires are definitely in the bushfire/wildfire camp with many ignitioins being due to arson. Don’t forget that the area burnt anually runs into the tens of millions of hectares and more when the central Australian grasslands also burn.
Davey,
You’re preaching to the choir about the benefits of Fuel Reduction Burns to human safety and to wildlife population levels. However to a large extent, the carbon credits angle strikes me as being a scam. OK, I think that carbon trading, in general, is a scam.
But for the sake of argument, I’ll agree that optimized FRBs can increase the amount of charcoal in the soil, and that that can be a good thing. It seems to me that the reasoning behind *constant* long-term FRB carbon credits must be that charcoal accumulation in the soil can also continue to increase linearly in the long term. In the future, when the soil is 98% charcoal, shouldn’t we decrease the carbon credits to reflect the decreased *rate* of charcoal accumulation/carbon sequestration?
When the soil becomes 99% charcoal, wouldn’t that concentration be a bushfire hazard in its own right? In that scenario, wouldn’t slightly more intense FRBs–in order to *decrease* charcoal levels (and in the process increase CO2 emissions)–be better for human safety and wildlife population levels?
If the logic behind carbon credits for FRBs is sound at the moment, it probably won’t be sound after a few decades of FRBs that are optimized for charcoal accumulation in the soil. Even in the Carbonista worldview, shouldn’t carbon credits for FRBs sunset after a certain number of years?
re your quote “They are mostly covered with grassy savanna (sic), much like that in parts of southern Africa”.
um….No they’re not…there covered with Tropical Savannah Woodland…quick a distinct difference! Perhaps this other quote “I have never been to the Tiwis,” means you should have checked before you posted…a quick look on Google earth may have helped!
The rest of your post indcates you don’t have a handle on Territory politics either. The rift was over Indigenous affairs and not related to any ‘carbon credit scheme’. Marion’s return to the fold was also unrelated to carbon credits…more like political opportunism and a way of stopping Labor getting the boot.
The Tiwis are not the first to examine the benefits of early season burning. Other communities up here have already opted for early burning schemes…one is associated with the Wickham Point liquid natural gas plant which has offset some of its emissions by facilitating early season burning in Arnhem land. Personally I think we go overboard with the fires up here…almost continual smoke haze from April to November. A shift to early season burning (and less frequent burning in some areas) would be good for the population…let alone the environment.
moderator…oops a small typo in my post ‘quick a distinct difference’ should be ‘quite a distinct difference’….thanks
Pandanus,
Thanks for some obviously informed comment. Perhaps my suspicions about where the money came from are wrong, but I am still curious – where did the money come from?
I agree that Jeremy Russell-Smith is doing great work, and deserves support. I hope I did not give any impression of hostility to his project.
My main point is that, if Tiwi Islanders can be given carbon credits for broadscale early (prescribed) burning, then so can anybody, regardless of race or culture, or where they live in Australia. I have not done the calculations, but I suspect that the whole of Australia’s carbon emissions from power stations could be cancelled out by burning the bush in the right way, that is as a mild mosaic of frequent fire.
I saw Mr Brumby on TV last night, mouthing the mantra about ‘climate change’ being the cause of fierce bushfires. Politicians sometimes earn nicknames. ‘Nero’ Brumby sounds right to me.
Christopher Game,
I agree. The report is arse-about-face. The central issue is the lack of prescribed burning. I note the emphasis on refuges, such as football ovals. These offer refuge, because they are areas in which fuel has been reduced, or removed altogether. They clearly show that reducing fuel reduces fire intensity, a point denied by some of my fellow greens.
Larry,
There is a long history of charcoal in Australian soils. For example, James Drummond, the first West Australian Colonial Botanist, wrote the following in a letter in November 1845:
‘These seeds or involucres, were dug up when sinking a well on the alluvial banks of the Swan River, they were mixed with charcoal, for charcoal is invariably found in the alluvial deposits of the rivers in this country, to a depth which seems to prove that the present race of natives or others having a similar habit of annually burning the country must have inhabited these districts for a much longer period than can be ascertained by any sort of people, not excepting the Chinese.’
There are many other similar observations from early writers. I don’t think we are likely to overload our soils with charcoal in the foreseeable future.
For heavens sake Davey – it’s a speculative issue with ConocoPhillips in Darwin. Try to keep up http://www.nt.gov.au/d/regional/Content/File/blog/IED%20Presentation%20-%20West%20Arnhem%20Fire%20Abatement%20Project.pdf Not sure if it counts in current Kyoto type framework.
Another benefit of burning is that wood ash, a highly alkaline material, mitigates against the build up soil acidity.
Troppo,
Your posts appeared after I had submitted the above. I’m not sure I’ll get away with a fourth post, but thanks for the nit picking. Savanna is generally accepted as a grassy plain with some trees, in the tropics or sub-tropics. I still think the Tiwis are much like large parts of southern Africa and Madagascar. I agree I don’t know much about NT politics. That’s why I asked questions.
Luke,
From the ConocoPhillips PowerPoint: ‘Potential across North Australia on lands where fire regime is typified by extensive and intense uncontrolled fire’. Change ‘North’ to ‘Southeast’, and it sounds just like Victoria. Are you keeping up?
Green Davey wrote:
“I don’t think we are likely to overload our soils with charcoal in the foreseeable future.”
That wasn’t my point. I was being sarcastic. What was my point?
Once FRBs are optimized for charcoal accumulation in the soil, that process will NOT proceed in a LINEAR fashion. The RATE will be LARGEST in the early years, and will DECLINE asymptotically over time, for the reason that you just stated. In any given year, the DOLLAR AMOUNTS of the carbon credits granted to the Tiwi Islanders should reflect that fact.
I have nothing against economic assistance to the Tiwi Islanders. However I do think that we should call things by their proper names.
If you thought that the UN’s old Oil for Food Program in Iraq was corrupt, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Here’s an example of carbon credits being thrown down a rat-hole in China.
China Dams Reveal Flaws In Climate-Change Weapon
January 25, 2009 02:11 PM EST |
XIAOXI, China — The hydroelectric dam, a low wall of concrete slicing across an old farming valley, is supposed to help a power company in distant Germany contribute to saving the climate _ while putting lucrative “carbon credits” into the pockets of Chinese developers.
But in the end the new Xiaoxi dam may do nothing to lower global-warming emissions as advertised. And many of the 7,500 people displaced by the project still seethe over losing their homes and farmland.
If you want to read the rest of this ‘Huffpost’ article, here’s a link. http://tinyurl.com/bdvd9b
Davey,
Savannah burning is/was regarded as Kyoto compliant as it is generally acepted as a part of indigineous land management (Arnhem Land) or agricultural management. It’s all tied up in the Marrakesh accords and their interpretatioins. Currently much of what passes as indigenous burning in the top end is not yet it counts as such in Australia’s national accounts (NGGI and Kyoto reporting).
Conaco Phillips provided funding for some of the savannah burning research. It shuld be seen as a good investment on their behalf as any reduction in greenhouse gases arising from a reintroduction of a moderate burning regime is a win for both Conanco and the environment. Ultimatley if Conaco funds this project long term then why shouldn’t they receive the benefit in terms of ofsets?
I remember when the Maoris in NZ demanded the rights to the fresh water crayfish. The judge granted them the right, but they were prohibited from using modern techniques to catch them.
It’s a similar situation in the north with the indigenous population demanding the right to burn. According to an old Bird Park owner south of Broome the regular burning of the top end started in the early 70s after the aboriginals were moved off the stations because Gough introduced equal pay. They would burn the stations in protest and it’s now morphed into a cultural right. Wyndham land council now employs fulltime burners, I’ve seen them out there in their brand new troupies with diesel guns, they cover hundreds of miles in a night’s work. BUT! – If they went back to the traditional burning practices, i.e ON FOOT! the country just might survive like the NZ crayfish.
I sat with an old miner outside Kununurra and he pointed to the tree line alone the ridge that runs E W from the town. I counted around 6 trees on the ridge yet he said it used to be covered in trees but it’s been burnt every year for the past 35 years! If you’ve ever travelled the Broom to Fitzroy Crossing road you will have seen the formation of the next Nullarbor landscape in Australia.
It’s a disgraceful environmental disaster, the country is burnt from Karumba in the gulf to Broome and all places in between. The only birds you see are the kites that fly above the fire fronts swooping down on any lizard or insect trying to escape. I stood where a fire rushed up to the roadside and out of the grass came this wall of stick insects, lizards, snakes etc.
What do we do when we want to retain moisture in the soil – we mulch it – the top end gets mulched every year when the tall grasses collapse – but we burn it don’t we and Katherine floods yet again as the rains run off the exposed soils.
Throughout the northern winter – now – there is a smoke haze everywhere yet there are no thunderstorms or lightning flashes in the sky until later in the year yet everyone says the fires are caused by lightning – like hell it is!
It’s crazed aboriginals and greedy farmers who want an extra green for their cattle.
BTW – I did manage to find a spot that hadn’t been burnt – it was a section by the Fitzroy river that was a private camping area for the station. It was teaming with wildlife, birds of all sizes, you could hear the thump of the roos at night, huge fully developed gum trees like you see in the old photos of the area.
I must add that I once saw an early David Attenborough episode where he was in the Northern territory. He said ” When the fires come through every 30 years or so, these plants…..
Davey – suggest fire frequency map from http://138.80.128.152/firehistory/ product of http://www.firenorth.org.au/nafi2/ Get some facts into ya ! If you can parlez vous TIFF files.
You’re so southern-centric – most of Aussie not burned enough. Either graziers put them out or not enough fuel to carry from flogging – so you end up with Pilliga Scrub, NSW Western Division Woody Weed patch, SW Qld Mulga/turkey bush encroachment or wall to wall thickening Central Qld eucualypt style.
The old savanna woodland fire sub-climax story?
So a lot of the nation’s bush burns too hot, too frequently, and a lot doesn’t burn near enough?
Southern Australia – well don’t like amongst that stuff – it’s dangerous !!
Try to keep up with the broad national agenda Davey. 🙂
“Try to keep up with the broad national agenda Davey”
you mean the view from the gov tit in a southern city?
The green strategy is becoming easier to see: First have the government take over forest and fire management, and take control away from local fire preventers and firefighters. Then use the government control to let the forest fuel build up so as to have more lethal fires. Then say “Oh, the fires will be worse this coming season; it’s too late to do anything about it now. It’s all due to anthropogenic global warming. We need more government intervention to deal with that as well.”
Christopher,
I am not sure about any Machiavellian plot. I think it’s just plain old-fashioned ignorance when people (green or otherwise) deny the value of prescribed burning.
I agree with you about the need for local control of both lighting and fighting. From 1916-1984 the Forests Department was responsible for fire management in forest areas of WA. Our second Conservator of Forests, Stephen Kessell, was European trained (Oxford) and at first tried to exclude fire. He soon learned that it was impossible, and fire management was best left to locals who knew their patch.
In the 1928 Annual Report to parliament, he said: ‘ A man may learn to know an area of 7,500 to 10,000 acres thoroughly, and choose the times when various portions may be safely burnt to advantage, especially when he is constantly on the job and in a position to take advantage of a few days or even a few hours suitable weather at any time of the year.’
I expect the Tiwis know their country pretty well, and when it can be burnt to advantage. God help them if Big Fire Business ever takes them over – they will end up with fires like those in Victoria. I hope they get their ‘carbon credits’ money, as long as they don’t spend it on grog. Perhaps they are too good at football to let that happen.
Not being a botanist or soil scientist, I just have a few amateur observations:
As I understand, eucalypts are generally fire-climax species. I have also been told that one of the problems with them is that they change the soil over a comparatively short time span. From dim memories from the 70’s, the term podzolisation springs to mind. This is apparently connected to the leaf and bark litter acidifying the soil. Interestingly, in Vietnam, there is currently some concern about the long term outcomes from the mass planting of these imperialist Aussie trees.
I also understand that high-intensity fires cause serious degradation of the complex microbial and fungal colonies in the soil.
As I see it, the expansion of the range of the eucalypts was closely tied to the movement and actions of aboriginal / proto-aboriginal peoples. Grasslands and open forests offer better hunting and gathering for minimally equipped, nomadic tribal groups than do soggy rain forests.
As has been seen in Victoria, if a eucalypt forest adjacent to a wet forest goes up like a bomb, the fire destroys a section of the wet forest. What colonises the “dead zone” after the fire? Not the “cuddly” rainforest plants, but those rough old gum trees and acacias. (And lantana and all the other dodgy stuff).
As I see it, the key is not fire or no fire. Like most things, it is dose rate that is important. The interval between fires must be linked to the rate of fuel load build-up. I suspect that the aborigines simply approximated things and reckoned that if it was getting a bit untidy walking between the trees, then there was probably lots of tucker hiding in there. Simple: check the wind direction, send a bunch of blokes with spears round to the down wind side and let it rip. Everyone else form a line and follow the fire on foot, picking up snacks on the way.
Now, if the charred bits left by fire act to raise the pH of the soil, would this not nicely counteract the soil acidification caused by unmolested eucalypt droppings?
Locking away eucalypt forests and preventing any fires for decades is a recipe for disaster.
Having participated in controlled burns (as recently as last week), I have a few observations:
Try not to burn off in Summer.
Know where your stock are before you start.
On a perfectly still day, fires create their own breeze. (think Dresden on a small scale).
If the fuel load is small, this breeze is affected by terrain but minimal and the fire will creep along at walking pace.
Often, the heat of the fire is so low that green shoots are visible among the black immediately after the fire has passed.
Clear around the polyethylene pipes at the water troughs, first.
A fire started with a moderate fuel load will usually stop at creeks and roads. Often it will just stop halfway down a hill.
Old, heavily weathered wooden fence posts can catch fire even in a low intensity burn.
Ensure the fridge is adequately stocked before you start the day. A cleansing ale is required after twelve hours of breathing smoke and wetting down selected spots with a backpack spray.
Bruce,
I agree with all you say, especially the cleansing ale. A few weeks ago, I too was out in my orange togs with drip-torch in hand, burning a nearby reserve. We (management committee and local Volleys) have support from the local council to burn these 400 hectares in a mosaic pattern cycling every 2-4 years. There is some historical evidence, from fire marks on an old grasstree, that the area was burnt that often up to the winter of 1883/4, when a measles epidemic carried off the local Nyoongars. Since then burning has been haphazard, with recent long fire exclusion, resulting in obvious vegetation senescence and nutrient lockup. Acidification may well be mobilising potentially toxic elements such as aluminium and magnesium. As Robert pointed out, decay leads to acidity, but burning leads to higher pH, which is important for nitrogen fixing soil bacteria and cyanobacteria, and probably for immobilising toxins.
After two years, the results are already ecologically spectacular (more wildflowers, more grazing for ‘roos, healthier tree canopy etc.), and we have the support of relieved property owners adjacent to the reserve. For decades it had been left unburnt, apparently on advice from the local wildflower society. Left unburnt any longer, and we would inevitably have had a Victoria situation one summer, with loss of property, and possibly of life. The reserve would have been badly damaged, with deaths of native animals and veteran trees.
Given a few more years, we will have enough statistics to present a case for ‘carbon credits’, just like the Tiwis and NT Aborigines. That’s if the whole carbon business has not been quietly abandoned by then. Even if it is, we will continue burning jarrah forest at the well known proper interval of 2-4 years. History is just as much a part of ecology as is biology, and is sometimes more reliable. In addition, universities might introduce a unit called ‘Common Sense 100’.
Cool debate, or do i mean cool season debate.
1. Indigenous peoples surely removed massive amounts of solid tree debris for the use campfires which burnt around the clock. Largely this left only the understorey, essentially groundcover vegetation for regular burning….if the system was in balance. Modern day evidence of this is in Ramingining in Arnhem land where walking tracks act as firebreaks and the profile of the forest is a far cry from what preceded the black Saturday fires in Vic.
2. Isn’t a Brumby a hard hoofed feral animal, an invasive species which tramples over delicate soils which evolved for the macropods and which has assisted in turning our unique carpetted garden into a dustbowl.
3. I’m currently living in an Aboriginal town in outback NSW which has had its historical fire regime knowledge whitewashed out of it so bad that the surrounding country looks so ugly i sometimes want to cry.
4. The latest knowledge is that prescribed burning, an ultra region specific craft increases carbon sequestration. It should not only be encouraged in Indigenous Australia but should be adopted across the Continent to restore the health of our landscapes and to increase the yeilds of our bush harvests.
5. The food sources in the trees were so valuable to indigenous peoples that there was no sense in allowing canopy fires to occur. Regular burning prevents this, once again as demonstrated in Ramingininmg.
6. Indigenous people know/knew how to protect the firegarden. There was too much food in them there trees. Fruits, honey, Eggs, Possums…….
7. Australia was once networked with a spider web of walking tracks which acted as firebreaks for the slow moving, season and region specific fires which once mosaiced the continent.
Jimmy Billabong.
By the way Jennifer,
I believe that the points you made are incredibly important.
Why won’t Garret make a statement about this. Maybe we can all sleep better while our grass is burning.
I wrote to Rudd before he was elected about this. His reply was , yeah prescribed burning is something we’ll look into. I’ll try and post his official respose when i can export it from my hotmail account.
I wrote to him and Brumby after the Vic fires and they didn’t get back to me.