A review of contemporary Indigenous cultural fire management literature in southeast Australia

This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. This is version 1 of this Preprint.

Add a Comment

You must log in to post a comment.


Comments

There are no comments or no comments have been made public for this article.

Downloads

Download Preprint

Authors

Michelle McKemey, Oliver Costello, Malcolm Ridges, Emilie Ens, John T. Hunter, Nick C. H. Reid

Abstract

Indigenous cultural fire management is being recognised and revived across Australia, primarily in the centre and across the north. To explore the benefits of contemporary cultural fire management in southeast Australia and barriers to its revival, we undertook a systematic analysis of the literature. Seventy documented applications of cultural fire management projects were found with the potential for significant upscaling. Over the last decade, eight policies related to Indigenous fire management have been developed by state and territory governments in southeast Australia, with varying levels of implementation. Seventy-eight benefits and 22 barriers were identified in relation to cultural fire management. In the cases where cultural fire management has been successfully reinstated as an ongoing practice, Indigenous leadership, extraordinary relationships, strong agreements and transformational change were identified as drivers of success. For cultural fire management to grow, more funding, policy implementation, long-term commitment, Indigenous control and decision making, mentoring, training and research are required. Several areas of research could facilitate the expansion of cultural fire management and be applied in similar contexts globally, including Africa and the Americas. While Indigenous voices are increasingly represented in the literature, it is imperative that mutually beneficial and respectful partnerships are developed in the cross-cultural interface of landscape fire management.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.32942/osf.io/fvswy

Subjects

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Keywords

bushfire, cultural burning, cultural fire, fire management, Indigenous knowledge, wildfire

Dates

Published: 2020-07-04 06:40

License

CC-By Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International