Review of fire management and conflicts in northern Australia
Land management of ecosystems around the world can include fire as a tool to facilitate change (Naveh, 1975), including in the tropical wet dry savannas (Murphy & Lugo, 1986). Fires often occur annually and are mostly intentionally lit (Braithwaite & Estbergs, 1985), changing the biomass of vegetation, in particular reducing the grasses (Stocker & Mott, 1981) but also reducing the biomass of woody shrubs (Miyanishi & Kellman, 1986). Fire as a tool can be useful for achieving management objectives such as renewal of grass growth to attract prey to be hunted or to feed domestic livestock, reducing the amount of fire fuel making the next fire more manageable and as such reducing the risk to people and property, and to enable natural plant succession to occur (Dyer et al., 2001). Repeated burns however have a detrimental effect on ecosystems and biodiversity (Williams, 2017). Fire management can be quite complex and this is illustrated by the example of the decline of Callitris intratropica, a fire sensitive tree occurring in northern Australia that is protected by frequent fires reducing the grass fuel load, keeping the fires less intense but the tree species is now in decline because of the lack of burning resulting in increased fuel load and more intense fires, killing the younger sapling size trees (Bowman et al., 1988). Land management using fire in northern Australia can be effective and may result in commonalities but also conflicts between different land users (Dyer et al., 2001). The aim in this paper is to review the objectives and implementation, and common ground and potential conflicts, of fire management by three major land users, ie Indigenous land managers, conservation land managers and pastoral land managers.
Land use types across northern Australia:
Aboriginal Freehold land
Burning has been conducted by Aboriginal people because of widespread social and cultural obligations (Braithwaite, 1996; Russell-Smith et al., 2003). These obligations include stimulating fresh new green growth to attract grazing animals for hunting, clearing vegetation for easier access and spiritual obligations of ‘cleaning’ the country to facilitate teaching the children about the sacred ceremonies and correct behavior and helping the Spirits on their way after death (Dyer et al., 2001). At the beginning of the dry season in northern Australia, senior Aboriginal custodians guide both women and men to burn the curing grasses, using fire sticks made from Panadanus and Banksia foliage, the fire patches were lit near campsites and along tracks creating a mosaic of burnt and unburnt country (Russell-Smith et al., 1997). Care was taken not to burn the dry aerial parts of yams which indicated their location, and care was also taken when burning around fruit trees, such as the wild pear Persoonia falcata by using low, slow moving fires (Vigilante & Bowman, 2004). Early dry season burning was used to encourage green pick growth of perennial grasses to attract agile wallabies and antilopine kangaroos (Dyer et al., 2001). This pattern of small, low intensity fires was conducted gradually over the whole dry season and into the wet, this exposed to hunting, snakes, lizards and rodents and also exposed the breathing holes of long necked turtles, and control of fires was enabled because they were extinguished at night in the cool and heavy dew conditions (Russell-Smith et al., 1997). Burning jungle patches was only used to clean the site of leaf litter and snakes, as often spiritual and ceremonial prohibitions applied (Mangglamarra et al., 1991). During the hot part of the dry season, September and October, and the end of flowering of Eucalyptus tetradonta and E. miniata, burning stopped, according to older Aboriginal people, because uncontrolled and tree canopy damaging fires would result, burning all day and through the night because of the hot winds (Russell-Smith et al., 1997). Past researches have noted Aboriginal burning as being organized and directed (Russell-Smith et al., 1997) and it has been described as fire stick farming by Jones (1969) and as environmental domestication by Yen (1989).
The objectives of traditional fire management practices of different Aboriginal groups across northern near coastal savanna are similar, according to accounts and reconstructions of available information (Crawford, 1982). An exception is possibly the more frequent burning of floodplains to reduce fire fuel loads thus decreasing humus accumulation in the soil which if present is likely to result in ground fires, causing damage such as burning Melaleuca tree roots (Russell-Smith et al., 1997; Russell-Smith et al., 2001).
Conservation reserve
Prescribe burning, the intentional burning of the landscape, has been practiced worldwide by indigenous people and current conservation reserve land managers alike but the term has been increasing used to refer to current burning in reserves (McGuffog et al., 2001; Tarawi, 1999). The intention of prescribed burns in conservation reserves is to reduce risk to life and property, and to reduce risk to fire sensitive species, both by decreasing the amount of fire fuel with the aim of reducing the intensity and damage of the next fire, while increasing the diversity of habitats (Dyer et al., 2001). The northern prescribed burning season starts with the beginning of the dry season in April to May, with most of the burning done in the early dry season when conditions are cooler and moister, resulting in easier to manage, low intensity fires (Penman et al., 2011). Fires effecting conservation reserves are lit for Indigenous, pastoral and conservation management reasons with reserves being prone to fire incursions, for example Litchfield and Nitmiluk National Parks and also intentionally lit by reserve staff for risk reduction and biodiversity management (Edwards et al., 2001). Conservation reserve fire management includes social, cultural and philosophical elements but often managers look to the ecological effects of fire when making fire decisions, ie the short term response and appearance of burnt vegetation, while the long term responses to different fire regimes need to be recognized as well in order to enable ecosystem sustainability (Andersen et al., 2003). Conservation reserve fire managers are also concerned with other species extinction, for example, small mammals are highly sensitive to frequent fires and their populations are threatened by the current fire regime of annual burning, and with food resource plants competing with weeds, needing particular fire management (Dyer et al., 2001). This should be less frequent and much smaller fires leaving a mosaic of unburnt country and additionally leaving large areas infrequently burnt (Andersen et al., 2012). The objectives of different conservation reserve managers may vary, with an increasing awareness among managers of ‘ecological burning’, that is, trying to ensure the conservation of biodiversity of species and the ecological function of habitats when using fire (Andersen, et al., 2003).
Pastoral Leasehold
Pastoral lands in northern Australia are often dominated by large irregular wildfires and are also burnt with prescribed burns by pastoralists, with information on current fire regimes improving through the use of satellite imagery (Dwyer et al., 2000). Pastoral areas generally can be divided into 3 types based on their rainfall and vegetation, that is >700mm rf per annum which is a woodland with tall grasses, 400–700mm rf with sparse woodlands and medium height grasses and <400mm rf which is a spinifex grassland with some trees and shrubs, with less frequent fires used as the rainfall decreases, ie. different fire management regimes are used in these areas (Dyer et al., 2001). The preferred time of burning of Spinifex grass is late in the dry season or very early wet season to ensure a hot intense burn which removes most of the old growth while still stimulating new shooting, being mindful of the risk of uncontrollable fire (Burrows et al., 2009). Early dry season fires are used to establish fire breaks. Fire is used, particularly on Spinifex grasses, to improve accessibility, palatability and nutrient value of grasses, all of these factors decrease with age (Dyer et al., 2001). Fire also stimulates growth of other non-spinifex grasses and forbs which are then available for grazing but earlier dry season less intense fires are preferred in the medium rainfall areas (Craig, 1999). In the higher rainfall area, early dry season fires are also used and these have the added benefit of maintaining biodiversity and subsequent animal health from increased nutrition from feeding on a wider range of species (Craig, 1997). Other reasons for burning include improving visibility during mustering, control of cattle movements ie. staying close to the feed, control of ticks, control of weeds and maintenance of grassland accessibility by reducing suckers of Melaleucas (Crowley & Garnett, 2000). Grazing pressure too early after fire is an important factor in all rainfall zones and can have detrimental effects on the grass species resilience (Craig, 1999). Perennial grasses suffer less damage from heading fires, which have a fire front burning in the direction of the wind, than backing fires that burn into the wind, because the heading fire has a greater speed with which the flames pass over the grass (Trollope, 1978). A smaller scale of fire is important to ensure survival of obligate seeder species which depend solely on seed to reproduce, so that plants in unburnt areas can reseed the burnt patches if repeated fires, with too short an interval between fires, have depleted the soil seed bank; alternatively, if the period without fire is too long and specimens die of age without the soil borne seed germinating which requires fire, populations can decline, thus variation in fire regimes is important (Morrison et al., 1995).
Conflicts and common ground
Potential points of conflict or difference between Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal pastoralists may occur around productivity, with large areas of Aboriginal land having no one living there and hence no regular fire regime or where Aboriginal people live on their land and set a fire regime but for social and cultural benefits and not only for commercial gain (Dyer et al., 2001). This applies to Aboriginal owned pastoral properties where the emphasis is on maintaining Aboriginal society and ways of living on country, and keeping Aboriginal ownership of the land, not just for maximum cattle feed production, where this may be seen by non-Aboriginals as not being productive or as not making wise land use decisions, but these social and cultural benefits are more highly valued by Aboriginal people than monetary results (Gill, 2005).
Conflicts of interest between conservation managers and pastoralists are seen in the escape of fires from National Parks into pastoral properties, this was recorded by Crowley & Garnett (2000) as many pastoralists interviewed said they had vast tracts of their properties burnt by fires from National Parks, or lit by tourists or inexperienced neighbours.
Common ground within biological diversity conservation reserves in the understanding of fire regimes is demonstrated in the aim of many conservation reserve fire managers to maintaining much of their landscape in a similar manner as was practiced prior to European settlement, that is using smaller patchy fires (Dyer et al., 2001). Thus, can be seen a growth in the popularity of trying to use the Aboriginal burning practice. Increasing knowledge of the features of Indigenous burning that shaped our ecosystems is an important strategy for biological conservation (Whitehead et al., 2003).
Dissemination of existing knowledge about fire regimes should be address to achieve common ground, whether from Aboriginal Elders, pastoralists or fire ecologists, that information should be learnt by the more inexperienced parties involved, thus stakeholders knowledge and attitudes can then move towards burning for specific goals, such as biodiversity conservation, increased pasture quality or safety rather than the command and control type method of burning to a target season and fire frequency (Edwards et al., 2008).
Recommended community processes and principles to ensure an effective and well supported fire management planning process.
Conflicts of interest between these groups of Aboriginal, pastoral and conservation areas can be reduced or overcome by the development of effective and well-supported fire management plans which should include what areas are to be burnt, what type of burn is required, the appropriate weather and fuel, with personnel being prepared with ignition sources, for example kerosene drip torches, wind and weather proof matches, trackside capsule launchers or aerial dropped incendiaries for inaccessible areas (McGuffog et al., 2001). Community consultation processes may be used to focus all the parties concerns on achieving agreed aims and objectives, then working out the spatial and temporal practicalities of the fire regime management, after which monitoring whether those aims have been achieved and then providing feedback, and changes in management if needed. This model of engagement involves the principles of capacity building ie. increasing the ability of people to manage problems; participation and consultation with all parties because fire doesn’t necessarily stop at tenure boundaries; and adaptive management by evaluating and learning, adjusting, planning, and doing (Jones, 2009) since we don’t have all the answers yet and need to change while managing as we all learn and progress (Myers et al., 2004).
Capacity building includes five propositions as described by Macadam et al. (2004) which are: maintaining a focus on outcomes, engage with the relevant communities, collaboration between all the parties, political and institutional commitment and continuing availability of skilled persons. The Bribie Island Fire Management System (Qld Parks & Wildlife Service, 2004) demonstrates these propositions by the inclusion and consultation with many groups including the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, Department of Primary Industries Forestry, Caboolture Shire Council, Queensland Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy, Queensland Fire and Rescue Service Bribie Island, Traditional Owners and the community in management decisions, and these groups would be able to provide on going support and skilled personnel.
Myers et al., (2004) has written a list of general principles that can be used to prioritize actions when forming a management plan starting with building a baseline of prior fire spatial and temporal information and whether the fire regime has been appropriate; a geographic spread that includes all areas and land tenures covered in the plan; a movement towards generality in the design of the plan so that it can be transferred to other fire areas: assessment and priority given to time critical projects for example species, habitat or Indigenous knowledge; recognition of the cost to benefit of changing fire management such as weed and pest management or protection of Indigenous significant sites; and capacity building should be part of the plan to increase the ability of the community to achieve the actions of the plan. The Tarawi Nature Reserve Fire Management Plan (NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service, 1999) provides examples of assessment and priority given to time critical projects with the monitoring of the old growth mallee eucalypt and spinifex grass association areas providing habitat for lizards and small mammals, also the bird count surveys, the post fire grazing impacts on the community particularly one of our native pines Callitris verrucosa.
Conclusion
Time spent in consultation, inclusion and fostering ownership of a fire management plan by all the stakeholder parties will prove beneficial to the environment and to the people and built assets that the plan is designed to manage (Macadam et al., 2004). Such a strategy should identify fire management processes in order to protect lives and built assets and the natural environment including Indigenous heritage sites (Qld Parks & Wildlife Service, 2004). Thus, a burning plan can be established with agreed aims and achieving these aims can then be assessed by measuring protection and biodiversity gains.
A variation in fire regimes, both spatially and temporally, will provide the greatest variety of habitats and resources to support ecosystems, as April Bright said “If you don’t look after country, country won’t look after you” (Bright, 1995). This regime should be mostly small, low intensity fires creating a mosaic of burnt and unburnt patches through to some high intensity fires which can burn woody material but are kept smaller because of the presence of burnt patches, thus carefully maintaining the country with fires (Bowman, 2019).
Foot note: This paper was one of my last assessments when studying for my Bachelor of Environmental Science Degree at Charles Darwin University.
References:
Andersen, A. N., Cook, G. D., & Williams, R. J. (2003). Synthesis: fire ecology and adaptive conservation management. In Fire in Tropical Savannas (pp. 153–164). Springer, New York, NY.
Andersen, A. N., Woinarski, J. C., & Parr, C. L. (2012). Savanna burning for biodiversity: fire management for faunal conservation in Australian tropical savannas. Austral Ecology, 37(6), 658–667.
Bowman, D. (2019, July 31). Pyrography and Fire Management. Retrieved from http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/lectures/bowman
Bowman, D. M. J. S., Wilson, B. A., & Davis, G. W. (1988). Response of Callitris intratropica RT Baker & HG Smith to fire protection, Murgenella, northern Australia. Australian Journal of Ecology, 13(2), 147–159.
Braithwaite, R. W. (1996). Biodiversity and fire in the savanna landscape. In Biodiversity and savanna ecosystem processes (pp. 121–140). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Braithwaite, R. W., & Estbergs, J. A. (1985). Fire patterns and woody vegetation trends in the Alligator Rivers region of northern Australia.
Bright, A. (1995). Burn Grass. In: Country in Flames: Proceedings of the 1994 symposium on biodiversity and fire in north Australia, (D.B. Rose ed), pp. 59–62. Biodiversity Series, Paper №3, Biodiversity Unit, Department of the Environment, Canberra.
Burrows, N. D., Ward, B., & Robinson, A. (2009). Fuel dynamics and fire spread in spinifex grasslands of the Western Desert. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland, The, 115, 69.
Craig, A. B. (1997). A review of information on the effects of fire in relation to the management of rangelands in the Kimberley high-rainfall zone. Tropical Grasslands, 31, 161–187.
Craig, A.B. (1999) Fire management of rangelands in the Kimberley low-rainfall zone: a review. Rangeland Journal 21: 39–70.
Crawford, I. M. (1982). Traditional Aboriginal plant resources in the Kalumburu area: aspects in ethno-economics. Western Australian Museum.
Crowley, G. M., & Garnett, S. T. (2000). Changing fire management in the pastoral lands of Cape York Peninsula of northeast Australia, 1623 to 1996. Australian Geographical Studies, 38(1), 10–26.
Dwyer, E., Pinnock, S., Grégoire, J. M., & Pereira, J. M. C. (2000). Global spatial and temporal distribution of vegetation fire as determined from satellite observations. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 21(6–7), 1289–1302.
Dyer, R., Jeremy Russell-Smith, Tony Grice, Tim McGuffog, Peter Cooke and Dean Yibarbuk, ch. 5 in: Dyer, R., Jacklyn, P., Partridge, I., Russell-Smith, J. & Williams, R. (2001) Savanna Burning: understanding and using fire in northern Australia. Tropical Savannas CRC, Darwin.
Edwards A., Hauser P., Anderson M., McCartney J., Armstrong M., Thackway R., Allan G., Hempel C. Russell-Smith J. (2001) A tale of two parks: contemporary fire regimes of Litchfield and Nitmiluk National Parks, monsoonal northern Australia. International Journal of Wildland Fire 10, 79–89. https://doi-org.ezproxy.cdu.edu.au/10.1071/WF01002
Edwards, G. P., Allan, G. E., Brock, C., Duguid, A., Gabrys, K., & Vaarzon-Morel, P. (2008). Fire and its management in central Australia. The Rangeland Journal, 30(1), 109–121.
Gill, N. (2005) Aboriginal Pastoralism, Social Embeddedness, and Cultural Continuity in Central Australia, Society and Natural Resources, 18:8, 699–714, DOI:10.1080/08941920591005089 https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920591005089
Jones, G, 2009, The adaptive management system for the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area — linking management planning with effectiveness evaluation. Chapter 13 in Allan, C. and Stankey, G. (eds), Adaptive Environmental Management. A Practitioners Guide. Co-published by Springer and CSIRO Publishing, 351p, ISBN 978–1–4020–9631–0. Dordrecht The Netherlands, and Collingwood Australia. Retrieved from Parks Tasmania https://www.parks.tas.gov.au/file.aspx?id=15135
Jones, R. (1969). Fire-stick farming. Australian Natural History, 16(7), 224–228.
Macadam, R., Drinan, J., Inall, N., & McKenzie, B. (2004). Growing the Capital of Rural Australia. The task of capacity building. RIRDC Publication, (04/034).
McGuffog, T., Rodd Dyer and Brent Williams ch. 6 in: Dyer, R., Jacklyn, P., Partridge, I., Russell-Smith, J. & Williams, R. (2001) Savanna Burning: understanding and using fire in northern Australia. Tropical Savannas CRC, Darwin.
Mangglamarra, G., Burbidge, A. A., & Fuller, P. J. (1991). Wunambal words for rainforest and other Kimberley plants and animals. Kimberley Rainforests of Australia’. (Eds NL McKenzie, RB Johnston and PG Kendrick.) pp, 413–421.
Murphy, P. G., & Lugo, A. E. (1986). Ecology of tropical dry forest. Annual review of ecology and systematics, 17(1), 67–88.
Miyanishi, K., & Kellman, M. (1986). The role of fire in recruitment of two neotropical savanna shrubs, Miconia albicans and Clidemia sericea. Biotropica, 224–230.
Morrison, D. A., Cary, G. J., Pengelly, S. M., Ross, D. G., Mullins, B. J., Thomas, C. R., & Anderson, T. S. (1995). Effects of fire frequency on plant species composition of sandstone communities in the Sydney region: Inter‐fire interval and time‐since‐fire. Australian Journal of Ecology, 20(2), 239–247.
Myers, B., Allan, G., Bradstock, R., Dias, L., Duff, G., Jacklyn, P., Landsberg, J., Morrison, J., Russell-Smith, J. & Williams, R. (2004) Fire Management in the Rangelands. Tropical Savannas Management CRC, Darwin.
Naveh, Z. (1975). The evolutionary significance of fire in the Mediterranean region. Vegetation, 29(3), 199–208.
NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service (1999) Fire Management Plan Tarawi Nature Reserve. NSW NPWS, Sydney.
Penman, T. D., Christie, F. J., Andersen, A. N., Bradstock, R. A., Cary, G. J., Henderson, M. K., … & York, A. (2011). Prescribed burning: how can it work to conserve the things we value? International Journal of Wildland Fire, 20(6), 721–733.
Queensland Parks & Wildlife Service (2004) Fire Management System for Bribie Island. QPWS, Brisbane.
Russell-Smith, J., Lucas, D., Gapindi, M., Gunbunuka, B., Kaparigia, N., Namingum, G., Lucas, K., Giulani, P. & Chaloupka, G. (1997) Aboriginal resource utilisation and fire management practice in western Arnhem Land, monsoonal northern Australia: notes for pre-history, lessons for the future. Human Ecology 25: 159–195.
Russell-Smith, J., Yates, C., Edwards, A., Allan, G. E., Cook, G. D., Cooke, P., … & Smith, R. (2003). Contemporary fire regimes of northern Australia, 1997–2001: change since Aboriginal occupancy, challenges for sustainable management. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 12(4), 283–297.
Russell-Smith, J., Tony Start and John Woinarski, ch. 4 in: Dyer, R., Jacklyn, P., Partridge, I., Russell-Smith, J. & Williams, R. (2001) Savanna Burning: understanding and using fire in northern Australia. Tropical Savannas CRC, Darwin.
Stocker, G. C., & Mott, J. J. (1981). Fire in the tropical forests and woodlands of northern Australia.
Tarawi Nature Reserve Fire Management Plan (1999) Lower Darling District. NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service. Buronga, NSW.
McGuffog, T., Rodd Dyer and Brent Williams ch. 6 in: Dyer, R., Jacklyn, P., Partridge, I., Russell-Smith, J. & Williams, R. (2001) Savanna Burning: understanding and using fire in northern Australia. Tropical Savannas CRC, Darwin.
Trollope, W. S. W. (1978). Fire behaviour–a preliminary study. Proceedings of the Annual Congresses of the Grassland Society of Southern Africa, 13(1), 123–128.
Vigilante, T., & Bowman, D. M. J. S. (2004). Effects of individual fire events on the flower production of fruit-bearing tree species, with reference to Aboriginal people’s management and use, at Kalumburu, North Kimberley, Australia. Australian Journal of Botany, 52(3), 405–416.
Williams, J. E. (2017). Fire and biodiversity: understanding and managing the impacts of fire on forest biodiversity in south eastern Australia. In Ecology, Uncertainty and Policy (pp. 191–208). Routledge.
Whitehead, P. J., Bowman, D. M., Preece, N., Fraser, F., & Cooke, P. (2003). Customary use of fire by indigenous peoples in northern Australia: its contemporary role in savanna management. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 12(4), 415–425.
Yen, D. E. (1989). The domestication of environment. In Harris, D. R, and Hillman, G. C. (eds.), Foraging and Farming: The Evolution of Plant Exploitation. Unwin Hyman, London.
