Fire management

 
For many thousands of years, fire management has played a critical role in the lives of Central Australia’s Aboriginal people. For Aboriginal people there were and are many uses for fire that serve physical, social, cultural, and spiritual, as well as ecological, needs.

Regular patch burning reduced the risk of wildfires, assisted in the hunting process by forcing wildlife out of vegetation and promoted fresh growth of vegetation. It also ensured a fine-grained mosaic of varied ages of vegetation which promoted the success and resilience of a range of plant and animal species, many of which are now rare and endangered.

Satellite photo taken in February 2008. this shows an important island of
unburnt, old vegetation in reticulate dune-fields south of
the Lake Amadeus wetland chain, surrounded by country burnt in
the widespread wildfires of 2002

With the loss of people from vast areas of the landscape, the grasses grew unchecked and this resulted in same-aged vegetation with similar flammability levels across many hundreds of kilometres of arid Australia. Without the regular burning of small areas, the risk of wildfires grows and in turn, the threat to biodiversity, cultural sites and infrastructure in the area.

The contribution wildfires make to the Northern Territory’s carbon footprint is also enormous and another reason to prevent them. In 2009, the CLC and TOs from the northern Tanami will be working with CSIRO to develop a sampling framework and methodology for field collection by community-based ranger groups of the priority biophysical data that is required to inform a model of arid-zone fire management for greenhouse gas mitigation.

Today, an increasing emphasis is being placed on fire management in the region by combining the knowledge of thousands of years of Aboriginal practise with remote sensing technology; contemporary fire management techniques and the expertise of Bushfires NT.

The CLC’s land management section is involved in several projects that implement on-the-ground, strategic fire management activities aimed at raising remote indigenous community awareness of contemporary concepts and issues surrounding the use and fire management. In particular, the mitigation of uncontrolled wildfire on arid-zone wetlands; developing links and greater collaboration between relevant agencies and traditional Aboriginal land owners and implementing best practice fire management activities.

Significant capacity has been developed in Aboriginal Ranger groups and links formed between Traditional Owners (through the Central Land Council) and Bushfires NT. This allows both Traditional Owners and Aboriginal ranger groups to be involved in the decision making process for fire management across vast areas of Aboriginal land trust lands. That cooperation has led to increased awareness in many remote communities of the requirements to actively manage cultural sites and biologically significant areas for fire mitigation.

Traditional Owners have been made more aware of the assistance and expertise available to them through the Bushfires NT and the CLC through this process of engagement and have been involved in both planning for best practice fire management in their local areas. Examples include the Ntaria Strategic Fire Management project, which traverses Aboriginal land, mining lease and national park. The project involved constructing strategically located firebreaks linking previously burnt areas and making use of natural firebreaks such as cliff faces. The planning involved the NT Bushfires Council, Parks and Wildlife, Magellan Petroleum and police. The work is being carried out by the local Ntaria ranger group.

The CLC has also worked on the Tanami wetlands wildfire mitigation project, which is within the Lajamanu and Tanami IPAs. It’s hoped regular burning in a strategic manner can be advantageous for threatened or declining species such as the bilby, great desert skink and emu and protect the breeding habitats of migratory and nomadic waterbirds.

Species of flora and fauna, cultural sites and infrastructure have been threatened by altered fire regimes, in particular the lack of regular mosaic burning in key habitats poses a significant threat to the survival of many species.

The fire mitigation programs the CLC has been involved in are important first steps in addressing this key threatening process across vast areas of the Central Australian landscape.
The importance of cooperative fire mitigation works in Central Australia is recognised by both the Territory and Federal governments. On-ground activities are funded by the Natural Heritage Trust with a contribution from the federal Natural Disaster Mitigation Program.

More recently, Traditional Owners with support from CLC and BFNT are trialling an annual early season, facilitated fire planning cycle, which aims to prioritise fire mitigation and landscape enhancement projects throughout the northern and southern Tanami.

In 2009, representatives from the communities of Lajamanu, Kalkarindji, Tennant Creek, Yuendumu, Willowra and Nyirripi will meet together for the first time to address the larger issues concerning fire management across Aboriginal Land in the Tanami regions.

Other work includes the commissioning of a fire management strategy for the Peterman ALT in 2008, which informs cooperative fire management strategies based on biological assets and a fire management plan for the Kaltukatjara rangers to use in 2008-2009 to augment the cultural burning being undertaken and directed by Traditional Owners with burning for biodiversity and asset protection outcomes.