For the first time, traditional owners have used aerial burning technology to keep country healthy in two of Australia’s most remote areas.
Earlier this year, senior traditional land owners in the southern and central Tanami trialled the ‘Raindance’ machine, which allows them to drop small incendiary devices from a low flying helicopter this year.
In the trails, the traditional owners directed burning on their family lands near Lake Mackay and Lake Surprise and burnt a total of around 50,000 hectares of country in hundreds of patch burns under mild conditions. It is hoped to expand these trials next year.
People were very pleased with the results of their burning work.
They were able to first visit sites on their country and then burn lots of small fires exactly where they wanted.
It is the only way that traditional owners of very remote, inaccessible lands can do enough burning to keep their country healthy.
The CLC sourced funding for the $20,000 machine from the federal Caring for Our Country and Natural Disaster Mitigation programs.
Aboriginal Rangers and CLC Land Management staff were trained in operating the machine in Alice Springs before the trials started.
The CLC hopes to be able to support interested traditional owners in other remote areas to trial the aerial burning technology on their county in the future.
