EnvironmentOceania and Australia
Fire management in Australia
A continent shaped by controlled fire for forty thousand years
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When the practice ceased after 1788, the vegetation changed and fires grew larger and more dangerous. After the destructive seasons of recent decades the knowledge has been taken up again in public fire management. It is among the clearest cases that "untouched nature" is often a landscape somebody tended for a long time.
For children
Aboriginal peoples burned the landscape in small controlled patches at different seasons. That kept big fires away, produced new grass which drew game, and shaped which plants grew. Australia's country is partly made by people.
Connects to
Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org