- Title:
-
Fire and Cultural Resource Management: Aboriginal Wetland Burning in Kakadu National Park
- Date:
- September 2008
- Organisations
- AFAC 2008 Conference
- Authors:
- P. Christophersen; S. McGregor; A. Andersen
- Location:
- Australia, NT, Australia
Overview
The International Bushfire Research Conference 2008 - incorporating The 15th annual AFAC Conference, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Aboriginal Australians successfully lived with and used landscape fire for tens of thousands of years prior to European settlement, and such fire management remains an integral part of Aboriginal life throughout much of northern Australia. Although Aboriginal fire management has been severly disrupted, much of the traditional knowledge relating to fire management has been retained, and the opportunity still exists to re-apply such knowledge to landscape management.
The Bushfire CRC has been working with a family of traditional owners in Kakadu National Park to examine the biodiversity and cultural benefits of Aboriginal fire management as it is re-applied to floodplains associated with the South Alligator River.
Kakadu has some of the worlds most important wetlands, and they are a focus of Kakadu's tourism industry. They also provide extremely important food and other cultural resources for local Aboriginal people. Since buffalo were removed from Kakadu in the 1980's, many of these wetlands have been choked out by the dominant native grass, severly reducing the biodiversity values of the wetlands, and the cultural values of these wetlands for Aboriginal people.
This project serves as an internationally significant model for intergrating Indigenous and Western Knowledge systems to achieve positive outcomes for both traditional resource use and the conservation of biodiversity.
