Indigenous Fire Ecology

How do people shape a landscape differently than 'natural' forces? Our lab is using satellite images and aerial photography to document the contemporary and historical shifts in fire regime as people hunt, gather and burn in the spinifex grasslands of Western Australia. We've been able to show that landscapes on which aboriginal people are actively hunting and burning are more diverse, support higher populations of keystone species such as kangaroo and monitor lizards, and protect more habitat from burning in summer lightning fires.

Martu believe that colonially imposed abandonment of their country between 1960 to 1980 resulted in a host of native plant and animal extinctions due to the loss of important ecological functions that people supply. They believe, as their Dreaming traditions specify, that to return to country, to burn, hunt, and gather traditional resources, will improve resource availability and increase the complexity, diversity , and stability of species interactions, building the health not only of the country, but the people who are an integral part of it. The data we have collected and analyzed support this perspective: Martu do supply important positive ecological inputs, especially through the use of landscape fire. Our prior work has shown that traditional patch mosaic burning, hunting, and gathering have significantly positive ecological impacts on a number of native species, including monitor lizards, dingoes, and kangaroos, and that these inputs are not designed to manage resources or landscapes, but are an emergent property of individual foraging strategies involving the use of fire.