Aboriginal fire management (fire-stick farming)
Gestión del paisaje con fuego (fire-stick farming)
- Date
- desde c. 10 000 BCE (discutido, quizá mucho antes) · confidence low
- Place
- Mainland Australia, Australia
- Credited to
- Aboriginal Australian peoples
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Controlled, periodic burning of vegetation to open up grazing for game, encourage edible plants and reduce devastating wildfires. It is one of the most extensive and long-lived land-management practices known, today revived as cultural burning.
The term 'fire-stick farming' was coined by Rhys Jones in 1969. When it began and how far it extended are debated: charcoal records point to fire regime changes tens of millennia ago, but attributing them to humans rather than climate is controversial.
What it led to
- mosaic landscapes that European settlers took for pristine nature
- present-day cultural burning to prevent megafires
- debate on the human role in megafauna extinction and vegetation change