FORESTS
Aussie Controlled Forest Burns are now “Cultural Burns”?
19 hours ago Eric Worrall 33 Comments
Essay by Eric Worrall
Greens frequently oppose controlled burns to manage flammable forest fuel buildups. But would greens oppose the traditional wisdom of an indigenous “cultural burn”?
Esperance rangers hope cultural burns could buffer remote islands from climate change impacts
ABC Esperance / By Emily JB Smith
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Figure of Eight Island was once home to Australia’s western-most breeding population of short-tailed shearwaters.
But the colony disappeared after a lightning strike sparked a fire that quietly ravaged the island in 2019.
Ms Graham, a ranger at the Esperance Tjaltjraak Native Title Aboriginal Corporation, was part of the team who visited in 2020 to find the birds gone and habitat destroyed.
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Three years after the blaze, they found little evidence of birds returning.
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“Seabird colonies are actually pretty slow to recover,” Dr Lavers said.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/12/24/aussie-controlled-forest-burns-are-now-cultural-burns/