thanx Denise & John W,
in my earlier post, all I was alluding to was that there are traditional
indigenous burning practices (or mosaic-type) burns, & then there are other
burning practices which are the ones that have been a disaster in many parts of
the country, including within Kakadu NP.
as others have pointed out very clearly on this thread since my comment, it is
plainly obvious to anyone having seen Kakadu recently that it is not being
burned using traditional indigenous practices, as Denise has just pointed out -
that's the disgrace I mentioned!!
cheers, martin cachard
> From:
> Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 09:42:32 +0930
> To:
> CC:
> Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] A study of the conservation benefits of
> indigenous Australian land manag
>
> I’m not sure how much input traditional owners have into burning in Kakadu.
> I know they’re angry about a lot of things, but I don’t know about burning.
>
> However, burning the same area every year is not traditional to Kunwinjku
> people of west Arnhem Land who are related to the Mirrar and other TOs of
> Kakadu. The only exceptions are along roads, and also the outskirts of
> outstations which were burnt regularly because they told me, of snakes.
> Elders would say when we visited a certain area, that that country needed to
> be "cleaned up". Once it was a place they hadn’t visited for fifteen years.
> However, I found that younger people would adopt burning practices from
> non-indigenous rangers thinking they were traditional.
>
> Because of the regular burning in Kakadu and elsewhere our typical
> fire-tolerant vegetation is being replaced by fire-encouraging plants. This
> can be see along the Arnhem Highway - where the herbaceous understorey of
> open forest has largely been replaced by grass, generally annual speargrass.
> Broad-leaved mid-storey trees and shrubs also seem to be disappearing leaving
> the forest with little cover for terrestrial fauna which are then easily
> picked off by raptors and cats.
>
> Eucalypts that are regularly fire-scarred at some point admit fire. Then,
> being hollow, they’re burnt through, and down comes the tree. While that log
> is now shelter for terrestrial fauna that it’s on the ground makes it
> unsuitable for hollow-nesting birds. And it takes a dominant like
> Woollybutt (Eucalyptus miniata) 30-50 years to develop decent hollows.
>
> Once those trees are gone a savanna woodland becomes a savannah. Weeds such
> as Gamba and Mission grasses are speeding up the process in the Top End.
> Hence my fear for Partridge Pigeon and other species.
>
> Just a thought - I wonder if places like Gunlom are being fired annually by
> rangers to make them safe for the visitors who climb the escarpment.
>
> Denise Lawungkurr Goodfellow
> PO Box 71
> Darwin River, NT, Australia 0841
>
> PhD candidate
>
>
> Founding Member: Ecotourism Australia
> Founding Member: Australian Federation of Graduate Women Northern Territory
> 043 8650 835
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 13 Aug 2014, at 9:12 am, John Weigel <> wrote:
>
> > Hi Laurie,
> >
> > You are right about confusion of the issue. I mistakenly thought you were
> > supportive of the current fire regime which is implemented in large part
> > from advice of the traditional owners.
> >
> > Whilst the traditional burning processes must have had a drastic impact on
> > the landscape they colonised, we have apparently had a stable and balanced
> > environmental scenario at the time of European settlement. The current
> > ravaging of Kakadu is defended by the managers of this World Heritage
> > resource as being in keeping with traditional practices. This is the 'other
> > side' I was mistakenly identifying in my post.
> >
> > Sorry about that!
> >
> > Best wishes,
> > John
> >
> > John Weigel AM
> > Australian Reptile Park
> > PO 737 Gosford NSW 2250
> > (02) 4340 1022
> >
> > www.reptilepark.com.au
> > www.devilark.com.au
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 13/08/2014, at 9:10 AM, Laurie Knight <> wrote:
> >
> >> G’day John
> >>
> >> What is the "other side”? You are confusing the current fire regime with
> >> traditional indigenous land management, which was the subject of my
> >> original post.
> >>
> >> The point you are trying to make is that current fire management is
> >> inappropriate. That is a totally different matter.
> >>
> >> Regards, Laurie.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 13 Aug 2014, at 8:57 am, John Weigel <> wrote:
> >>
> >>> G'day Laurie,
> >>>
> >>> With the utmost respect, on this issue, I've got to take the other side
> >>> of this important conservation crisis, and suggest that if you haven't
> >>> visited Kakadu in the past five or six years, you might be in for a shock
> >>> when you next search for ground-dwelling fauna of any sort - particularly
> >>> reptiles and small mammals. It would be hard to find a burn scar less
> >>> than 10-fold the figure you have quoted. In fact, it can be a challenge
> >>> to find an area that size that HASN'T been burned in past few years.
> >>> Instead of a 'mosaic' approach based on allowing proper maturing of the
> >>> rapidly receding spinifex habitats to reach maturity, the current
> >>> management process in Kakadu is to apply 'mosaic' burns to any areas that
> >>> have been spared far less time than required to see return of complex
> >>> ecologies including long-lived reptiles (and presumably grass wrens). In
> >>> short, the traditional burning by nomadic tribes was not assisted by
> >>> Cessna 'blanket' fire-drops, Toyotas and automatic lighters.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Content preview: G?day Martin Are you suggesting that Aborigines haven?t
> >>> been
> >>> lighting fires at Kakadu for thousands of years or that traditional
> >>> fires
> >>> are hot burns? You might like to read the article. The point of the
> >>> article
> >>> is that "Martu-set fires average about 10 acres -- a small fraction of
> >>> the
> >>> size of fires ignited by lightning ... that patchy vegetation created by
> >>> intentional fires reduce the likelihood of devastating, large blazes.?
> >>> [...]
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Content analysis details: (-2.6 points, 5.0 required)
> >>>
> >>> pts rule name description
> >>> ---- ----------------------
> >>> --------------------------------------------------
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> >>> http://www.dnswl.org/
> >>> , no
> >>> trust
> >>> [211.29.132.249 listed in
> >>> list.dnswl.org
> >>> ]
> >>> -0.7 RP_MATCHES_RCVD Envelope sender domain matches handover relay
> >>> domain
> >>> -1.9 BAYES_00 BODY: Bayes spam probability is 0 to 1%
> >>> [score: 0.0000]
> >>> X-Spam-Flag: NO
> >>> X-Mailman-Approved-At: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 17:32:30 -0400
> >>> Subject: A study of the conservation benefits of
> >>> indigenous Australian land management practices
> >>> X-BeenThere:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.15
> >>> Precedence: list
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> John Weigel AM
> >>> Australian Reptile Park
> >>> PO 737 Gosford NSW 2250
> >>> (02) 4340 1022
> >>>
> >>> www.reptilepark.com.au
> >>> www.devilark.com.au
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> <image001.jpg>
> >>>
> >>
> >
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