Developing cross-cultural knowledge ('right way' science) to support Indigenous cultural fire management

Abstract

<p>For millennia, Indigenous peoples have maintained relationships with their environments and managed resources through complex cultural systems. Over the last few centuries, in settler colonial nations, this connection has been and continues to be disrupted. In some areas, Indigenous cultural fire management was prevented and replaced with Western fire strategies such as fire suppression, exclusion and hazard reduction. Despite this, a global movement has begun to restore and renew Indigenous cultural fire management. This thesis investigates ways in which Indigenous rangers and Western scientists can work together to co-produce cross-cultural knowledge ('right way' science) to support and provide documented evidence for the benefits and challenges of Indigenous cultural fire management.</p> <p>Indigenous cultural fire management has been re-established at the landscape scale across large areas of northern and central Australia. In southeast Australia, a renewal of Indigenous cultural fire management is underway. In Chapter 2, a systematic review of the academic and grey literature aimed to describe the current status of contemporary Indigenous cultural fire management in southeast Australia. Seventy documented cultural fire management projects were found with the potential for significant upscaling. Over the last decade, eight policies related to Indigenous fire management have been developed by state and territory governments in southeast Australia, with varying levels of implementation. Seventy-eight benefits and 22 barriers were identified in relation to cultural fire management. In the cases where cultural fire management has been successfully reinstated as an ongoing practice, Indigenous leadership, extraordinary relationships, strong agreements and transformational change were identified as drivers of success. For cultural fire management to grow, more funding, policy implementation, long-term commitment, Indigenous control and decision making, mentoring, training and research are required.</p> <p>While recognition of Indigenous biocultural knowledge is increasing globally, processes for sharing and understanding Indigenous knowledge are limited, and could contribute to improved management of social–ecological systems. In Chapter 3, a case study was presented of the Yugul Mangi rangers of the South East Arnhem Land Indigenous Protected Area (IPA), Northern Territory. The aim of the study was to share Indigenous knowledge of fire, and develop a fire and seasons calendar to improve adaptive fire management and communication. We undertook participatory action research and semi-structured interviews with rangers and Elders during 2016 and 2019. Results indicated that Indigenous rangers effectively used cross-cultural science (including local and Traditional Ecological Knowledge alongside Western science) to manage fire. Fire management was a key driver in the production of bush tucker (wild food) resources and affected other cultural and ecological values. A need for increased education and awareness about Indigenous burning was consistently emphasised. To address this, the project participants co-produced the <i>Yugul Mangi Faiya En Sisen Kelenda</i> (Yugul Mangi Fire and Seasons Calendar) that drew on Indigenous knowledge of seasonal biocultural indicators to guide the rangers' fire management planning.</p> <p>In northern New South Wales, the Banbai people are in the process of renewing their cultural fire management at Wattleridge IPA. Chapter 4 described this reintroduction of cultural burning and its impact on the cultural keystone species, the short-beaked echidna (<i>Tachyglossus aculeatus</i>). Banbai rangers and non-Indigenous scientists conducted crosscultural monitoring using a Before–After–Control–Impact (BACI) experimental design to measure echidna activity and key habitat features. Results indicated that the low intensity cultural fire in Wattleridge IPA did not impact the echidna or its habitat, whereas a nearby higher intensity fire in Warra National Park reduced echidna foraging area, possibly to avoid predation.</p> <p>Cross-cultural monitoring and BACI design was also used to monitor the impact of cultural burning versus wildfire on the threatened plant, Backwater grevillea (<i>Grevillea scortechinii</i> subsp. <i>sarmentosa</i>) at Wattleridge IPA. As described in Chapter 5, cultural burning resulted in less mature grevillea mortality and less impact on reproductive output than wildfire. Both fires stimulated a mass germination event but the cultural burn preserved a multi-aged population while the wildfire killed 99.6% of mature shrubs. Careful management is needed to avoid local extinction of the grevillea following the impact of wildfire. In this case, the Banbai rangers adopted the grevillea into their cultural management framework in order to conserve it. Quantitative assessment of fuel load changes resulting from cultural burning, hazard reduction and wildfire indicated that fuel loads were reduced by all fire treatments, although the cultural burn was less severe than other fires.</p> <p>Chapter 6 aimed to synthesise evidence from various knowledges (archaeological, ethnohistorical, traditional Indigenous, ecological, cross-cultural and local) to co-produce <i>Winba</i> = <i>Fire</i> (Banbai Fire and Seasons Calendar). This chapter demonstrated the sharing and weaving of different knowledge systems through numerous iterations of action learning cycles to form a multiple evidence base to guide the Banbai rangers' cultural fire management at Wattleridge IPA.</p> <p>The aim of Chapter 7 was to compare the impact on dry sclerophyll vegetation of cultural burning at Wattleridge IPA with hazard reduction burning at Warra National Park. Composition, cover, abundance and species richness of dry sclerophyll vegetation was compared using a BACI design. This study found that low severity cultural burning and moderate severity hazard reduction burning did not have a significant impact on full floristics or herbaceous vegetation. Only the hazard reduction burn had a significant impact on shrub and juvenile tree (woody species) cover and composition. The abundance of woody species was significantly affected by both fires, driven by a mass germination of 'seeder' species, particularly after the cultural burn. The long unburnt fire regime at Wattleridge IPA may have made vegetation communities more responsive to fire than the more frequently burnt vegetation at Warra National Park, such that the cultural burn had a greater impact on woody species abundance.</p> <p>In conclusion, this study provided quantitative and qualitative evidence of some of the cultural, social, ecological and wildfire management outcomes of Indigenous cultural fire management. Cultural burning promoted regeneration, did not burn the canopy, reduced fuel loads and had less impact on wildlife habitat than other fires. Cultural burning brings not only a practice of fire management, but a holistic philosophy that underpins how land, wildlife, people and the cosmos interrelate. This study was limited to two case studies and provided locally specific results, which could be transferable and investigated on a larger scale through an expanded research program. Future research should prioritise supporting Indigenous research priorities and methodologies, which have been clearly articulated. This study demonstrated that Indigenous cultural fire knowledge and practice is alive, even in areas where the impacts of colonisation were severe, and is able to be renewed under supportive circumstances. This process of revitalising culture, caring for Country and co-producing knowledge is relevant for many Indigenous communities around the world. With wildfire issues escalating, Indigenous fire and land management is now recognised, locally and globally, as one component of a multi-faceted solution, which must also address issues such as climate change and disaster management. The transdisciplinary, collective knowledge coproduced through this study will be well-suited to increasingly complex, volatile and unpredictable conditions of the Pyrocene, due to its dynamic and adaptive nature.</p>