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Firestick

Firestick by Adam Shand

Tink has been following the fires in Australia quite closely. I have a harder time, I reach emotional saturation and want to turn away from it. This morning, I was jolted awake by the picture to the right. All I could think about is what it must have sounded like on that abandoned street.

My way of processing the horror of what’s happening in Australia is to try and tell the story of these modern fires from a historical perspective of land management. I mean no disrespect to my sisters and brothers currently struggling with the reality of these fires. If we can understand the root causes, I see the possibility of individual agency and collective action.

The beginning is a bit slow, I hope you’ll bear with me for a few paragraphs.

One way to divide the world is between brittle and humid climates.

Humid climates, like much of New Zealand and Europe, have rainfall throughout the year. There is a wetter season and a drier season, but there is enough moisture for plants and microbes1 to stay active for most of the year. Without human intervention, these climates generally end up as woodlands.

Brittle climates, like much of Australia, North America and Africa, have distinct wet and dry seasons. A short, intense rainy season and a long dry season. During the dry season plants and microbes go dormant due to the lack of moisture. Without human intervention, these climates generally end up as grasslands.

One of the ways that microbes increase soil fertility is by breaking down plant material and returning nutrients to the soil. If microbes are dormant (or absent) nutrients are released into the atmosphere rather than returned to the soil.2 The more nutrients end up in the atmosphere the less fertile the soil becomes. As fertility declines so does the quantity and quality of life which the ecosystem can support.

Brittle climate grasslands co-evolved with grazing herbivores. The cooperation between grass and herbivores created some of the richest and deepest soils in the world. Grazing herbivores use the microbes and moisture in their digestive system to breakdown plant material. Grazing means that even during the dry season, nutrients can still be returned to the soil as manure rather than lost to the atmosphere.

One of the crucial distinctions between brittle and humid climates is the land’s response to rest.3. Resting humid land increases soil fertility and ecological health.4 Resting brittle land decreases fertility and ecological health.

Our earliest ancestor, Homo erectus, appeared on the brittle African savanna.5 They spent two million years hunting and foraging the savanna's of Africa and southern Asia.6 Roaming these grasslands were large herds of grazing megafauna. As humans began to spread across the world about 50,000 years ago, the extinction of megafauna followed. Only in Africa and southern Asia, where we co-evolved with them, does wild megafauna continue to exist.7

Without megafauna, there was a shortage of grazing animals to consume plant material during the dry season. The fertility of the land began to decline. Indigenous cultures of the world recognised this and began to use fire to breakdown plant material. Fire is a poor substitute for grazing as many nutrients are lost to the atmosphere, but some nutrients return to the soil as ash. Over centuries, the people who lived in brittle climates developed knowledge and practices of how to use fire to preserve the fertility of the land they relied on.

Five hundred years ago Europeans began to spread over the world. With them came the knowledge and practices of managing the humid environments of Northern Europe. Their inexperience with brittle climates, and unwillingness to listen to indigenous knowledge, has caused widespread ecological degradation. In particular, the assumption that rest was a way of restoring fertility meant that they didn’t understand how indigenous fire practices were being used to create ecological health.

For centuries, indigenous practices of fire have been suppressed. Without grazing animals or the skilled use of fire, these landscapes have been steadily accumulating fuel loads. The higher the fuel load, the bigger and hotter the fires. Hotter fires mean greater destruction of habitat for microbes, plants, animals, and humans. This is what we’re now watching unfold in California and Australia.

The bad news is that these fires are explicitly the result of poor human management.

The good news is that human management is the one thing we can directly control. We have to get over our prejudice against fire and grazing animals. We have to step back into our traditional role as stewards of the land. We have to remember how to act in a way that benefits all life.

Once upon a time, every human culture knew how to do this. We can learn to do it again.

Share your thoughts?

12 comments

Rachel Barwell

Great post Adam, looking forward to catching up soon!

Posted on 22 Jan 2020 by Rachel Barwell
Adam Shand

I don't really know. It's not hugely relevant to most of NZ so I haven't been paying that much attention. There are definitely indigenous groups in AU & US working towards wider adoption of cultural burning. I haven't heard of anything on a significant scale, but that doesn't mean it's not out there! If you find something please let me know!

Posted on 6 Jan 2020 by Adam Shand
rbtcollins

Super interesting link Adam, thanks! Are there any wider scale uptakes of that methodology? (Even if outside of authority/mainstream).

Posted on 6 Jan 2020 by rbtcollins
Adam Shand

Thanks Brian!

Posted on 6 Jan 2020 by Adam Shand
Adam Shand

Hey Jodie, great comments and questions. I obviously have no idea about the answers, but like you hope that this is a turning point.

Posted on 6 Jan 2020 by Adam Shand
Adam Shand

Thanks Mike!

Posted on 6 Jan 2020 by Adam Shand
brian monahan

Nice post Adam... I look forward to reading more of your writing.

Posted on 6 Jan 2020 by brian monahan
Jodie

I think basically you're right, sure, it's complicated, but we do need to go back to intensively managing the land, and I agree that that would probably be some combination of AllanASavory-style grazing + fire. I don't really like that Australia has gone done this fire rather than grazing route, seeing as it does cause continual loss of fertility, but that's where we're at unfortunately, and our unique flora has adapted to deal with that, and a lot of it needs regular fires. So unless we want to lose a lot of that biodiversity, fire is needed. The only thing I'm not sure about is if the climate is becoming too hot and dry that even these cool fires will get out of hand more than in the past - and I really don't see our society spending the amount of resources that would be necessary to do these burns regularly (having the enormous resources there that would be needed to control it if it got out of hand, seeing as too many people live too close to the bush). And Australia is such a massive country, it would be such a huge undertaking. But if we want to maintain some of our natural bushland and also have anyone living remotely near it, that is probably what's needed. Farmland, though, I certainly thinkthink to be managed with the right grazing, and practices (and maybe earthworks) that increase water retention in the ground when it does rain, so fires wouldn't take hold as much as they do. With all the drought around there has been a lot more in the media about regenerative farming, so I really hope this is the turn around point....

Posted on 6 Jan 2020 by Jodie
Adam Shand

Here's a recent, anecdotal report of the utility of cultural burning.

Posted on 6 Jan 2020 by Adam Shand
Adam Shand

Hey Robert, thanks for sharing your thoughts. You are right, it's more complicated than I make out above, but that's a price of trying to write a concise post.
By quoting government sources rather than indigenous ones your comments are an example of what I'm talking about.
The official government stance is as you state above (though there are many people who work for the government that disagree). However there are groups, largely lead by indigenous peoples, that have been safely performing controlled burns for decades. There are clear examples in both Australia and California where controlled burns have saved areas from uncontrolled wildfires.
If you are interested in a deep dive into the history of fire in Australia I recommend "The Biggest Estate on Earth" by Bill Gammage.

Posted on 6 Jan 2020 by Adam Shand
Mike King

Thanks for that Adam. I didn't know about that. Cheers.

Posted on 6 Jan 2020 by Mike King
rbtcollins

If the world's climate was in stasis, I think your analysis would be correct. But it isn't. And in Australia the government and the fire services figured out fire management and do routinely use fire to manage the land, with practices designed with the first nations.
Climate change has made the hazard reduction burn offs riskier for more of the year. Leading to more unburnt fuel.
Restoring grazing animals has been studied after one of previous big fires and found not to be a substantive benefit from a fire fuel perspective. I had a link but can't find it just now.
https://greens.org.au/bushfires
https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/fire-information/hazard-reductions

Posted on 6 Jan 2020 by rbtcollins
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