People proliferated across Australia, which was then a part of Sahul, from about 40 000 years ago when megafauna finally disappeared long before the Last Glacial Maximum. The so called ‘blitzkrieg’ hypothesis proposes that megafauna were extinguished by Aboriginal hunting. It is argued, either that there were some changes in vegetation and fire regimes as a consequence, or that fire regimes and vegetation were largely unaffected by human arrival. However, there is an alternative view that Aboriginal burning changed the vegetation so that megafauna had insufficient food resources to sustain them. We aimed to resolve this debate by examining the published palaeological and historical evidence. This evidence indicates that Aboriginal burning initially turned much biomass into charcoal, reducing browse, changing vegetation and causing megafaunal extinctions. It created ecosystems whose health and safety depend on constant human input of mild fire. Mild burning of these anthropogenic landscapes consumes relatively little biomass and produces relatively little charcoal. Although burning by people has typically been regarded as an ecological disturbance, the historical evidence, together with traditional Aboriginal knowledge, suggests that it is actually maintenance, essential to sustain our natural environment. We conclude that people can reinstate resilient, healthy and safe landscapes irrespective of climate change.
| Published in | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (Volume 5, Issue 4) |
| DOI | 10.11648/j.eeb.20200504.17 |
| Page(s) | 164-172 |
| Creative Commons |
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Copyright |
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Science Publishing Group |
Aborigines, Australia, Climate Change, Fire Regimes, Megafauna
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APA Style
Vic Jurskis, Roger Underwood, Neil Burrows. (2020). How Australian Aborigines Shaped and Maintained Fire Regimes and the Biota. Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 5(4), 164-172. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.eeb.20200504.17
ACS Style
Vic Jurskis; Roger Underwood; Neil Burrows. How Australian Aborigines Shaped and Maintained Fire Regimes and the Biota. Ecol. Evol. Biol. 2020, 5(4), 164-172. doi: 10.11648/j.eeb.20200504.17
AMA Style
Vic Jurskis, Roger Underwood, Neil Burrows. How Australian Aborigines Shaped and Maintained Fire Regimes and the Biota. Ecol Evol Biol. 2020;5(4):164-172. doi: 10.11648/j.eeb.20200504.17
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Download@article{10.11648/j.eeb.20200504.17,
author = {Vic Jurskis and Roger Underwood and Neil Burrows},
title = {How Australian Aborigines Shaped and Maintained Fire Regimes and the Biota},
journal = {Ecology and Evolutionary Biology},
volume = {5},
number = {4},
pages = {164-172},
doi = {10.11648/j.eeb.20200504.17},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.eeb.20200504.17},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.eeb.20200504.17},
abstract = {People proliferated across Australia, which was then a part of Sahul, from about 40 000 years ago when megafauna finally disappeared long before the Last Glacial Maximum. The so called ‘blitzkrieg’ hypothesis proposes that megafauna were extinguished by Aboriginal hunting. It is argued, either that there were some changes in vegetation and fire regimes as a consequence, or that fire regimes and vegetation were largely unaffected by human arrival. However, there is an alternative view that Aboriginal burning changed the vegetation so that megafauna had insufficient food resources to sustain them. We aimed to resolve this debate by examining the published palaeological and historical evidence. This evidence indicates that Aboriginal burning initially turned much biomass into charcoal, reducing browse, changing vegetation and causing megafaunal extinctions. It created ecosystems whose health and safety depend on constant human input of mild fire. Mild burning of these anthropogenic landscapes consumes relatively little biomass and produces relatively little charcoal. Although burning by people has typically been regarded as an ecological disturbance, the historical evidence, together with traditional Aboriginal knowledge, suggests that it is actually maintenance, essential to sustain our natural environment. We conclude that people can reinstate resilient, healthy and safe landscapes irrespective of climate change.},
year = {2020}
}
TY - JOUR T1 - How Australian Aborigines Shaped and Maintained Fire Regimes and the Biota AU - Vic Jurskis AU - Roger Underwood AU - Neil Burrows Y1 - 2020/11/23 PY - 2020 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.eeb.20200504.17 DO - 10.11648/j.eeb.20200504.17 T2 - Ecology and Evolutionary Biology JF - Ecology and Evolutionary Biology JO - Ecology and Evolutionary Biology SP - 164 EP - 172 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2575-3762 UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.eeb.20200504.17 AB - People proliferated across Australia, which was then a part of Sahul, from about 40 000 years ago when megafauna finally disappeared long before the Last Glacial Maximum. The so called ‘blitzkrieg’ hypothesis proposes that megafauna were extinguished by Aboriginal hunting. It is argued, either that there were some changes in vegetation and fire regimes as a consequence, or that fire regimes and vegetation were largely unaffected by human arrival. However, there is an alternative view that Aboriginal burning changed the vegetation so that megafauna had insufficient food resources to sustain them. We aimed to resolve this debate by examining the published palaeological and historical evidence. This evidence indicates that Aboriginal burning initially turned much biomass into charcoal, reducing browse, changing vegetation and causing megafaunal extinctions. It created ecosystems whose health and safety depend on constant human input of mild fire. Mild burning of these anthropogenic landscapes consumes relatively little biomass and produces relatively little charcoal. Although burning by people has typically been regarded as an ecological disturbance, the historical evidence, together with traditional Aboriginal knowledge, suggests that it is actually maintenance, essential to sustain our natural environment. We conclude that people can reinstate resilient, healthy and safe landscapes irrespective of climate change. VL - 5 IS - 4 ER -
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