From The Conversation (1/11/24)…
Ancient mud reveals Australia’s burning history over the past 130,000 years – and shows a way through our fiery future
Increased land management by Aboriginal people in southeastern Australia around 6,000 years ago cut forest shrub cover in half, according to our new studyof fossil pollen trapped in ancient mud.
Shrubs connect fires from ground cover to the forest canopy, allowing fires to spread and intensify quickly. The reduction in shrub cover, linked to evidence for increasing population size and more widespread landscape use by Aboriginal people, would have dramatically decreased the potential for high-intensity bushfires.
We also found the shrub layer in modern forests is even greater than it was 130,000–115,000 years ago, when the climate was similar to today’s but there were no people around.
Our deep-time research shows how important Indigenous cultural practices were for reducing dangerous high-intensity fires. It also suggests a way forward in Autralia’s current fire crisis, which climate change is making worse.
Another short summary of this topic can be seen at Science Advisor here and the original paper can be read here.