Talk:Fire-stick farming

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T.F. (Tim) Flannery

from Tim Flannery: In 1994, Flannery published The Future Eaters: an Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People, and provides a sweeping glimpse of land, flora, fauna and people of the long past up to the present. Anyway, it's obvious that this is the same Flannery. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.30.61.12 (talk) 11:02, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Neutrality

This article has been created solely to promote the opinions of Flannery & Jones as part of the history wars. The article uses generalisations to combine over 300+ unique cultures into one group and carries just one single line rebuttal that is dismissed and marginalised by the terminology being used "suggests". The article itself has no explanation to how the practice is performed, under what conditions its performed, nor the purpose of such use nor the types of fires being used. Gnangarra 10:26, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Sources

I'll add some sources here as I find them, I'm looking over the first as I'm working backwards to the Rhys Jones (archaeologist) works, which is … somewhere. cygnis insignis 23:54, 15 April 2019 (UTC) Ahem, paper is below the intro, so read on for what seems to be the origin of the conception. cygnis insignis 00:00, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

• Jones, R.; Petty, A.M. (December 2012). "Fire-stick Farming [reprint and introduction]". Fire Ecology. 8 (3): 1–7. doi:10.4996/fireecology.0803001. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
• Merrilees, D. (1968). "Man the destroyer: late Quaternary changes in the Australian marsupial fauna. Presidential Address, 1967". Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia. 51 (1): 1–7.
• Tuniz, C.; Gillespie, R.; Jones, C. (2016). The Bone Readers: Science and Politics in Human Origins Research. Routledge. p. 48. ISBN 9781315418872.

cygnis insignis. If you are going to have a go at fixing the article I will not go ahead with this. There is no point in two of us bumping in to each other. I was going to radically change the approach to the subject and content. Aoziwe (talk) 05:11, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Just noting them in case I come back to this, and did see your other comment. I feel there a better title, and I'm uncertain of what the scope of this might be. If you want to restart the article I will drop anything I think pertinent here. Jones is the first to outline a 'model', later developed to reveal the crude modelling of mosaic burns and so on, then the cool-burn 'templates' proposed by later authors. Climate change was the model it replaced, but a significant factor no doubt in megafauna extinction. All very interesting, but the tangential use of the research has not necessarily been 'how have people been using fire in Australia', rather to 'explain' events like the mammalian fauna collapse of recent and recorded history as the remnant populations of a 5 000 year long bonfire across the country started by … ta-da: the 'aborigines', you know, like they did with the megafauna, and nothing to do with 'us' thank goodness. cygnis insignis 06:23, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I will make a start then. Regards. Aoziwe (talk) 06:32, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

I added a start on Duncan Merrilees, a source on his views is added above because the "famous paper" and later clarifications make a nice bookend to the first papers. Hope it is of some use, not a distraction. Cheers, cygnis insignis 13:26, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

I propose the article title should be changed to "Cultural burn", maybe "Indigenous cultural burn" or "Indigenous burning practice". It is distinct (see 18 Sept ref below) from "controlled burn" methods as carried out by rural fire services, national parks services etc. (some national parks services now include cultural burn practices). There are a lot of good sources now; I have been prompted to come here because of an ABC article distinguishing outcomes of the Tathra bushfire of 2018 "But on a small patch of bushland on the south-western edge of Tathra, a patch of green shows where the fire came to a halt. The land is part of 71 hectares owned by the Bega Local Aboriginal Land Council (LALC) at Tathra West. ... In 2017, the Bega LALC began a cultural burning program as part of the management strategy for their landholdings." ABC 18 Sept 2018 (citation has been added to article). I have made some edits in the first para, but I there is more to be done. There is, for instance, the issue that these practices have been and are carried out by Indigenous peoples in other countries, distinct from slash and burn farming, e.g. to encourage meadows for grazing animals. Here are some sources for the Australian practice:

The biggest estate on earth : how Aborigines made Australia Bill Gammage FAASA

Dark Emu Bruce Pascoe

Firesticks: About

Firesticks: What is cultural burning?

Firesticks: PhD Research

"Indigenous leaders say Australia's bushfire crisis shows approach to land management failing" ABC 14 Nov 2019 Uni Tasmania prof, fuel loads, fire boundaries

"Our bushfire history shows politicians could learn a lesson from Indigenous Australia" ABC 14 Nov 2019 Indigenous hazard control, 1770 era: open grassland, open forest, little undergrowth, plains unexplained by soil type, corridors of pasture edged by tall forest, best soil for game, worst soil for forest, boundaries maintained, observations by John Glover, Joseph Lycett, Eugene von Guerard, James Cook

"Indigenous fire practices used in hazard-reduction burns at significant ACT cultural sites" ABC 1 April 2016 ACT Parks and Conservation Service, traditional - without modern fuels (no driptorch)

"Prescribed burning debate rages as Australia finds there's no time to burn going into peak fire season" ABC 13 Sept 2018 Noongar (WA) hazard reduction, maintaining biodiversity

"Jigija Indigenous fire training attracts remote firefighters from thousands of kilometres away" ABC 2 Aug 2018 no driptorch nor petrol to allow animal escape

"Aboriginal rangers key to reining in massive fires burning 'out of sight' across the country every year" ABC 23 July 2018 consult with elders

"Canberra's Indigenous rangers take park management back in time" ABC 14 July 2018 national joint management plan, cultural burning, xanthorrhoea management & sap production

"Ancient Aboriginal patch burning helping understand fire impact on Tasmanian landscape" ABC 18 April 2018 Uni Tasmania, prevent major bushfires, biodiversity

(added to article as a citation 14 Nov 2019) "Reading trees: Using cultural burning to reinvigorate dying landscape" ABC 21 Feb 2018 weed and pest management, different times of year to burn for different parts of ecosystem, different years, diversification of sub-ecosystems, different trees generating different soil types, hot fires cook seed banks & burn canopy & stunt grass, effects of canopy loss on soil temp. & vegetation, white smoke/black smoke - grass/leaves - different results, Firesticks workshop

"Ancient Aboriginal burning techniques return to Cape Barren Island to regenerate the land" ABC 15 Oct 2017 practice reintroduced by contact with "Top End" traditional knowledge holders, cool burn mosaic preserves plants, collaboration with Tasmania Fire Service

"Reconciliation at the heart of central Victoria's indigenous fire management program" ABC 16 May 2017 collaboration Forest Fire Management Victoria & the Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation, end of driptorches replaced with grass tree stick with red busy stringy bark wrap, circular pattern burn, bush restoration, native animal restoration, elders involvement

"Indigenous fire training program bringing life back to country across regional NSW" ABC 15 May 2017 A five-year project northern NSW demonstrated cultural burning & traditional management maintaining threatened species, Firesticks Project, species not previously found

"Indigenous rangers share ancient knowledge to help fight bushfires on North Stradbroke Island" ABC 22 Sept 2018 reintroduction in Queensland

"Monaro farmers use Aboriginal cool-burn fires to recover biodiversity, rejuvenate degraded farm land" ABC 24 May 2016 small patch mild conditions mornings or late afternoon late autumn early winter with little breeze, farmers learning from traditional practitioner, wind direction, slope, site preparation, cool fire easy to extinguish using rake hoes or backpack sprayers, biodiversity, weed control, mosaic, kill exotic seeds, germinate native plants, re-introduction of practice

(citation has been added to article) "Ancient technique of cultural burning revived by Indigenous people in NSW" ABC 19 June 2017 low, slow, only undergrowth, animals escape, Shoalhaven elders sharing knowledge, elder Uncle Vic Sharmen ex chief ranger National Parks & Wildlife & degree environmental science, weed control, endemic species return, "cultural burning" hazard reduction, Rural Fire Service collaboration

"Arnhem Land rangers blending traditional and high-tech methods to earn carbon credits" ABC 10 Sept 2017 combining traditional knowledge with new technology, carbon credits, carbon abatement, elders noticed degradation due to decrease in traditional early dry season burning, fodder for birds & animals, pollen production, fewer long distance fires, shorter duration of fires, large logs preserved - carbon store, new trees

"Tasmanian Aborigines learn traditional methods of fire management: 'Cool burning' could help fuel reduction" ABC 29 Sept 2014 cool burning reintroduced to Tasmania with teachings by Indigenous custodians from Cape York, Queensland, small circles

"Traditional knowledge of Indigenous fire practices burns pathway to safer, healthier country" ABC 6 Sept 2016 tree damage from hot fires, loss of shade, learned from elders late Dr Tommy George & George Musgrave from Laura, Cape York, Queensland

David Woodward ☮ ♡♢☞☽ 11:17, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

In response to user:David Woodward I propose the article title should be changed to "Cultural burn", maybe "Indigenous cultural burn" or "Indigenous burning practice", I would like to offer Indigenous fire as a candidate article title. Comparing alternatives to "fire-stick farming", "indigenous fire" was by far the most productive search phrase among the several I tried. Using "indigenous fire" produced more results than "fire-stick farming". That was the exception. Notes, with rank in ():

--"indigenous fire"(1) at 27K results was tops

--None of my other alternative searches were more productive than using "fire-stick farming" (2), but both "cultural burning"(3) and "cultural fire" (4) came closest.

--"indigenous fire management" (5) was more productive than "indigenous burning" (6) and "cultural fire management (7)"

-- Search phrasing with "--- burning" was more productive than "--- burn".

-- Search phrasing with "--- management" was more productive than "--- stewardship", "--- practice", and "--- strategy". -- Paleorthid (talk) 22:20, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Response to user:Paleorthid. I like "Indigenous fire management". "Indigenous fire" leads me to think about firepit or fire ring, which is a thing to me rather than a process. Did you do any analysis of where the various search terms led to? I.e. relevant articles/posts etc.? An argument for "cultural burn" is that term is used extensively in Aust. Broadcasting Corp. relevant articles; and is the term used by Firesticks (The Firesticks Alliance Indigenous Corporation (ICN-8778)) which seems to be the premier organisation teaching, promoting and studying the practice in Australia. Firesticks is mentioned in several ABC articles. There is also the issue that this is an international practice, my anecdotal reference is (no direct citation at the moment) Yosemite National Park reverting to tree regrowth in previously actively maintained grazing meadows; with the change from Indigenous American management to park management.

Should we fork this particular discussion into a new section? Ï was thinking about a lot of things when posted, and was responding in that issue to "I feel there a better title" in cygnis insignis 06:23, 16 April 2019 (UTC) post. I really don't know much about the technicalities of article title change; but I think it is well justified. David Woodward ☮ ♡♢☞☽ 06:57, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Correction, "cultural burning" is the term used by Firesticks. Also, last post by me, I forgot to sign the post! David Woodward ☮ ♡♢☞☽ 06:57, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

New source article "Indigenous knowledge combines with Western science to look after country" ABC 27 Nov 2019 ABC Science, extant continuing practice, details of practice, calendar produced with traditional practitioners and university academic. {edit: add full stop to clarify DW is not the academic, just talk page poster 2 December 2019} David Woodward ☮ ♡♢☞☽ 08:52, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

cygnis insignis, David Woodward, Paleorthid, Mitch Ames, Gnangarra.

Having started to work my way through a stack of potential sources and references (thank you too cygnis insignis), my thoughts at this point are:

• The article should be called Cultural burning. This seems to be the most likely generic current search term, and possibly the one with the broadest current acceptance.
• There will be a section on the term fire-stick farming, to which Fire-stick farming will redirect. This will cover the term's genesis, history, and impact. There is more to cultural burning than "farming".
• There will be a section on mega fauna extinction. This will not be straight forward. The scientific literature on this has a wide variety of views and interpretions.
• There will be a section on the history of the use of fire by the first peoples of Australia. This too will not be straight forward. Again there is a wide variety of views and interprations in the literature, with none of the archeological record, the paleological record, and the anthropological views and observations, and the documentation of first peoples's oral history, being entirely consistent with any other.
• There will be a section on the cultural context of cultural burning.
• There will be a section on the current practice and reintroduction of cultural burning.
• There will be a section describing what cultural burning is, including varities and terminologies.
• A fire-stick will also be described.
• Other terms above can also redirect accodingly.

But I am still working through a lot of material so the above is likely to be tweaked and added to. I expect this to all take me a few weeks or more to do.

Comments welcome. Aoziwe (talk) 10:10, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

First the thing is that there 300+ different cultures to distill down into one common theme, you are onto something with the format. The mega fauna as an extinction cause is part of the History wars while should be mention I wouldnt give it any significant coverage, and would probably limit it to one or two sentences in a 3 paragraph section Archeological/paleological records, because there is a lack of independent research supporting the theory. I'm also reluctant to give anthropological views as much credence as most of the early records were by regular migrants rather than scientists such that they are just interpreting the diaries of people like Daisy Bates. There are commonalities with Totems where a person whos totem is fire would be responsible for the fire management. There is also the recognition that people crossing borders would first seek out permission from the TO Elders to enter and then seek permission from the elder whos totem is fire before they could build a camp fire. Over all I think an approach thats both traditional so the western scientific record/research. With that I'd explore Hot burns, Colds burns, camp fires. Cultural sections about laws, responsibiliy, traditional practices. Finish with a section on how the traditional methods are being implemented by government departs, WA department of environment has adopted many noongar practices for the southwest in forestry fire management.

• lead

1. historical record
   1. migrant interpretations
   2. impact on settlement
2. Cultural practices
   1. hot burns
   2. cold burns
   3. laws
3. Changing Australian Societies approach

Thats an example of how I suggest redeveloping the article, the headings are just a rough layout suggestion Gnangarra 12:54, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• oh and try to avoid generalisations of Aboriginal, if the sources its a Koori practice, or Nyungar practice then say so. Maybe call it Fire culture in Australia Gnangarra 12:58, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• I am proposing to utilise some of the so called anthropological views, not to rely on them, but actually to show how perceptions have changed and were in cases malformed at the time.
• I also intend to write a non trivial amount mega fauna. This will specifically point out the uncertaainty involved and that despite some "high profile" people having certain views, that there are many others in the scientific community who DO NOT share these views.
• So far I have not used nor intended to use the word "aboriginal" or "aborigine" at all (unless it is in a direct quote). To date in organising my notes I have tried to use the name the relevant people use for themselves, ie nation, group, etc. The generic term I am proposing to use, to distinguish from the recent arrivals of the last 230 years, is "indigineous" but not to identify specific groups of people, to do that I will use the name those people use for themselves (if I can find it). Aoziwe (talk) 13:37, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Parking this here as a good source of additional information. "Bushfire royal commission told Aboriginal people routinely ignored in post-disaster commissions" Aust. Broadcasting Corp. News. Aboriginal voices have been ignored, burning is one part of broader cultural land management, "not a practice that can simply be grafted onto the regime of non-Indigenous land managers.", "There are physical places on the landscape that need Aboriginal women to be active in caring for them,", policy gaps, need for secure long term funding David Woodward ☮ ♡♢☞☽ 12:00, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

This article is useless! (for learning about Cultural burning or Cold Fire)

Strong words, but that was my reaction after I came to Wikipedia looking for related information and failed to find it.

Having read this article: ABC News: Indigenous fire methods protect land before and after the Tathra bushfire (Sept 2018) I wanted to know how the process of 'cultural burning' actually worked, as it is not clear from the video on that page. A WP search led me to this article, which seems to cover the ancient history of an extinction event, but says practically nothing about the procedure which is still carried out to this day

The ABC News article also uses the term 'cold fire', and it wasn't until I started hunting through the talk pages that I realised this was actually covered in a separate article on WP, but still inadequately (Cold fire (Noongar fire type)).

Cultural burning has been created as a link to this page since I did my search two days ago.

Can I please ask the people who have been discussing sources to at least have a first go at making this article usable. I wanted to find out how cultural burning works, and how it relates to management of the bush fires currently raging in Australia.

Incidentally, the article does not explain what a 'fire stick' is, nor how it is used for farming. That needs addressing urgently.

EdJogg (talk) 22:05, 5 January 2020 (UTC) -- (Please send a message via talk page if response needed, since I am not active at WP very often.)

I have now started. Aoziwe (talk) 02:18, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Rewrite in progress

This is a major task. There is so much wrong with the current article it is a WP:TNT.

I am doing the work offwiki. Aoziwe (talk) 03:04, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for tackling this. I did wonder as I skimmed it in passing, but having recently taken on a task which is beginning to feel as if it could last me for the rest of my life, I couldn't afford yet another diversion. I'm glad to see it getting done though! Laterthanyouthink (talk) 12:03, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

A BBC news link in case you want to use or follow up on any of it. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 06:59, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. The good problem I have is that there is so much to wade through! Aoziwe (talk) 11:12, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

I know that you said you have lots, but, if not on your list, if you can get access to a copy of (archaologist) Billy Griffiths' book Deep Time Dreaming, chapter 9 has a good overview, mention of others' insights and finding, etc. I just got to this chapter last night (and I can recommend the rest of the book too, although not about fire!) Laterthanyouthink (talk) 05:22, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Rabbit-proof fence

The article currently states:

Cultural burnings were slowly eradicated after Britain colonised Australia from 1788 onwards.

(that's the entire paragraph) and I think it would be good to detail what good reasons and what fallacious reasons those peoples erecting fences and enforcing laws had for this influence; to what extent it was intentional and to what extent it was a side-effect of inevitable cultural clash and contemporary contempt based on prejudices. 49.180.236.252 (talk) 02:46, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

International examples

(edit to change title from US to international)

I note there is already one USA example in the “Further reading”section: Seminole Tribe of Florida Using Water and Fire to Restore Landscapes While Training Wildland Firefighters. Here is another NPR article re California To Manage Wildfire, California Looks To What Tribes Have Known All Along. David Woodward (talk) 03:38, 21 September 2021 (UTC) Further references parked:

• Nature Conservancy list of references, Indigenous Peoples Burn Network
• Botswana Australians helping to revive traditional Botsawnan techniques
• NPR Northern Cali tribes
• The GuardianNorthern Cali: hazel stalks & bear grass for weaving, acorns, water management, huckleberries, attract and hunt elk, pepperwood & wormwood for medicine, salmon habitat, clearing pine and blackberries to meadows, wormwood torches, Yurok tribe, Karuk tribe
• Nature Conservancy similar to Guardian article above, hazel for weaving, Hoopa Tribe, Karuk tribe, Yurok tribe, acorns, salmon lifecycle, TREX training program, Indigenous Peoples Burning Network (IPBN) including New Mexico, Minnesota, Oregon. David Woodward (talk) 05:46, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

  A more relevant article for cultural burning as practiced by the Indigenous peoples of North America is Native American use of fire in ecosystems. The practice in Botswana should probably be covered by a third article that we don't yet have. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 06:02, 3 February 2022 (UTC)