AG-S Understanding different kinds of fire is critical in caring for Country. As Dean explains, in some cases, the relationship between trees and fire is a positive one.
DN So, there's a whole heap of trees that are super vulnerable to high intensity fire, but actually quite resilient, even really desire cool fires, you know? Fires that trickle around on the ground below them. They don't burn up into the branches or the canopy. They don't impact the seed banks in the ground or the seed banks in the canopy. And they sort of have a fairly benign impact on a lot of those. Fire's gotta burn something. So, it's always gonna burn the dead stuff, the leaf and the grass and twigs and all that sort of stuff. But all of those things in those areas that fire carry have a fire relationship. You know, they either bounce back or they've got insurance policy through their seed distribution. And so being able to understand that and be able to sort of introduce that good fire for that species, but more importantly, they're just one thing we're thinking about. We are also thinking about the kinship across that Country, you know, so we're looking at the trees, the other plants, the animals, the cultural values and connections. So, there's many layers to that. Eucalypts just teach us so much of that lore and story. They're just everywhere. And being able to understand them is really critical to a good fire management.
AG-S Even though eucalypts occur across most of Australia, most species thrive in specific areas. And there are relatively few species that are found across the continent. This means that they are more vulnerable to habitat destruction and climate variation than we might think.
DN Most probably well-known one is the river red gum, which even in itself is restricted to flood plains and streams and there's others like the coolabah and some of the gray box species, but a lot of the different eucalypt species are quite restricted in distribution. So, if I look out my window here, there might be a handful of eucalypt species that are Indigenous here. And if Oli looks out his window – he's a few thousand kilometres from me at the moment – it's probably a different group of species. We're both looking at eucalypts, but completely different species, which respond to fire in different ways, which have been used historically and completely different ways. But we lump 'em together as eucalypts, because they do have some similarities as well. But again, that diversity has a lot of implications in terms of how they can be managed through fire, how they respond to fire and the threats that fire and climate change poses to them.
OC Climate change is really challenging understanding of how to manage Country. Climate change is the constant. It's not a new thing, but the new thing is the rapid state of change. But we're living through such a powerful time to experience that change. The 2019, 2020 bush fires were such a dramatic kind of introduction to a lot of people that were largely asleep at the wheel, really. When they're thinking about their responsibilities to Country, it's not just climate change. It's, you know, a legacy of colonisation and a mismanagement of Country, this whole concept of wilderness that we can just kind of push nature to the sides and look from the fire and it's somehow that makes it pristine, I think is super challenged because from my understanding culturally, you know, we have a responsibility to be on Country and to maintain roles and responsibilities on Country, which can be quite challenging for people.
AG-S First Nations led controlled burning or cool burning is slowly gaining traction and understanding across mainstream and non-Indigenous Australia. This kind of land management is an important part of maintaining and protecting our ecosystems.
OC The main thing is it builds understanding and connection. If you want to access a resource and you need to access that resource for, you know, thousands of years, might have taught you a few things about how to maintain it in the landscape. When you start to sort of remove people's connections, to be able to camp and hunt and fish, and all it removes is people's practical experiences out on Country, learning and being able to teach that practice. And what we're seeing is that there's a lot more sick Country and we're seeing rapid changes. The floods that we have up here this last month, rainfall I've never seen in my life. Like literally, I've just never seen rain like that before and floods that are two meters higher than its ever been before. Like no coincidence. And so, I think it's really powerful to sort of step back and think about what's happening in these landscapes and thinking about the legacy of that and what we can do.
