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What do you mean by modern humans? It is well-known that indigenous people have been using wild fire as a land management technique on the Australian continent

What do you mean by modern humans? It is well-known that indigenous people have been using wild fire as a land management technique on the Australian continent for tens of thousands of years. Also, many of these tree species have very specific evolutionary adaptations due to regular bush-fires. This is not something that occurs on human timescales. http://www.forest-education.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/eucalypt_adaptations.pdf http://www.forest-education.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/e...

ganeshkrishnan 7y ago
>It is well-known that indigenous people have been using wild fire as a land management technique on the Australian continent for tens of thousands of years. This is what I meant. Human intervention has made eucalyptus flourish more. It's native to Australia for sure but using wild fire for land management gives it a leg up in competing with other native species.
- bamboozled 7y ago
  No, this isn't what happens nor why it was practiced. The eucalyptus were there long before Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders burned anything or arrived on the continent. So were wildfires. Their burning didn't make Eucalyptus flourish so much, nor was this the intention. Fire does help open a Eucalyptus tree's seed pods, but fires would've happened without people there. Ceremonial burning is used for many reasons, one of the main reasons is because Indigenous people learned that reducing the scrub covering the ground through what is known as "cool fire" (fire which doesn't get too hot due to reduced fuel load), the sun can more effectively penetrate to the forrest floor and allow more new scrubs to grow and made the Forrest floor more accessible to larger, grazing animals. Esentially, the fires increase the local carrying capacity of the Forrest wildlife and make hunting more easy. These "cool fires" also reduce the amount of dead wood or "dry fuel" significantly. What this meant is that large loads of highly flammable fuel would not longer be hanging around to catch fire easily. The bark of a Eucalyptus is naturally somewhat fireproof. So without a very large fuel load the odds of fires spreading and burning out of control were rather low. One of the issues is, since Europeans came, most of this practice was no longer commonly practiced due to the original occupants of the land being victims of genocide or the practice being outlawed in most parts of Australia (not all, and these places rarely have major wild fires). Sadly this has led to many parts of the Australian wilderness poorly managed and allowed a huge amount of fuel load to build up. When this fuel catches fire, the Eucalyptus trees get so hot internally, they combust like a petrol bomb, this wasn't previously very common. All this combined with the super drought being experienced due to climate change has made this situation really unavoidable. I know that Indigenous Australians know when the right time to burn is. They're careful about it for obvious reasons but I don't know if climate change will make it harder to re-introduce the practice due to the forrests being drier than ever before; However after these fires would be the right time to start as the fuel load is low. To gain more insights on this checkout this excellent video on how the practice is being re-introduced in more areas to stop events like this happening in such devastating ways: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM72NtXxyLs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM72NtXxyLs Bascially, the Australian wildlife needs these trees, many animals including Koalas have been facing extinction due to the loss of Eucalyptus. In my view, we need more trees, and better management of land, less trees has it's own catastrophic side effects, including less carbon sequestration and the extinction of native species.

ganeshkrishnan 7y ago

>It is well-known that indigenous people have been using wild fire as a land management technique on the Australian continent for tens of thousands of years. This is what I meant. Human intervention has made eucalyptus flourish more. It's native to Australia for sure but using wild fire for land management gives it a leg up in competing with other native species.

bamboozled 7y ago
No, this isn't what happens nor why it was practiced. The eucalyptus were there long before Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders burned anything or arrived on the continent. So were wildfires. Their burning didn't make Eucalyptus flourish so much, nor was this the intention. Fire does help open a Eucalyptus tree's seed pods, but fires would've happened without people there. Ceremonial burning is used for many reasons, one of the main reasons is because Indigenous people learned that reducing the scrub covering the ground through what is known as "cool fire" (fire which doesn't get too hot due to reduced fuel load), the sun can more effectively penetrate to the forrest floor and allow more new scrubs to grow and made the Forrest floor more accessible to larger, grazing animals. Esentially, the fires increase the local carrying capacity of the Forrest wildlife and make hunting more easy. These "cool fires" also reduce the amount of dead wood or "dry fuel" significantly. What this meant is that large loads of highly flammable fuel would not longer be hanging around to catch fire easily. The bark of a Eucalyptus is naturally somewhat fireproof. So without a very large fuel load the odds of fires spreading and burning out of control were rather low. One of the issues is, since Europeans came, most of this practice was no longer commonly practiced due to the original occupants of the land being victims of genocide or the practice being outlawed in most parts of Australia (not all, and these places rarely have major wild fires). Sadly this has led to many parts of the Australian wilderness poorly managed and allowed a huge amount of fuel load to build up. When this fuel catches fire, the Eucalyptus trees get so hot internally, they combust like a petrol bomb, this wasn't previously very common. All this combined with the super drought being experienced due to climate change has made this situation really unavoidable. I know that Indigenous Australians know when the right time to burn is. They're careful about it for obvious reasons but I don't know if climate change will make it harder to re-introduce the practice due to the forrests being drier than ever before; However after these fires would be the right time to start as the fuel load is low. To gain more insights on this checkout this excellent video on how the practice is being re-introduced in more areas to stop events like this happening in such devastating ways: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM72NtXxyLs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM72NtXxyLs Bascially, the Australian wildlife needs these trees, many animals including Koalas have been facing extinction due to the loss of Eucalyptus. In my view, we need more trees, and better management of land, less trees has it's own catastrophic side effects, including less carbon sequestration and the extinction of native species.