Happy Thanksgiving, America. What a great idea, to stop and consider reasons to be thankful. Here in Australia, the popular paradigm of the history of our lan

Happy Thanksgiving, America. What a great idea, to stop and consider reasons to be thankful. Here in Australia, the popular paradigm of the history of our land is evolving to recognise native intelligence. As in North America, the Australian indigenous peoples managed the land with sophisticated methods that worked sustainably for millennia. Then 90% of the population perished from introduced diseases just a few hundred years ago. The history that was written into school textbooks was one of a technologically sophisticated culture conquering a primitive culture. But with the shallowness of measuring superiority by guns, germs and steel exposed, history is being refactored. The concept is to reconcile the history of Australia as a joint history that spans pre-colonial and post-colonial eras. There is much to be learned from the history of both eras. Urgently, after last year's catastrophic bushfires, Australians are looking to traditional indigenous land management techniques for inspiration. By segmenting land into mosaic patterns of forest, grasses, pasture and animal habitat, indigenous Australians created a platform for managing the food supply with periodic controlled, localised burning of undergrowth and grassland. The regrowth attracted grazing mammals, which could be taken for food in a controlled environment. At the same time, these periodic burns worked prophylactically to obviate the conditions that lead to catastrophic wide scale fires. Australia's national anthem currently includes the line "for we are young and free". Modern historians object to the word "young" because it discards tens of millennia of rich history that is a treasure trove of wisdom. A growing popular movement is calling for a revision of that line to "for we are one and free".