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Environment
Alan N Williams, Associate Investigator, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, UNSW Sydney

A dive into the deep past reveals Indigenous burning helped suppress bushfires 10,000 years ago

Joseph Lycett, Aborigines using fire to hunt kangaroo (c.1817) National Library of Australia

Indigenous Australians have conducted cultural burning for at least ten millenia and the practice helped reduce bushfire risk in the past, our new research shows.

The study provides more evidence of the very long history of cultural burning in southeast Australia. While the burning was probably not specifically used to manage bushfires, our data suggest it nonetheless reduced fire extremes.

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