Just on the bush fires
This is my opinion.... and just from what I’ve been told and read.
I have a great respect for aboriginal culture and have been fortunate enough to visit places most white fellas never go.
Ramingining, oenpelli, Maningrida, Garig Ganuk Barlu National Park, Victoria settlement up in the Cobburg peninsula.
it is my understanding that the indigenous people didn’t actually do a lot of traditional back burning around here.
The land is too extreme .
Massive cliffs and huge gum trees forests.
They were more coastal people.
River banks and beache fringes.
They were fishermen and hunted possum, wallaby and lizard but a massive part of their diet was things like oyster and cockle shells
The huge piles of oyster shells ( middens ) are still around.
I lived in Lugarno and had one on my land.
There is one at Garie.
It’s still visible, where they cooked on the sand and used big stones to sharpen tools etc.
Once white fellas came along with farming and setting up towns that’s when it changed the bush fire behaviour.
huge chunks of land were now cleared for towns and farming.
This created a massive vacuum.
Like opening the door on a little combustion fire.
back thousands of years ago there was no place for the oxygen to take off.
The canopy was 20 metres higher.
The bush was incredibly thick .
The forest floor would’ve been dark and pretty wet.
fires happened but probably just died off without turning into what happened this year.
Up north the land is flat grass land.
The trees are thin short things.
Fly into Darwin , you can’t miss it.
Traditional burning there is an easy to understand practice.
It’s controllable.
Anyway that’s my opinion.
The fires are combination of a lot of things that have been a long time coming.
