{"id":919611,"date":"2026-10-07T16:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T16:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/919611\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T16:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T16:56:12","slug":"catastrophic-wildfire-loop-created-after-colonisation-left-parts-of-australia-more-at-risk-from-bushfires-study-finds-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/919611\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Catastrophic wildfire loop\u2019 created after colonisation left parts of Australia more at risk from bushfires, study finds | Environment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The drastic land use changes wreaked by colonisation created a \u201ccatastrophic wildfire loop\u201d that rendered south-east Australia more susceptible to climate-fuelled bushfires, experts say.<\/p>\n

A team of researchers, working with the Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation, an organisation that represents traditional owners, reconstructed 1,000 years of vegetation and fire history at Purghagoolah, a lake surrounded by forest in Croajingolong national park in Gippsland, Victoria<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They analysed pollen and charcoal particles deposited over time in a metre-long sediment core, uncovering historical changes in the landscape and the interactions between weather, eucalypt cover and fire frequency and intensity.<\/p>\n

Aerial view of Purghagoolah (Lake Elusive) in Croajingolong national park in Gippsland, Victoria. Photograph: Michael-Shawn Fletcher<\/p>\n

The results, published in Nature<\/a>, revealed the shift from open woodland to dense forest after colonisation led to more intense fires, changes consistent with the loss of cultural burning practices and the removal of traditional owners, the Gunaikurnai people, from the land.<\/p>\n

Michael-Shawn Fletcher, a professor at the University of Melbourne and the study\u2019s lead author, said prior to colonisation \u201cthis was a cared for and managed landscape\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cGunaikurnai are removed from Country and you see a change in the amount of trees and shrubs in the landscape, and that drives more fires,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s actually land use change, more than a century before climate changes, that has allowed shrubs to increase, fires to get hotter. Those hot fires then trigger eucalypt recruitment. And the eucalypts then increase, driving further fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fletcher said the research provided scientific evidence for the value of cultural burning, and the importance of integrating Indigenous knowledge into modern fire management strategies.<\/p>\n

The field research team carries equipment through Croajingolong national park. Photograph: Michael-Shawn Fletcher<\/p>\n

Cultural burning refers to the way First Nations people use low-temperature fire to maintain a safe and productive landscape. These practices, which are still used in parts of Australia today, are based on a responsive \u201cright time, right place\u201d approach that differs from mainstream prescribed burning practices undertaken by government agencies for hazard reduction.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully this opens a conversation around the possibilities, into a new future where we can actually start getting control of the catastrophic fire problem,\u201d Fletcher said.<\/p>\n

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Prof David Bowman, a fire scientist based at the University of Tasmania, who was not an author of the paper, said the research was significant and contributed to the \u201cgrowing realisation\u201d about the legacy of landscape change resulting from the loss of Indigenous fire management.<\/p>\n

\u201cOther factors have exacerbated these changes, [such as] the introduction of non-native animals, non-native plants in some cases. These are very complex ecological processes, but taking out traditional fire management is a very significant thing to have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

The long-term records were \u201ccritically important\u201d for piecing together the historical changes in fire regimes, and how they\u2019re responding to climate drivers, he said. \u201cOne of the big questions in wildfire science is how anomalous, or how unprecedented, is the stuff that\u2019s happening?\u201d<\/p>\n

Bowman described the research as \u201clike a pipe opener\u201d. \u201cI really hope that it opens up a conversation that we really need to have about managing our landscapes as the fire crisis is worsening.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The drastic land use changes wreaked by colonisation created a \u201ccatastrophic wildfire loop\u201d that rendered south-east Australia more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":919612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-919611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=919611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/919612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}