Trevor Jones
World History Per. 7
September 15, 2014
Aboriginal Fire Stick Farming
-August 1, 2008 - The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
By Kent V. Flannery- University of Michigan
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/39/14796.full
Modern Day Controlled Burnings
-No Date - USDA Forest Service
By Members of Daniel Boone National Forest
http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/dbnf/home/?cid=stelprdb5281464
In the Days of hunting and gathering, the Aborigines had controlled burnings in the forests and jungles to better suit the land to their needs. This was called fire stick farming. Naturally, as a forest grows, trees and grasses die off. But without a controlled fire to rid of the debris, it piles up and acts like a kindling for when a dry part of the year comes to set fire to it. This could be very destructive to the habitat of the animals the Aborigines hunted and the Aborigines themselves. Fire stick farmers would go to areas that were not accessible to animals they were hunting and burn them in order for those animals to be able to graze there. This might have seemed unnatural at the time but when the Aborigines moved and the fires stopped, it killed off several small mammals that lived there and lead to a second major trophic collapse.
Even in the modern day, people still fire stick farm but it is know by a different name: Controlled burnings. People no longer need to burn places to better suit the animals they want to hunt because there are such a wide variety of habitats available to us that we do not need to shape our environment. However, we still use fire as a tool in forests or grasslands to keep nature in check. As I said before, dead trees and grasses can take up to 100 years to decompose on their own and the mean time they just build up like logs on a campfire, then when a fire does come, it erupts and is a hazard to the environment around it. When we light controlled fires, we eliminate the possibility for major forest fires and also controls the air quality for the people and wildlife in the area. Controlled fires can also be scheduled around the weather conditions so when they do schedule a controlled fire, they will be sure that every aspect is optimal.
Even though we no longer fire stick farm for hunting purposes as the Aborigines did, we still use fire to control the area so we can prevent the fire from starting naturally and going out if control. As the aboriginal tribes did, we use fire to manage our land and control the quality of our environment. Today, as in the past, controlled fires still make the land optimal for wildlife to live and thrive, therefore allowing nature to take its course, with a little guidance from humanity. Times have changed since the hunter gatherer time but some traditions still last. I believe that fire stick farming was and still is a brilliant idea and has contributed to the development of history greatly because it influenced the evolution of small mammals and aided the forest to thrive and regrow faster than it would with decaying logs and trunks. There are no negatives that stand out with controlled burning and I cannot foresee an end to this long lasting tradition anytime soon.
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