Glenn James

Jeremy Russell-Smith

Howard Pedersen

Kamaljit K. Sangha

Key Features: Provides clear and authoritative recommendations for managing fire in ecological and social contexts Authors are all international leaders in their fields and include not only academics but also leaders of Indigenous communities Explains Indigenous cultural and knowledge systems to a degree that has rarely been accessible to lay and academic readers outside specialized disciplines like Anthropology Responds to growing need for new approaches to managing human-ecological systems that are in greater sympathy with Australia’s natural environments/climate, and value the knowledge of Indigenous people Timely for scholarly and interest groups intervention, as the Australian government is again looking to ‘develop the north' Sustainable Land Sector Development in Northern Australia sets out a vision for developing North Australia based on a culturally appropriate and ecologically sustainable land sector economy. This vision supports both Indigenous cultural responsibilities and aspirations, as well as enhancing enterprise opportunities for society as a whole. In the past, well-meaning if often misguided policy agendas have failed - and continue to fail - North Australians. This book helps breach that gap by acknowledging and harnessing Indigenous cultural strengths and knowledge systems for looking after the country and its people, as part of a smart, novel and diversified ecosystem services economy.

Indigenous rights, aspirations, and cultural responsibilities

Sustainable Land Sector Development in Northern Australia

Andrew Edwards

Brett Murphy

Mick Meyer

CP (Mick) Meyer

In the context of Australia’s developing carbon economy, fire management helps to abate emissions of greenhouse gases and is an important means of generating carbon credits. The vast high-rainfall savannas of northern Australia are one of the world’s most flammable landscapes. Management of fires in this region has the potential to assist with meeting emissions reduction targets, as well as conserving biodiversity and providing employment for Indigenous people in remote parts of Australia’s north. This comprehensive volume brings together recent research from northern Australian savannas to provide an internationally relevant case study for applying greenhouse gas accounting methodologies to the practice of fire management. It provides scientific arguments for enlarging the area of fire-prone land managed for emissions abatement. The book also charts the progress towards development of a savanna fire bio-sequestration methodology. The future of integrated approaches to emissions abatement and bio-sequestration is also discussed.

Carbon Accounting and Savanna Fire Management

Peter Cooke

Peter Whitehead

This engaging volume explores the management of fire in one of the world’s most flammable landscapes: Australia’s tropical savannas, where on average 18% of the landscape is burned annually. Impacts have been particularly severe in the Arnhem Land Plateau, a centre of plant and animal diversity on Indigenous land. Culture, Ecology and Economy of Fire Management in North Australian Savannas documents a remarkable collaboration between Arnhem Land’s traditional landowners and the scientific community to arrest a potentially catastrophic fire-driven decline in the natural and cultural assets of the region – not by excluding fire, but by using it better through restoration of Indigenous control over burning. This multi-disciplinary treatment encompasses the history of fire use in the savannas, the post-settlement changes that altered fire patterns, the personal histories of a small number of people who lived most of their lives on the plateau and, critically, their deep knowledge of fire and how to apply it to care for country. Uniquely, it shows how such knowledge and commitment can be deployed in conjunction with rigorous formal scientific analysis, advanced technology, new cross-cultural institutions and the emerging carbon economy to build partnerships for controlling fire at scales that were, until this demonstration, thought beyond effective intervention.

Rekindling the Wurrk Tradition

Culture, Ecology and Economy of Fire Management in North Australian Savannas

Jeremy Russell-Smith

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