WHY PLAYING WITH FIRE ?

Aboriginal people have an extensive and intimate ecological knowledge of Australia . Each clan or group lived in a well defined area that it owned according to ancestral law or Dreaming. Each had a detailed knowledge of local resources and looked after their land accordingly. Perhaps the most important single way in which this country's indigenous peoples still relate to the plants of their envioronment is through the use of fire. Although they are not strictly farming, Aborigines are able to alter and manage their land and thus to some degree control the source of their food by using fires in small well defined areas. They know that country that is not burned for a significant period is poor as a food resource. They usually burned small patches of land, and then perform totemic increase ceremonies, in the hope of plentiful supply. Many important foods appear in the regenerative phase following burning and lots of bushfood species increase after fire. Fire is also important in hunting animals of the grassland plains. The traditional aboriginal pattern of fire management produces small areas of landscape which as it changes offers various plant communities at different stages of recovery from fire. Large scale bush fires now common in the south east of Australia are not prevalent with this traditional management of small scale fire-stick farming.