Aboriginal people have burned country for tens of thousands of years. The ancestors gave them a cultural obligation to look after and clean up country, a duty handed down from generation to generation. Signs in nature told them of the time to burn, a time when minimal harm would be done to country but huge benefits would be gained.
Their ongoing traditional management of country is recognised in Kakadu's World Heritage listing.
In some areas where no burning took place, noticeable harm was done. Now that traditional burning is back, the landscape is once again abundant with native flora and fauna. These days, conservation managers across the top of Australia are using traditional patch burning in the cooler weather to prevent wildfires, to repair country and to encourage biodiversity to recover.
This earth, I never damage.
I look after.
Fire is nothing, just clean up.
When you burn, new grass coming up.
That means good animal soon.
Might be goanna, possum, wallaby.
Burn him off, new grass coming up, new life all over.
Bill NeidjieNote:
Bunitj Clan
I wrote this post on 5 Nov 2013 probably after the Darwin trip where we saw a couple of forest fires. I know I should have a photo for this post which I probably didn't upload in my FB. Thus that explains why this post was never published. It's funny that 2 years had passed, but my blog style is still as abstract as ever... as messy as ever... Just like the blogger herself I guess. Always start with something and end with an entire different thought.
So when I re-read this post, I thought about the fire evacuation on new year eve day, about the fire 四月saw in the plane, the nearby fires my users were talking about that were set up intentionally but grew out of control. Fire is as usual the double edge sword. And I been playing with fire for the past few days while trying to light up the scented candle via the cooker. Every time I used a paper to light up the candle, I could never control it. It always start small but fire up big. And I always end up throwing the whole paper into the sink to douse it.
Just realized too that in a few weeks time, it will be the year of fire monkey too. If all signs are about fire, then what does the fire wants to tell me?
p/s: Is heaty also a sign of fire? Must be all the chocolates at fault.... sigh...
pp/s: Almost forgot about the siren that woke me up this morning... the constant whirring....
