Ancient Wisdom & Forest Fires

Silverfiddle Rant!

Yahoo schools us on ancient aborigine traditions for preventing wildfires:

Long before European colonizers settled in Australia, Indigenous groups have been setting their own lands ablaze as a fire management technique. They use carefully controlled low flames and the power of the wind to clear grasses and kindling, the materials that fuel more unpredictable blazes during fire season.

Many Indigenous people see their techniques as part of a solution for devastating blazes like the ones that have ravaged the country in recent months.

 They even throw in some strawman condescension from a noble aborigine...

"Western knowledge of fire is that they're afraid of it," Kylee Clubb, a fire practitioner from Queensland, told Business Insider Today. "Whereas traditional burning and Aboriginal knowledge is that we work with it."

We “European colonizers” call the technique a “controlled burn.” We do it during the wetter parts of the year to keep it from getting out of control. Back in Mark Twain’s time, not only did they do controlled burns out west near settlements, they did not even attempt to fight forest fires. They were nature’s way of clearing dry underbrush and killing weak trees.

If attributing common sense forestry practices to Indigenous Peoples is all it takes to get city-dwelling progressive enviro-nuts to embrace controlled burns and fire breaks, I don’t mind a little “Stupid white man ignores the traditions of the ancient noble Indigeni” to get it moving. We all need to do our share...