Climate change not the only blame for bushfire crisis

Essay by Eric Worrall

There is also colonisation.

Climate change not the only blame for bushfire crisis

By Allanah Sciberras
Updated October 8 2026 – 5:03am, first published 5:00am

Restoring Indigenous cultural burning could help break a “catastrophic fire loop”, plaguing Australia’s southeast forests, a new study has found.

Researchers reconstructed the past millennium of vegetation, fire and erosion in Victoria’s Croajingolong National Park in East Gippsland, one of the most fire-prone forests.

The study published on Thursday by the University of Melbourne, found long-term environmental shifts should not be blamed on climate change alone, with the crisis linked to colonial land use.

“Climate records show that seasons of comparably dangerous fire weather, such as those seen during Ash Wednesday and Black Saturday, occurred in the region repeatedly before colonisation, yet the open landscape maintained by cultural burning protected the land from catastrophic fire,” lead author Michael-Shawn Fletcher said.

“When colonisation ended that care, the forest expanded and thickened across the region, loading the landscape with fuel. It is that transformation that has handed control of fire to climate.”

…

Read more: https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9364649/climate-change-not-the-only-blame-for-bushfire-crisis/

The abstract of the study;

• Article
• Published: 07 October 2026

Australia’s current wildfire crisis linked to colonial land-use change

• Michael-Shawn Fletcher, 
• Anthony Romano, 
• Caitlin O’Shea, 
• S. Yoshi Maezumi, 
• Harriet Magee, 
• Simon Connor, 
• Russell Mullett, 
• Patricia Menéndez, 
• Patricia S. Gadd, 
• Michela Mariani, 
• Manuel Chevalier & 
• Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation

Nature (2026) Cite this article

Abstract

The global wildfire crisis¹ is often attributed to climate change, a framing that overlooks crucial historical drivers. Biomes at the forefront of this crisis, such as the temperate eucalypt forests of Australia, have seen alarming increases in large, intense wildfires in recent decades. Yet evidence of how colonial land-use change and the disruption of Indigenous fire use altered vegetation structure and fuel dynamics remains scarce. Here we reconstruct 1,000 years of vegetation and fire change in a temperate eucalypt forest in southeastern Australia. Before the British invasion (from 1788 CE), fire use by the Indigenous Gunaikurnai people maintained stable, open woodlands through frequent, fine-grained, low-temperature cultural burning. Colonial disruption drove cascading changes: increased fire temperature, a fourfold rise in eucalypt cover, a shift from open woodland to forest and increased soil erosion. These transformations preceded anthropogenic warming, indicating that the vulnerability of these forests to wildfire is shaped by colonial land-use legacies. By creating more flammable landscapes, colonial land use amplified the influence of climate change, suggesting a reinforcing feedback (the ‘catastrophic wildfire loop’) in which high-intensity wildfires raise fuel loads and further increase the likelihood of climate-driven fire. Integrating Indigenous knowledge into fire management is therefore essential to restoring resilience and mitigating future wildfire risk.

Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-11097-z

I doubt the 18th century Aboriginals thought of setting fires as taking care of the land. More likely they thought of setting fires as ideal conditions for a free BBQ where you didn’t have to chase the animals first.

But underneath all the leftist identity politics the recommendation if the study is sensible – enlist green support for fuel load burns before you end up with a LA scale wildfire.

Sadly progress has been slow convincing greens to support sensible forestry policies, even when the advice is loaded with language designed to appeal to green sensibilities.

The absurdity of mostly white “colonists” dictating to aborigines how to manage forests is lost on the anti controlled burn protestors. Chaining themselves to trees to save koalas from a low intensity burn, koalas which get fried to a crisp a few months later in a high intensity fire, seems more their thing.