Cultural burning, cultural misappropriation, over‐simplification of land management complexity, and ecological illiteracy

Lighting a pathway: Our obligation to culture and Country

“….the integration of Western science and Indigenous Fire Knowledge', however, here, our focus will be on the statements and implications that we believe misrepresent relevant knowledge and research, perpetuate colonial misconceptions or that imply both cultural fire practitioners and advocates are arguing simply or generally for increased use of cultural fire across the landscape. We also nuance concluding remarks by Lindenmayer and Bowd (2022) regarding the hierarchy of values which guide fire management and the welcome prioritisation of partnerships with 'First Nations People' and knowledge holders. Lindenmayer and Bowd (2022) begin by describing the aftermath of the 2019/2020 bushfire season as the context for their commentary and discuss a vocal call for the use of 'fire to fight fire', highlighting how cultural burning is also being advocated for in this context.…”

“…We also nuance concluding remarks by Lindenmayer and Bowd (2022) regarding the hierarchy of values which guide fire management and the welcome prioritisation of partnerships with 'First Nations People' and knowledge holders. Lindenmayer and Bowd (2022) begin by describing the aftermath of the 2019/2020 bushfire season as the context for their commentary and discuss a vocal call for the use of 'fire to fight fire', highlighting how cultural burning is also being advocated for in this context. They cite Mariani et al (2022) as evidence of calls for "greater use of cultural burning" and then go on to suggest that "there are unlikely to be general 'recipes' for cultural burning which can be applied uncritically to all ecosystems, such as the widespread application of frequent low-severity fire".…”

“…When calling on nuance and careful consideration of future fire regimes, including cultural fire, Lindenmayer and Bowd (2022) refer to "ecosystem specific natural fire regimes". We contend that this argument in the context of an article about cultural burning wanders perilously close to perpetuating the 'wilderness' myth (Fletcher et al 2021b), a term the authors themselves caution against.…”

“…We will take the opportunity to point to partnerships that already exist and have begun to be documented and analysed, often by teams including First People's researchers (e.g. Darug et al 2019 Bowd (2022) have not engaged with First Nations academics (such as those we reference in this response) in their Viewpoint is unfortunate, but we also view it as an opportunity to invite such collaborations in the future.…”

Right fire for right Country: Integrating First Nations knowledge and Western science in land management

“…P ascoe et al (2023) made commentary on our Viewpoint 'Cultural burning, cultural misappropriation, over-simplification of land management complexity, and ecological illiteracy' (Lindenmayer & Bowd 2022). However, Pascoe et al (2023) unfortunately misinterpreted the intent and content of much of our Viewpoint.…”