ABOUT
This project aims to produce stories of how First Nations people and animals co-construct cultural landscapes via the medium of fire. These narratives will in turn inform policy and practice in terms of landscape management in south-eastern Australia. Cultural burning is much more than hazard reduction. It is a relational practice in which humans, animals and plants interact and influence each other, producing particular kinds of landscapes with particular ecological profiles. These interactions are vastly different from colonial landscape management practices which operate on conceptions of human/nature distinctions and in which humans conceive of landscapes using technical frames of reference.
Cultural burning is a response to Country in which humans are embedded in ecological processes subject to the same processes as are other, non-human participants in the landscape.
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- February 22, 2024
Bringing Home my Bandicoot Work
While I was mowing my lawn two weeks ago, I noticed some disturbed soil at the edge of the lawn under a Lilly Pilly tree. I took a closer look and instantly recognized the inverted conical digging pit of a bandicoot. I was a bit surprised at this because I’m in a pretty built-up area,… Continue reading Bringing Home my Bandicoot Work
READ MORE- November 05, 2023
Encounter
Last week I was walking along the sandy trail that leads from the low beach country up the escarpment to the ridgeline. I rounded a bend and heard a rustle and because I always have snakes in the back of my mind I jumped a metre backwards. The cause of the rustle was a koala,… Continue reading Encounter
READ MORE- October 22, 2023
Critter-blind
by Marcus I’ve hit a bump in the road. The above photo might look pretty mundane but it’s actually pretty significant. It’s what greeted me when I arrived at the fieldsite last week. The reason the photo is significant is because the previous Tuesday there was a trail camera attached to the tree. I arrived… Continue reading Critter-blind
READ MOREANIMALS
These little critters are ecosystem engineers punching way above their weight. While digging little pits in the ground in search of invertebrates and fungi, a single bandicoot can turn over as much as 13.1 kgs of soil per night, translating to 4.8 tonnes of soil turned over per year. All of this soil turnover has profound and measurable effects on the biotic and abiotic communities. Diggings increase soil conductivity and respiration, they improve moisture retention and reduce hydrophobicity. They promote beneficial fungi, and fungal diversity which increases nutrient availability to plants, promoting plant growth and increasing resistance to pathogens.
The organic matter that bandicoots dig into the soil promotes growth of other soil biota such as micro invertebrates, bacteria, nematodes, protozoa, and actinomycetes. Bandicoots diggings also promote the breakdown of leaf litter which reduces fuel loads and has been shown to demonstrate reduce the intensity of fires. And their diggings around trees clear vegetation, helping prevent fire from damaging trunks and lower branches.
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