Published works

The Savanna fire management and BNH scenario planning for northern Australia project is part of a larger suite of Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC projects being undertaken through Charles Darwin University focused broadly on ‘Building community resilience in northern Australia’. Collectively, these projects aim to promote enhanced understanding of the special circumstances concerning resilience issues in remote Indigenous communities, and identify culturally appropriate governance arrangements and enterprise opportunities that can contribute to enhancing community development and resilience.

We report here on activities undertaken in 2016-17 for four sub-projects: Savanna fire management, Management of flammable high biomass grassy weeds, Gulf fire management, and Scenario Planning.

The Savanna fire management sub-project (undertaken by Dr Andrew Edwards CDU) commenced late in 2013 and provided its final report through the current reporting year. The sub-project continued with the work on savanna-wide fire severity mapping, and assessing the implications and possibilities of using fire severity to replace seasonality in a revised greenhouse gas emissions abatement methodology. In this component we undertook a much-needed assessment of tree mortality with respect to high severity fires to quantify this phenomenon, and published this information in the international literature. The sub-project is developing a framework for a Savanna-wide Monitoring and Evaluation Reporting tool.

The Management of flammable high biomass grassy weeds, Gulf fire management sub-project (undertaken by Associate Professor Samantha Seterrfield of the University of Western Australia, and Dr Natalie Rossiter-Rachor CDU) commenced in the current reporting year and is due to be completed in 2017-2018. The project focuses on a range of invasive grasses that have spread rapidly in tropical Australia over the past two decades, substantially altering regional ecosystems. The ecological, economic and social consequences of these grasses are so significant that many are now declared at the Territory and State level, have been listed as Weeds of National Significance, and listed as a Key Threatening Process under the EPBC Act. The project is assessing the fire risk of these species and the social, environmental and economic consequences associated with high biomass grasses.

The Gulf fire management sub-project principally involves PhD studies (undertaken by Kate van Wezel CDU) exploring Indigenous women’s engagement and employment opportunities with fire management and emissions abatement projects being established in the remote NT / QLD Gulf region. In 2015 the Waanyi-Garawa Indigenous Ranger group based at Borroloola commenced a partnership with the BNHCRC in a participatory action research project aimed at assessing the challenges and opportunities associated with the development of a women’s caring for country program focused on Waanyi and Garawa country. This research provides a case study of successful collaborative land management in remote Indigenous Australia, and a gendered analysis of the caring for country movement as a strategy towards community resilience. 

Preparatory activities for the Scenario Planning sub-project, looking at how EM agencies and remote communities across northern Australia could better engage and develop effective partnerships, commenced in early 2017. Currently the project is focused on implementing scenario planning activities at two NT general locales—the Borroloola / Gulf region, the broader central Australian region focused on Alice Springs. Ongoing discussions are being held with QLD and WA agencies concerning the extension of project activities into those jurisdictions. This project component will now continue over the next three years as part of the new round of BNHCRC projects.

Notably, activities from the first three sub-projects listed above, as well as from other projects addressing the broader research theme of ‘Building community resilience in northern Australia’, are due to be incorporated in a book (with the current title, ‘2Way Country—transition to a resilient North Australia land sector economy’, due to be published by Magabala Press late this year.