David Jefford Ward
I note that some at Denmark WA object to deliberate burning by the government department called DBCA. On television I have seen the matter briefly addressed by two botanists, Dr Joanna Young and Prof Stephen Hopper. They were showing a politician a recently burnt swamp, with ugly damage to the peat. A nasty sight, but was it the whole truth, or only part?
We might remember Aristotle’s discussion of the perils of omitting, deliberately or accidentally, part of the truth (enthymeme). This was used as a rhetorical tactic in his days in politics, law, and religion. It still occurs in those fields, although today we might add some other occupations such as journalism and marketing. Surely, it is the historical basis of our present legal oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Decades ago, an elderly Noongar man told me that swamps were traditionally burnt in winter or early spring, over standing water. I don’t think he was trying to mislead me, or sell me something, or get me to vote for him. Knowing the famous accuracy of Noongar memory on important matters such as burning, I doubt if it was accidental.
I think such burning could have taken place when a high pressure system was in the bight, giving fresh, south-east winds. This would have left the waterlogged peat unburnt, and given the water a good smoking, so germinating seeds. A European farmer at Nannup once told me that he burnt a swamp on his farm every few winters to germinate wildflowers, especially the lovely Brown Boronia.
In 1995 I cleaned the charcoal off a few big old balga grasstrees in London Block, near Walpole. These showed past fires at two to three year intervals from the 1880s to the 1940s, but twice that interval between the 1950s and 1990s. On one tree the early fire marks were markedly deeper and darker on the south-east side.
Can any of your readers, Noongar or otherwise, confirm or dismiss this idea of beneficial past frequent traditional winter burning over water? Should we beware of enthymemes, whether deliberate or accidental, in bushfire ecology?
Perhaps our two eminent botanists, Joanna and Steve, could write an article to help us all with the whole truth about fire and swamps, season of burn, wind directions, and Noongar traditional burning.
In the mean time readers may care to google the essay ‘Fires of Spring’ by the late Prof Henry T. Lewis of Canada, based on traditional burning there. Sometimes they burnt with snow on the ground.
David Jefford Ward is the author of Our Dangerous Friend.
