In The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia (2011), Bill Gammage argues that Aboriginal Australians shaped the continent’s vegetation landscape through firestick farming, a sophisticated practice of deliberate, low-intensity burns to create open, park-like grasslands and resource-rich environments, challenging the notion of a “natural” pre-European landscape [11]. The book lacks a formal literature review chapter, instead weaving engagement with historical, ethnographic, and ecological sources throughout chapters like “The Well-managed Estate,” “How to Burn,” and “The Firestick.” Gammage’s thesis, which posits that Aboriginal burning was the primary force behind Australia’s open landscapes, promoting fire-tolerant species like eucalypts and grasses, gained significant traction, influencing Australian government policies on fire management after major bushfires like the 2009 Black Saturday [6, 16]. However, his selective engagement with alternative theories about vegetation formation—such as climate-driven changes, geological factors, or regional variations—raises questions about the adequacy of his literature review, especially given critiques that his work may have been popularized to support government agendas for land-clearing, potentially for woodchipping, farming, or housing development [8].
Gammage heavily relies on primary sources, such as journals from explorers like Abel Tasman, William Dampier, and George Augustus Robinson, which document smoke, grassy clearings, and systematic Aboriginal burning practices, such as Robinson’s accounts of Tasmanians carrying smouldering fire-sticks [10, 11, 13]. He also cites 19th-century paintings and sketches depicting open landscapes, countering art historians’ claims of European stylization, to argue that Aboriginal fire management created a continent-wide “estate” by 1788 [11, 13]. Among secondary sources, Gammage builds on Rhys Jones’s 1969 article “Fire-Stick Farming” (Australian Natural History), which introduced Aboriginal burning as a resource management strategy for clearing vegetation, regenerating plant foods, and aiding hunting [10]. He extends Jones’s work to argue for a universal system, supported by ecological studies like Mooney et al. (2011), which analyze late Quaternary fire regimes and suggest Aboriginal burning altered vegetation patterns, though these studies emphasize climate as a primary fire driver [5]. Gammage also draws on Tim Flannery’s The Future Eaters (1994), which links Aboriginal burning to biodiversity maintenance, and Stephen Pyne’s Burning Bush (1991), which details historical fire contexts, to reinforce his focus on frequent, low-intensity burns every 1–5 years tailored to local conditions [12, 19].
Despite this, Gammage’s engagement with alternative theories about Australia’s vegetation landscape formation is limited, rendering his literature review inadequate for a comprehensive assessment. He briefly acknowledges climate’s role, citing Mooney et al. (2011) on pre-human fire regimes, but argues Aboriginal burning superseded these by 40,000 years ago, largely dismissing natural factors like aridity or soil conditions [5]. He minimally addresses studies like Bowman et al. (2011), which highlight complex interactions between climate, soil, and fire, or regional counterevidence [1]. For instance, Gunaikurnai linguist Joel Wright, (see https://candobetter.net/sheila-newman/blog/4240/video-lecture-did-australian-aboriginals-burn-bush-we-are-told-joel-wright) argues there’s almost no evidence for firestick farming in South East Gippsland, proposing instead that Aboriginal burning was tactical—used to hinder pastoralists’ horses and cattle by reducing grazeable land or as smoke signals to communicate about settler movements, like the First Fleet [8]. Wright contends that dense, humid forests were “virtually fire-proof” and that burning would have driven away prey, while forest thinning by settlers created wind-driven fire risks [8]. Similarly, Bob McDonald, (see https://candobetter.net/admin/blog/4274/its-time-stop-lighting-fires-article-bob-mcdonald-naturalist), attributes open landscapes to prehistoric volcanic activity along the Great Dividing Range (20,000 years ago) and later eruptions in Gippsland and Queensland’s Darling Downs (about 12,000 years ago), suggesting natural fires, not Aboriginal ones, shaped vegetation [8]. Geological evidence supports volcanic activity in Australia’s east, such as the Toowoomba volcano (~25,000–12,000 years ago), which could have influenced fire regimes [5]. Gammage’s failure to engage with such counter-theories, including archaeological or palynological data on climate-driven vegetation shifts post-Last Glacial Maximum, risks overgeneralizing firestick farming’s impact [1, 5, 8].
The book was a great hit with Australian governments, and they have pushed it until it has become an iconic belief, despite its major flaws. One wonders if its popularity may stem from comforting land-clearing agendas. Post-2011, Gammage’s thesis inspired policies like Victoria’s Cultural Fire Strategy (2020) and New South Wales’ Indigenous-led burn programs, which adopted Aboriginal low-intensity burning to reduce fuel loads and enhance biodiversity [6, 16]. However, these policies oversimplify Gammage’s ideas, applying them broadly without accounting for regional ecological differences, as critics like Aaron Petty note [1]. The book can be used to justify deforestation for woodchipping, farming, or housing, as its narrative of open landscapes created by burning can support economic land-use goals, especially after Gammage’s work was popularized alongside works like Country: Future Fire, Future Farming (2021) by Gammage and Bruce Pascoe [6, 16]. Wright’s and McDonald’s theories, emphasizing defensive burning and volcanic fires, challenge this narrative, suggesting Aboriginal practices were context-specific and natural forces significant, potentially undermining justifications for widespread clearing [8].
Gammage’s selective source use, prioritizing qualitative historical accounts over quantitative ecological or geological data, weakens his review’s comprehensiveness, as does his minimal engagement with dissenting views like Wright’s or McDonald’s [1, 8]. While his synthesis of Jones, Flannery, and Pyne strengthens his firestick farming argument, the omission of alternative explanations risks overstating Aboriginal fire’s role across all landscapes [10, 12, 19].
Joel Wright's and Bob McDonald’s work highlight valuable Indigenous counterperspectives, and McDonald’s volcanic theory, though less documented, merits further exploration. Together, they suggest a more nuanced interplay of human and natural factors in Australia’s vegetation history, which Gammage’s work and its policy uptake may have oversimplified to align with economic interests.
References: [1] Petty, A. M. (2012). Introduction to Fire-Stick Farming. Fire Ecology, 8, 3–8. https://fireecology.springeropen.com/articles/10.1007/BF03400618
[5] Mooney, S. D., et al. (2011). Late Quaternary fire regimes of Australasia. Quaternary Science Reviews, 30, 28–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.10.010
[6] Daley, D. (2021). IA Book Club: Country: Future Fire, Future Farming by Bill Gammage & Bruce Pascoe. Independent Australia. https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/ia-book-club-country--future-fire-future-farming-by-bill-gammage--bruce-pascoe,15874
[8] Gardner, P. (2017). Firestick Farming, Controlled Burns and Climate Change. https://petergardner.info/2017/09/firestick-farming-controlled-burns-and-climate-change/
[10] Jones, R. (1969). Fire-Stick Farming. Australian Natural History, 16(7), 224–228. https://fireecology.springeropen.com/articles/10.1007/BF03400618
[11] Gammage, B. (2011). The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia. Allen & Unwin, Sydney. https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Bill-Gammage-Biggest-Estate-on-Earth-9781743311325
[12] Wilman, E. A. (2015). An economic model of Aboriginal fire-stick farming. Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-8489.12077
[16] Gammage, B., & Pascoe, B. (2021). Country: Future Fire, Future Farming. Thames & Hudson. https://shop.twma.com.au/products/first-knowledges-country
[19] Flannery, T. (1994). The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People. Reed Books, Melbourne. https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-future-eaters-9781876334215
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