El Niño

• First Nations people please be advised this article speaks of racially discriminating moments in history, including the distress and death of First Nations people.
• On October 9 1873, George Augustus Frederick Dalrymple reclined in a boat on the glorious North Johnstone River in the coastal Wet Tropics.
• Dappled paths led to managed patches of open forest, groves of fruit trees, bananas and yams.
• First Nations groups such as Australia’s rainforest people had skilfully managed entire ecosystems over the long term, in what has been termed “ecology on steroids”.

Decoupling landscape from climate change

• The Pleistocene climate was cool and windy, with mega monsoons and long periods of diabolical drought.
• Here, in a magnificent cave system in Arnhem Land, people prepared a meal of native fruits and processed pandanus using an adaptable toolkit.
• This meal took place 65,000 years ago, when savannah stretched all the way to the island of New Guinea.

• The land was not a mindless resource but part of your family – and came with family obligations.
• Everyone, whether you were human, an animal, a plant, a river, fire, the sky or wind, was closely watched.

• The lagoon filled up, nestled in a landscape of moisture-loving shrubs and brushed by relatively cool fires.
• But then, the climate lurched to one of the long periods of horrendous drought instigated by an El Nino weather system.
• Through patch burning, they created a rich landscape of diverse habitat that sustained people and created niches for a wide range of species.

Extinction busters

• From before the last ice age, the ancestors of today’s Martu people would have witnessed great floods rushing down the Sturt Creek into an extensive lake system, Paruku (Lake Gregory).
• These lakes were ten times larger than today’s system, ringed by dunes covered in scrubby vegetation and flammable spinifex.
• Without cultural burning, it took mere years for fuel to build up and large wildfires to incinerate the landscape.

• Over the two decades of Martu absence, ten species of small mammal became locally extinct, including the rufous hare-wallaby, burrowing bettong, bilby, mulgara and brushtail possum.
• What’s more, 14 mammals, three birds and two reptiles became threatened.
• We will need to relearn these ancient techniques of managing country on a broader scale to cope with the changes to come.

• Penny has recently published a book, Cloud Land, with Allen & Unwin based on the Thiaki restoration project.
• Barry Hunter is a Djabugay man and chair of Terrain NRM, a natural resources management group.

• NEW YORK, Dec. 4, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Girl Rising announces the release of an open letter authored by the 2023 Fellows of the Future Rising program, addressed to leaders of member states gathering for the 28th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP28).
• The letter emphasizes the need for an inclusive and cooperative negotiation process and urges leaders to prioritize climate education globally.
• "The Future Rising Fellows are at the forefront, leading innovative solutions to combat climate change within their communities that advance both gender equity and girls' access to education.
• We hope the COP28 leaders heed the call of the Future Rising Fellows," said Anna Hall, Girl Rising Chief Storytelling Officer and head of the Future Rising program.

• Increased demand will temporarily lift prices for U.S. rice producers and the industry is well-positioned to meet higher demand for exports.
• However, the short-term benefits of India’s rice export ban will give way to the longer-term consequence of an oversupplied global market and severe price correction when the ban is ultimately reversed.
• According to a new research brief from CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange , higher global rice prices resulting from India’s export ban will prompt other countries to expand rice production, increasing global supplies.
• So far, U.S. rough rice prices on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange have been virtually unchanged relative to other global exporters like Thailand since India’s export ban was imposed.

• As a fire scientist, I know the unfolding horror – which has killed 36 people so far – is just the beginning.
• It’s a portent of what Australia and other countries will experience in a warmer world.
• Global warming – the result of fossil fuel burning – means bushfires will become more frequent and severe.

Record-breaking heat and fires

• The Maui fires have been fuelled by strong winds, dry vegetation and low humidity.
• At one point, 1,000 fires were burning in Canada alone.
• The fires have in part been fuelled by record-high temperatures.
• Read more:
  Maui's deadly wildfires burn through Lahaina – it's a reminder of the growing risk to communities that once seemed safe

Australians must heed the warnings

• In Australian forests, the average annual burned area in that period increased by 350%.
• If we include 2019 – the year the Black Summer fires began – the increase in burned area rises to 800%.
• The drying and warming that drove the Black Summer fires are linked to human-caused climate change.
• Read more:
  Australia's Black Summer of fire was not normal – and we can prove it

What must be done

• Finally, Australia had a map for its journey toward adapting to fires and other natural disasters.
• For governments alone, it called for changes across land-use planning, infrastructure, emergency management, social policy, agriculture, education, physical and mental health, community development, energy and the environment.
• The commission also called for an acknowledgement of the role of Indigenous fire managers in mitigating bushfire risks.
• These approaches could prove vital not only managing extreme fires in Australia, but elsewhere in the world.

Looking ahead

• As our Black Summer showed, these fires now only destroy lives, homes and biodiversity.
• It’s vital that we slash greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible, to stabilise Earth’s climate.
• Read more:
  Canada wildfires: an area larger than the Netherlands has been burned so far this year -- here's what is causing them