Bushfire management, prescribed burning, and a right to fire
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5877398 |
|---|---|
| Authors | J Gillespie (0000-0002-5103-3449, The University of Sydney, corresponding author), Josephine Lange (The University of Sydney) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 63 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 697-711 |
| Publication date | 2025-06-26 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Geographical Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1745-5863 • E-ISSN: 1745-5871 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/1745-5871.70021 |
| OpenAlex | W4411696589 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 64 |
Bushfires across the globe account for enormous biodiversity loss. Uncontrolled fire destroys human and more-than-human habitat without exception. Significant efforts are made to prevent and overcome bushfire events and associated losses. However, fire is also needed at times. For species and ecosystems that rely on fire for regeneration, fire itself is necessary for survival. As part of a larger narrative about diminishing the extinction crisis there is a need to recognise and grapple with the role of fire, not as a force of destruction, but as a force of renewal and regeneration. Accordingly, the complex role of fire as a protector of more-than-human interests requires further investigation. In this paper we argue that the 'right to fire' is not adequately conceived in contemporary fire management regulations and policies, including prescribed (controlled) burning. Instead, the protection of human life and property dominates prescribed burning policy. We find that fire should not be simplified as a wholesale threat in regulatory settings, but that greater nuance is needed to enable habitat renewal and ensure species survival. Given prescribed burning has become a widespread global fire management strategy, it is critical that a voice is given to those more-than-humans who rely on fire to survive
Cartography · Environmental planning · Environmental resource management · Geography · Prescribed burn · Disaster Management and Resilience · Environmental Justice and Health Disparities · Environmental Science · Fire effects on ecosystems
Indigenous knowledge and the shackles of wilderness
Biodiversity Conservation and the Eradication of Poverty
Terrain
Australia’s Megafires
Cross-Cultural Monitoring of a Cultural Keystone Species Informs Revival of Indigenous Burning of Country in South-Eastern Australia
Breathing Fire’
Barriers and enablers for prescribed burns for wildfire management in California
Transformation beyond conservation
Generating narratives on bushfire risk and biodiversity values to inform environmental policy
Insights from Antipodean legal geography
Cultural ecology
Letting the plants speak
A more-than-urban political ecology of bushfire smoke in eastern Australia, 2019–2020
Goodbye Gondwana? Questioning disaster triage and fire resilience in Australia
Separating natural and cultural heritage
Beyond the selective regulation of wetlands
Cultural burning and public sector practice in the Australian Capital Territory
The Emu
Digital ecologies
Law's Underdog
Beyond Green
Conservation without nature
Indigenous biocultural rights and the Blue Mountains
Different Ways of Knowing How to Coexist with Fire
Progressive and critical legal geography scholarship
Bushfire, prescribed burning, and non-human protection
The Whanganui River as Te Awa Tupua
Creating legal rights for rivers
| Citations per year | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |