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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

How colonialism fed the flames of Australia’s catastrophic wildfires

The arrival of British settlers disrupted Indigenous burning practices, setting the stage for large and destructive blazes.
Fire and thick smoke among trees.

Flames char bush land in southeastern Australia during the deadly barrage of fires that hit the region in late 2019 and early 2020. Credit: Mark Graham/Bloomberg via Getty

The unprecedented fires that devastated parts of Australia in 2020 can be attributed in part to colonialism1.

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Nature 603, 10 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00509-5

References

  1. Mariani, M. et al. Front. Ecol. Environ. https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.2395 (2022).

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