After the bushfires that started in June of 2019. One in eight Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia were directly impacted. Bhiamie Eckford-Williamson, an Euahlayi man and academic from the Australian National University, told the royal commission that 96,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, including 35,000 children, were affected by the fires that burned in Queensland, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and South Australia. That amounts to 29% of the Indigenous population in affected states, and 12% of the national Indigenous population. The Indigenous population in areas hit by bushfires was 4.6%, double the population in the state as a whole, meaning that Indigenous people were “disproportionately affected”. There was even a study saying that the geological record showed no records of a fire event equivalent to the 2019-20 season, with fires stretching from Queensland to Victoria.
The theme in geography that I think connects the most to this article is Human-Environmental interaction. They connect to each other because the article discusses how the wild bushfires in Australia have impacted and affected the Indigenous people. The wildfires affected Indigenous people because after the Indigenous people of Australia were colonized, they werenʻt able to properly take care of their land. They had taken care of their land by involving regular, controlled burns that reduce fuel load and decrease risk of bushfires. But after colonization they werenʻt able to continue. After the bushfires stopped in February of 2020, it was found that while global heating was undoubtedly increasing the fire risk, the landscape now had more fuel in the modern forested region today than when they were under Indigenous cultural burning. Geography is important with this because with geography we learn who the Indigenous people were, where they lived and how they took care of their land before colonization. My reaction to this article was that I was surprised. Before reading I did not know about culture burning or what it was done. But now I understand that it is to decrease the amount of fuel in the environment, which avoids bushfires. My opinion on this topic is that the Australian government should allow the Indigenous people to help to take care of the environment to decrease the amount of bushfires for the safety of their people since it is affecting them the most. Indigenous leaders are calling for a new workforce of 'fire practitioners' to implement traditional burning practices across Australia. This affects me because this just goes to show how oppressed native peoples are around the world. After these Indigenous got their land stolen from them, they weren't able to take care of it and it slowly went into ruins. Causing pollution and destruction of native and sacred land and practices. Something very similar had happened to Native Hawaiians. This article connects to the Geography theme of interactions with the environment. They connect to each other because the article talks about how the environment was affected by the bushfires and how they affected the Indigenous people and the people of Australia. The environment is mostly being affected by the ash from the fires. The ash is landing in school playgrounds, backyards, and is being washed up on Australia's beaches. It is eventually getting into freshwater stores and water catchments. This causes the drinking water catchments to get polluted because they are typically located in forested areas where they are vulnerable to a bushfire. This affects the people of Australia because the polluted water will infect the drinking water making it undrinkable and potentially harmful. This event is important to us today because it makes us realize what we need to fix to make sure that the same thing doesnʻt happen again. Wahlquist, C. (2020, June 18). 'Unprecedented' Australian bushfires directly affected one in eight Indigenous people. Retrieved July 04, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/18/unprecedented-australian-bushfires-directly-affected-one-in-eight-indigenous-people UN Environment. (n.d.). Ten impacts of the Australian bushfires. Retrieved July 04, 2020, from https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/ten-impacts-australian-bushfires Faa, M. (2019, November 14). Traditional owners predicted this bushfire disaster years ago. Retrieved July 04, 2020, from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-14/traditional-owners-predicted-bushfire-disaster/11700320
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