Originally Posted By LightSpeed
The native North Americans used to burn the forest regularly because the rabbits eat the grass and the deer eat the grass and both were easy to hunt for them provided those small critters had food.

Controlled burning (that is to say at the right time of the year so as not to create dangerous fires) is a system that has been used by the Australian Aboriginals for thousands of years. Open forest and grasslands favour kangaroos and kangaroo hunters. When the English arrived they had a fear of fire and that coupled with the decimation of the aboriginal population near Sydney due to disease brought about dense reafforestation. Much of the Australian forest was referred to by the early explorers as open forest and they were able to move through it with horses and bullock carts. Not something one could do in many of the forested areas today.

The Aboriginees actually altered the species of trees in much of the Australian forest as the practice gave rise to the predominance of the fire resistant eucalyptus varieties.

Peter

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