Background Paper: Cultural burning practices in Australia

Indigenous Australians have used fire to shape and manage the land for over 60,000 years. While these practices have been widely disrupted over a number of generations, there is a growing recognition of the value of cultural burning, including as a way to mitigate the effects of bushfires.

This paper provides background about cultural burning practices in Australia and surveys some of the literature about the practice.

The views and statements in the paper are drawn from publicly available literature and do not necessarily represent the views of the Royal Commission.