The Indigenous Desert Fire Program is a project led by the Indigenous Desert Alliance supporting Indigenous-led fire management throughout Australia’s deserts.

Aboriginal people have managed their country for thousands of years and fire has been their primary tool. Their methodical and expert use of fire diversified the historical spinifex grasslands of the desert, resulting in a patchwork of fire scars still visible today from space. These essential practices for the maintenance, care and design of Country promote both vegetation regrowth and biodiversity, mitigating the impact of bushfires. As Aboriginal people have been forcibly displaced and moved off their traditional lands, the cessation of traditional burning methods has resulted in an altered fire regime, one characterised by large, frequent, and devastating bushfires.

The Indigenous Desert Fire Program aims to promote a fire regime reflective of traditional practice and values through the application of collaborative, landscape-scale, Indigenous-led fire management. It does so by providing capacity building and project management support to desert-based Indigenous ranger groups, working across Australia’s 10 deserts; the Great Victoria Desert, Great Sandy Desert, Tanami Desert, Simpson Desert, Gibson Desert, Little Sandy Desert, Strzelecki Desert, Sturt Stony Desert, Tirari Desert and Pedirka Desert. The program is managed by the Indigenous Desert Alliance, operating across the same region and constituting the largest indigenous led environmental alliance in the world.

This text was the result of online research borrowing The Indigenous Desert Alliance’s website and the Indigenous Desert Fire Program’s project outline.