Nature: Australia's wildfire crisis linked to colonial land-use change, 1,000-year sediment record shows

7 October 2026

A Nature paper published on 7 October 2026 links Australia's current wildfire crisis to colonial land-use change.
A team with corresponding author Michael-Shawn Fletcher of the University of Melbourne reconstructed 1,000 years of vegetation and fire history from a lake-sediment record in a temperate eucalypt forest in southeastern Australia.
Before British colonisation in 1788, the Gunaikurnai people's frequent, low-temperature cultural burning kept woodlands open and stable.
After colonial disruption, fire temperatures rose and eucalypt cover roughly quadrupled.
The authors describe a "catastrophic wildfire loop" and say integrating Indigenous knowledge into fire management is essential.