Indigenous Fire Management Contributing to the UN SDGs: A Case Study from Northern Australia

Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) have legal and customary rights to manage about one-third of the global lands (i.e., an area of ~43.5 m km2), suggesting nonexploitive and sustainable use of those lands. This chapter provides a case study of fire management practiced on Indigenous lands by the traditional owners in northern Australia for millennia. The importance of this practice was realized when greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from wildfires, which spread extensively across savannas covering an area of 1.9 m km2, became a concern for the Australian Government. In 2012, the Australian Government commenced an incentivized fire management scheme that has contributed to abate 7 million tonnes of GHG emissions to date, in addition to creating jobs in remote locations. This chapter highlights how the incentivized fire management scheme has enabled Indigenous peoples and contributed to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals in terms of generating >600 jobs, a carbon economy worth USD ~nine million, and saving government costs on Indigenous welfare, estimated at USD 26 million per year. In addition, a well-managed savanna landscape delivers ecosystem services, worth ~$7 billion per year. This chapter underlines the multifold socioeconomic and ecological benefits of supporting IPLCs to look after their lands and argues to develop more suitable incentivized mechanisms that enable IPLCs to apply their traditional knowledge and skills to manage lands, globally.