In recent years, it has sometimes seemed like the whole world was on fire, with destructive fires in California, Australia, and Portugal lighting up the skies. But fire destruction may not be inevitable if we change our ways of managing fire, as we can learn from Northern Australia.

“Bringing together their traditional knowledge with modern science and technology, Indigenous fire managers have cut uncontrolled bushfires by half, lowered the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions and provided much-needed employment in some of the remotest parts of the country,” explains Charles Darwin University’s Centre for Bushfire Research.