@writwordmclail3583

8 months ago

Hi Jacob, great video as usual As an Australian Aboriginal person who came from an area of our country completely decimated by the bushfires I felt I may be able to gain more insight into what happened. Not only was it a general 'climate change' effect that caused what happened here. Native bushland has been managed by firetrails for tens of thousands of years. This is done by strategic backburning preventing areas from going up too quickly, or all at once, as eucalyptus trees are highly explosive. This is a method my people have employed as long as we've been here to ensure the safety of the tribes. Local, european based councils, have ignored this for decades. They backburn, sure, but they dont divide up the land correctly- they frequently cause minor bushfires in the colder months by simply setting alight a whole section of the bush. Tribe elders have begged for years for the handling of this to be passed back to our community in fear of this very thing happening. The fire trails would disappear, the safety would be compromised. Councils refused, swearing they knew better. So not only is it a climate issue, I feel the 2019 bushfires are deeply linked to colonialism. It was blatant arrogance that caused them. It's also important to consider- maybe not in terms of the management, but more the communal effect -the lasting impact these fires have had. 2019-2020 feels like a lifetime ago now, but I and everyone I knew was traumatised by seeing our home surrounded by the angriest flames you can imagine. Then, due to it happening over our tourist season, a lot of businesses went out. Then Covid, two more tourists seasons gone. Then the floods hit, since there was now no growth to prevent water rushing down the mountains into already marshy land. So many people lost their homes. If not from fire or flood, then from economic uncertainty. My home town was destroyed by it. Businesses and families that had existed for generations vanished in the blink of an eye. Our houses were bought by vacationing rich people, wanting a slice of the 'beach life', who then looked down on not only the poor white people of the area, but the aboriginal people. There is a presence of indigenous population in the cities, but its not like you see rurally- and my town had a very high population. I have been forced from my home by this series of events. I cannot work, as anywhere that would hire me closed, leaving behind chain stores only interested in the cheapest labour. I cannot rent, as all the houses have been bought and 'flipped' by people praying on the desperate, going to the highest bidder- usually someone wanting an AirBNB or a summer home. I went to the city and I enjoy my life here, but I mourn the days before the fires, as I never wanted to leave my home. It was peaceful, I enjoyed working in cafes in the summer and renting my run down, shack of a home not too far from the marshlands. People often reduce the fires down to one event, one moment in time that had no lasting impact- a curiousity, to those overseas. This is not the case. It dismantled communities, broke up families, ended lives. It has been treated callously by the international community and passed off as another example of climate change, but its so much more than that. It was willful, deliberate ignorance, down to a local level, based on racism and colonial history. My story is not unique. Its the fate of a lot of people I know. It was the cataclysm that created, for us, a mini apocalypse. And now, we watch the elite sit in their newly renovated waterside homes, knowing that eventually that same apocalypse comes for them. They just don't know it yet.

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