Fire regime change in western Tasmania between 1830 and 2025

Abstract

Journal records of explorers’ routes can illuminate colonial vegetation patterns and fire regimes at regional scales. Using geographic information systems and current vegetation and fire history mapping, we analyse the 1830 and 1833 expeditions to make contact with the Toogee nation of western Tasmania made by George Augustus Robinson with the assistance of Tasmanian Aboriginal guides. We found that Robinson’s routes were concentrated on treeless vegetation (72%), and daily journal entries that reported traversing forest and treeless vegetation concurred with our analyses of contemporary vegetation maps. We estimate that 41% of the flammable vegetation (forest and treeless combined) that Robinson traversed has not been burned in the last 50 years, with 32% of the treeless moorland and scrub vegetation currently in a long-unburned state. We conclude that Tasmanian Aboriginal people targeted treeless areas for travel taking advantage of open ecosystems that they had managed over millennia using frequent burning. This historical knowledge contributes to the fire management of the region, supporting calls for restoring cultural burning programmes.