Interscalar maintenance: configuring an Indigenous ‘premium carbon product’ in northern Australia (and beyond)

Abstract

Mitigating climate change requires us to constrain combustion in a double sense: decreasing both the use of fossil fuels and the flammability of the biosphere. Fire management by Indigenous peoples in Australia's northern savannas has been presented as a solution to offset the former and assist with the latter, leading to the foundation of a regional economy of projects generating ‘premium’ carbon credits on Indigenous lands. This article attends to the translational zone – predominantly made up of non-Indigenous white professionals – that functions to configure the ‘right story’ of these credits across diverse epistemes and contexts. Following such commodities’ interscalar connections, I suggest, helps illustrate the contingencies and contradictions produced by tradeable carbon, as individuals and organizations seek to maintain a niche within a changing climate and shifting global atmospheric relations.