Pyroculture

Montanus (1671:22) however commented that: “Greenery would abound more if the natives did not burn the areas where they wander”, without at all appreciating the pyroculture that had been practiced by the Tasmanians for millennia as an innovative and successful environmental management strategy (Bird et al. 2008).

Despite the absence of farmed crops (i.e., maize, beans, and squash) and agriculture, it is clear that the western North American landscape was highly managed through fire maintenance (or pyroculture) for thousands of years (e.g., articles in Blackburn and Anderson 1993).

In the words of a recent scientific review of the effects accomplished by the ‘ecological engineering’ of traditional fire practitioners, ‘pyrodiversity begets biodiversity’. This a conscious cultural economy of fire in stark contrast to the organised irresponsibility of industrial pyroculture toward the ecological consequences of its burnings, of enclosed fires hidden behind ignition switches and powerpoints.

Around 1.6 million years ago, the Homo erectus inhabitants there emerged as a “pyro-culture,” using high temperature fire to create stone and bone implements (Gheorghiou & Nash 2007:14; Karlin and Julien 1994:153).

The driving force of pyroculture was a flow of light-giving heat from burning firewood; thus converted solar energy. But for the first time in the history of life, the prime shaping force of an energy-dissipating structure sprang from human ingenuity. Fire masters created technological artefacts such as the torch and the fireplace to conduct their new energy economy, which soon established ecological dominancy. Pyroculture happened to be a very successful evolutionary strategy.

Whatever the nature of the initial discovery, specialized 'pit-smelters' and larger free-standing furnaces were gradually developed. Colonizing descendants of migrating Copper and Bronze Age peoples, especially seafaring merchants and traders, would have spread the lore of copper-sourcing as they went; their cultural packages included pyroculture as well as agriculture. These twin skills spread together with their owners across the landscapes of Neolithic southern Europe over almost four millennia.

Furthermore, as pointed out earlier, traditional pyro-culture did not include the total destruction or removal of trees. Undisturbed tree roots served to bind soil particles together and to prevent sheet erosion. Traditional African farmers recognized that it is easier to restore nutrients to exhausted soils than to "rebuild" a soil after it has "collapsed" in physical terms (Lal & Greenland, 1979).

The colonization by the British initially was a relief to the Shona in that it enabled them to resume their original management practices for farming (pyro-culture) and natural resource use (slash and burn).