A handout image provided by the World Press Photo Foundation shows one of four images in the 2022 World Press Photo of the Year by Australian photographer Matthew Abbott, for National Geographic/Panos Pictures, depicting Indigenous Australians strategically burning the land in a practice known as cool burning, where fires move slowly, burning only the smallest undergrowth, removing the buildup of fuel that fuels larger blazes in West Arnhem Land, Australia, October 31, 2021 (released April 7, 2022). For tens of thousands of years, Indigenous people—the oldest continuous culture on Earth—have strategically burned the country to manage the landscape and prevent out-of-control fires. At the end of the wet season, there is a period of time when this prescribed burning occurs. The Nawarddeken people of West Arnhem Land, Australia, have been practicing controlled cool burning for tens of thousands of years and see fire as a tool for managing their 1.39 million hectare homeland. Wardken rangers combine traditional knowledge with contemporary techniques to prevent wildfires, thereby reducing climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions. credit: Amber Bracken / World Press Photo Foundation / Matthew Abbott / Environmental Protection Agency
The government focuses on indigenous knowledge in science and research.
