When the white invaders first arrived in Australia, they wrote in their journals that the land looked like a garden estate. Green grass plains with scattered trees bearing nuts and fruit. The perfect environment to go for a stroll or hunt some game. European aristocrats would hire groundskeepers to tend to environments so idyllic. And sure enough, since the white people started putting up fences and banning traditional practices, most places don’t look like that anymore. The First Australians were keeping the country in such a beautiful state. But how did they do it, without diesel mowers or full time groundskeepers?

The answer is cold fire. Most Australian countries use fire to terraform the land. White people build fences and breed animals, but the First Australians’ version of animal agriculture was to create a healthy ecosystem that would produce a lot of game and make it easy to hunt. This method was so efficient that before colonisation, Aboriginal people only had to work a few hours a day to feed their family.

These fires aren’t like the wildfires you see on the news. They don’t even climb to the tops of the trees; they’re not hot enough to do serious damage. Traditional fire keepers watch the weather and choose a time of year when there’s a lot of moisture in the ground and the plants, but not so much that the fire won’t start. An experienced Elder can look at a handful of dirt and tell you how hot the fire will burn, based on the microbial conditions. Traditional culture says that the land itself is full of life, and it’s right, science has found the life that the Elders have known is there for thousands of years.

Before they start a burn, they make a little bit of smoke to warn the insects and other animals. The animals smell the smoke, and climb up the trees. They know a fire is coming, and they know it won’t burn hot enough to climb the trees. The animals have literally evolved, over 65,000 years, to listen to the people.

I don’t know how it is in other countries, but where I live, listening to the animals is also very important. Aboriginal seasons don’t change based on particular dates, or the weather, or the position of the stars. They change when the plants and animals decide it does. All of the living creatures on Country have seasonal behaviours, and the seasons officially change when those behaviours start. There’s a kind of consensus democracy that decides the flow of times. Sometimes a season runs longer or shorter than usual, because of variations in the climate and in the natural cycles. That’s fine, the people adapt. And listening to the animals and the plants gives you so much knowledge. For example, you can tell whether it’s going to rain or not, based on what colour sand the ants are bringing to their nests. The ants choose to bring light sand or dark sand based on how much heat they want their nest to absorb or reflect from the sun.

Where I live, there are six seasons. The seasons are different in different countries. It depends on the local climate. Traditionally, each family around here has six different homes, one for each season. When the season changes, they pack up and move to the next home. There are certain animals to hunt and certain plants to gather depending on the season. Again, the totem system is used. The totem-holders check on the animals to make sure they’re adults who have had kids and can safely be hunted without damaging the ecosystem. Seasonal responsibilities to the land, like traditional burning, are fulfilled. The people take only what they need, and only what the environment can sustain. They give back to the environment, looking after it and making sure it’ll still be thriving in another 65,000 years.