YOUR SAY: Traditional burn-offs could prevent disaster

'Maybe we need to learn from the Aborigines as we have now ruined the soil.'

AS DEVASTATING bushfires ravage Queensland and authorities warn Fraser Coast residents to prepare for the worst, a Butchulla Elder says it could all have been avoided.

Glenn Miller said adopting traditional, indigenous practices of burning off in the cooler months and managing the land pro-actively would help avoid catastrophic bushfire events.

Sue Brooks: If you leave the leaf litter alone and don't burn it, it turns into compost and feeds the soil and plants. It also lessens fires. The 'fuel' you speak of is actually nature recycling waste into nutrients. The more we burn off the worse fires we will have.

Christine Hogan: Can absolutely understand where Butchulla elder Glenn Miller is coming from when he relates to how fuel/scrub build-up was handled in the past ... "by adopting traditional, indigenous practices of burning off in the cooler months."

But, in the same breath, can also confidently target the "non-burning off" of privately owned land, that he also refers to today, as a dire consequence of modern-day "Greenie" environmental "legislated practices." Shame really, when the misguided principles of such a minority group can so ultimately intimidate and impact the housing of not only human life but also animal habitat well into our future...grrr!

Simon Alderton: What we all forgot was we were created as gardeners for the earth. Clearing and not clearing is the answer. We are meant to manage the earth properly. Some should be left as vegetable matter to break down and homes for wildlife and some should be burnt off.

The Aboriginals torched Australia for 50,000 years. In the last 230 years we stopped doing that and now we have worse droughts and a failing environment.

Maybe we need to learn from the Aborigines as we have now ruined the soil.

Ruined the rainfall and stopped feeding our land with the burn off like it became used to from 50,000 years.

We stopped and changed cycles which affected not only Australia but the whole world.