Researchers found the shift from open woodland to dense forest after 1788 led to more intense fires, consistent with loss of cultural burning practices

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The drastic land use changes wreaked by colonisation created a “catastrophic wildfire loop” that rendered south-east Australia more susceptible to climate-fuelled bushfires, experts say.

A team of researchers, working with the Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation, an organisation that represents traditional owners, reconstructed 1,000 years of vegetation and fire history at Purghagoolah, a lake surrounded by forest in Croajingolong national park in Gippsland, Victoria.