A Burning Question: Can Long-term Data Inform Fire Management in the Twenty-first Century? - Biodiversity Conservation and Environmental Change - page 65

(a)
(b)
Figure 4.5 Contrasting fire histories in New Zealand and Madagascar. (a) Charcoal accumulation
rates (CHAR pieces −1 cm −2 y −1 ) of 16 sites, South Island, New Zealand, and a composite plot with mean
CHAR for all 16 sites for the time period 300-2000 ce. Grey bands indicate the estimated time of
Polynesian (M¯ori) arrival in New Zealand c. 1280 ce (McWethy et al. 2010b). (b) Fire history in rela-
tion to human settlement in southeastern Madagascar. At the Mandena matrix sites, fires are associ-
ated with emerging fire-prone ericoid vegetation, long before human arrival on the island, indicated
by archaeological phases (note that the scales for Mandena and Ste-Luce sites differ) (Virah-Sawmy
et al. 2009a).