Australian bushfires destroyed a large area of land and vegetation, but that has revealed extensive water channels built by indigenous Australians thousands of years ago, to trap and harvest eels for food, in the state of Victoria.??
According to UNESCO, the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape?is considered to be one of the world's most extensive and oldest aquaculture systems, consisting of dams, channels and weirs.
It was built by the Gunditjmara people more than 6,600 years ago and it is older than Egypt's pyramids.
The existence of the aquatic system has been known to the archaeologists and it was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List, in July last year. More sections of the water channels were revealed when the fires ravaged the state in December 2019.?
Gunditjmara representative Denis Rose, project manager at non-profit group Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation, told CNN that the system was significantly bigger than what was previously recorded.
"When we returned to the area, we found a channel hidden in the grass and other vegetation. It was about 25 meters (82 feet) in length, which was a fairly substantial size," CNN quoted Rose as saying.?
New structures appeared when the landscape burned. According to the Aboriginal Corporation's website, the aquaculture system, which is part of the Budj Bim National Park, was built by the indigenous population using the abundant volcanic rocks from a now-dormant volcano in the area.
‘The Budj Bim Cultural Landscape bears an exceptional testimony to the cultural traditions, knowledge, practices and ingenuity of the Gunditjmara’, reads the website.?
The fire near the national park occurred after a lightning strike in late December, which eventually spread to some 790 hectares (3 square miles) in size.
Firefighters worked extensively to stop the fires from spreading and destroying the cultural site.?
"Over the next few weeks, we are hoping to conduct a comprehensive cultural heritage survey to check areas that were not previously recorded. It's important because it provided a rich, sustainable life for the traditional people, and has continued to be an important part of our cultural life,” Rose said.?
That’s a silver lining I guess.?