Indigenous hunters have positive impacts on food webs in desert Australia, Penn State 2019

When Australian authorities removed indigenous Martu people from their traditional lands in the desertic center of the continent in the mid-1900s, endemic species there declined or went extinct. Researchers observed that the Martu’s hunting regime of small burning patches of land reduced the size of wildfires while also boosting populations of native species such as dingo, monitor lizard and kangaroo. The absence of the Martu after the 1950s resulted in domination by invasive species, which killed much of the native wildlife.