A Blazing Success

Big oil and gas, global warming, setting fires in the wilderness: it sounds like a combustible mix, but in this case it's good news.

To open a liquefied natural gas plant in Australia, ConocoPhillips had to agree to an innovative carbon-offset deal with the Northern Territory government. This requires the company to pay fire rangers from the Kabulwarnamyo clan and other aboriginal communities (40 percent of whom live below the poverty line) roughly $670,000 a year to reduce the number of uncontrolled blazes.

In March, after the rainy season ends, the rangers send small fires flickering across a 10,640-square-mile swath of remote tropical savanna, using the same methods their people have employed for thousands of years. Such controlled burns prevent dry grass and fallen leaves from fueling fierce blazes during hotter months, avoiding the release of huge amounts of greenhouse gases. The rangers also use a few modern tricks, tracking blazes online at www.firenorth.org.au.

Since the 2006 agreement, aboriginal rangers have prevented the release of the equivalent of 420,000 metric tons of CO2 -- 40 percent more than originally projected