Emeritus Professor Ross Bradstock was the lead researcher from the University of Wollongong of research, Threatened species habitat at risk from a hotter climate: University of Wollongong.
Professor Bradstock provided this response to Australian Rural & Regional News in answer to Vic Jurskis’s commentary, Our megafires are a political, not a climatic crisis: Vic Jurskis
The bulk of this commentary has little to do with the content of the Report to the NSW Natural Resources Commission. The report addresses the consequences of the 2019/20 fires for the objectives and outcomes of the Coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals (i.e. forest health, threatened species conservation, water quality and aquatic biodiversity). The 2019/20 fires have rendered forests, in relation to these objectives and outcomes, in a highly vulnerable state because of their magnitude and severity. This vulnerability will be ongoing and challenging to deal with because the efficacy of all facets of fire management (e.g. preparation, prevention, suppression) will be adversely affected by climate change.
While the speculation in the commentary is interesting and provocative it contains many inaccuracies.
The attributes of plants have long been taken into account by land managers of all kinds (e.g. farmers, foresters, graziers etc.) when deciding when to burn a piece of country. Most notably, the First Australians have a long, documented history of using plant growth stages, flowering and seeding indicators to tune the cycles of fire required to sustain food resources and nurture biodiversity. It is self-evident that cycles of life and fire need to be harmonised to sustain diversity. Knowledge of differing kinds can be used to understand how country is travelling in this regard. Scientific knowledge, along with local contemporary knowledge and indigenous knowledge provides such a package. Insights gleaned in this way can help us to decide when a fire (planned or unplanned) may be desirable, or otherwise, for resident plants and animals. Such approaches are common across the world.
The prosaic reality of fire management is that it’s not a cost-free exercise. Planned or prescribed burning, as extensively documented, is primarily limited by funding, resources and opportunities, not laws. For example, the amount of active burning on public land in recent years across NSW has increased as a result of dedicated funding and resourcing by the government. Manipulation of fuel via mechanical means or active use of fire will continue to play an important role in reducing risk to human and environmental values in our fire-prone landscapes. This is complemented by many other measures, ranging from detection and suppression through to planning and education. Given the significant expenditure involved in fire management it is important that it is outlaid in the most effective way possible. An understanding of when, where, to what degree and under what circumstances the treatment of fuel achieved an alteration of the behaviour of bushfires and risks posed to things of value (e.g. people, homes, catchments etc.) is required in order to use limited resources wisely. Such knowledge is incomplete and poses an ongoing challenge, as accepted by various recent inquiries, post 2019/20: e.g. NSW Independent Bushfire Inquiry, Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements.
The simplistic notion of a binary choice between ‘bad’ wildfires versus ‘good’ cool fires, while appealing, is false. Fires have burned for tens of millions of years in Australia and while the climate, over the long-term (tens of millions of years) and people over the short term (tens of thousands of year) have had major effects on fire, there have been and, continue to be a myriad of different fire regimes. The diversity of biota on our mega-diverse continent is a partial outcome of this diversity in the frequency, intensity and season of fires, jointly shaped by climatic and human influences. We now face the challenge of rapidly changing climate that has the potential to overwhelm and constrain the human capacity to shape this diversity of fire regimes. This overriding challenge confronts all land managers, emergency services and residents of fire-prone landscapes. The 2019/20 fires in south eastern Australia were a direct outcome of record breaking drought, heat and unrelenting fire weather and give us a foretaste of what is soon to come. Similar ingredients have produced record breaking fire seasons across the world in recent years. Learning to use fire more wisely and to rekindle self-reliance will go some way to meet this challenge but equally we may have to face hard decisions about where we live, what to protect and what we stand to lose. These choices will not be easy.
Related stories: Our megafires are a political, not a climatic crisis: Vic Jurskis, Threatened species habitat at risk from a hotter climate: University of Wollongong
