Australian Rural & Regional News asked some questions of Frank, answered below the article.
Frank Batini
Background
The winter rainfall in 2010 in the northern jarrah forest was extremely low and was followed by a hot, dry summer. By late summer 2011 widespread crown scorch was observed, there was significant leaf fall and excision of branches up to 3 cm in diameter. A one hour helicopter survey of my study area (the 12000 ha Wungong catchment) indicated that most scorch and some tree deaths were associated with native jarrah forest growing on shallow soils close to exposed bedrock. Scorch and dead trees were absent in higher quality forest.
Dead and dying jarrah trees within a re-habilitated bauxite pit (left), and on the un-thinned control strip (right), Cobiac research catchment, March 2012.
Photos: Frank Batini.
Some jarrah sites that had been mined for bauxite and then rehabilitated, carrying dense young regrowth, were also affected. I estimated that 5-8 per cent of the catchment had been altered to some degree by this drought event. After six months some trees had died but most had recovered their crown, from epicormic shoots on trunks and branches. In jarrah, annual changes in leaf area index of some 30 per cent due to good rainfall, drought or seed production are common.
A more extensive and detailed aerial and ground survey was also carried out by academics at Murdoch University (Matusick et al 2013, 20181). In summary they found that about 1.5 per cent of the area surveyed had been affected, that most sites were located on shallow soils and that over time about 60 per cent of the trees were alive. Species reacted differently to drought so some shifts in composition were observed. However these sites were still dominated by jarrah, as before.
The Matusick survey naturally concentrated on the most impacted areas in the western part of the northern jarrah forest in Western Australia. The other 90 per cent of the forested area (Eastern, Southern, Sunkland jarrah, wandoo, karri) were much less affected. In essence, this event affected only an extremely small part of the forest (40 per cent deaths in less than 0.15 per cent of the total area), it was restricted to shallow soils less suitable for tree growth and did not significantly alter the forest structure.
I have monitored these forests since 2011 and recovery has continued. Some localised scorch and occasional tree deaths were seen in 2020, following a dry 2019 winter, again restricted to shallow soils. Long-term monitoring of vegetation (1973-2021) has shown continued good health with only a slight shift in species composition.
Influence of academia
The peer-reviewed work by the Murdoch academics was then cited in an International review on forest health as an example of an “unprecedented, climate change induced dieback and drought event”. Australian academics then held a workshop in 2020 to discuss Australian ecosystems at risk of substantial change. Their report selected the northern jarrah forest as one of the ecosystems at risk of collapse (defined as – a change from a baseline state beyond the point where an ecosystem has lost key defining features and functions). In my view, the loss of some trees on shallow soils, covering only 0.15 per cent of the forest, clearly does NOT fit this definition.
Then, in 2021 an academic from Woolongong University wrote in The Conversation as follows – “an extreme heatwave in 2010-2011 has ravaged land ecosystems and devastated forests and woodlands in Western Australia”.2 This description is highly unscientific and does not fit either with the published data or subsequent field surveys.
The Australian report was then sent to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Geneva, who produced their 6th assessment report, “fact sheet on Australasia, climate change impacts and risks”. The northern jarrah forest is now listed a “key risk of transition or collapse (high level of confidence)”. The IPCC statement has been widely used by local opponents of forest management practices, especially timber harvesting, silviculture and fire management.
Some academics are happy to comment in areas where they have no expertise or local knowledge. In contrast, the views of locals with years of practical management experience are mostly ignored.
Questions from Australian Rural & Regional News
ARR.News: Is it not sensible to examine the subject, in this instance jarrah, that is most vulnerable and likely to be impacted by adverse changes, whether in climate or otherwise? Could the jarrah in shallow soils be something akin to the canary in the coalmine, the first warning sign of serious adverse change?
Frank Batini: Yes. I thought so too about 10 years ago. Then I did further work and believe the forest is resilient. I may be proved wrong! However, a few dead trees on a very small area is NOT a catastrophe nor a ”devastation of forests and woodlands” as described by others.
ARR.News: You have said Matusick etc did a more extensive ground and aerial survey than you; how can you know their conclusions are incorrect?
Frank Batini: Their conclusions I agree with , 40% plant loss on 1.5% of the area sampled. I think this has then been blown out of proportion by the international review, the Australian conference and IPCC. There is no evidence to support “imminent collapse”. Jarrah can grow in much lower rainfall areas than those sampled. The Murdoch authors should have corrected these errors by others but failed to do so.
ARR.News: What do you believe are the key problems here – that academics and practitioners are not working together? that academics aren’t giving proper weight to all relevant factors? Why do you believe this has this developed and can you see a way to rectify this?
Frank Batini: There is a dearth of funding for research, unless you are working on an impending catastrophe. The Great Barrier Breef recently received additional funding of $1 billion. Greenmail??
ARR.News: What do you know of how the peer review process works or is professed to work? Has this process changed over the course of your career? Is there an an accepted benchmark for research integrity?
Frank Batini: I think most university researchers work in a similar vein. You write a paper and choose a friendly Journal, you may know the Editor or someone on the Panel . You can then nominate 3-4 potential referees. You nominate people who are in accord with your views. Why look for hassle? You then add many co-authors to give “credibility”. If the paper is challenged the Journal would lose face. One paper from Murdoch with 6 authors had data on forest density that was incorrect by a factor of 8 and we tried to point this out to the author and Editor. My experience has been:
1. We don’t publish letters to the editor.
2. Your Department’s years of data collection is unacceptable because it has not been published.
3. Write to the author ( who then does not respond).
4. Journals now charge for a publication, sometimes $3000-4000 a paper. I have been invited several times to write a paper on a subject I know nothing about. Naturally I refused.
In the environmental/climate change/ forests/wildfire area I think that a lot of intellectual rigour has been lost, for example articles in The Conversation.
I tried to address this in my baselines paper to ARRN.
Extreme positions have been taken by both sides.
I believe that I have tried to argue my case on the basis of data, not ideology or belief.
Frank Batini MSc (Oxon), BSc (UWA), Dip For (AFS), previously an Adjunct Professor of Environmental Science at Murdoch University has 60 years of experience as a forester, environmental manager and consultant in the management of natural resources.
References
1. Matusick G et al (2018) Chronic historical drought legacy exacerbates tree mortality and crown dieback during acute heatwave -compounded drought, Env Res Lett 13 – https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/42047/
2. Bergstrom, D.M., Ritchie, E., Hughes, L., Depledge, M. (2021) ‘Existential threat to our survival’: see the 19 Australian ecosystems already collapsing, The Conversation – https://theconversation.com/existential-threat-to-our-survival-see-the-19-australian-ecosystems-already-collapsing-154077
3. Bergstrom, D.M., Wienecke B.C., van den Hoff J., Hughes L., Lindemayer D.L., Ainsworth T.D., Baker C.M., Bland L., Bowman D.M.J.S., Brooks S.T., Canadell J.G., Constable A., Dafforn K.A., Depledge M.H., Dickson C.R., Duke N.C., Helmstedt K., Johnson C.R., McGeoch M.A., Melbourne-Thomas J., Morgain R., Nicholson E.M., Prober S.M., Raymond B., Ritchie E.G., Robinson S.A., Ruthrof K.X., Setterfield S.A., Sgro C.M., Stark J., Travers T., Trebilco R., Ward D.F.L., Wardle G.M., Williams K.J., Zylstra P.J., Shaw J.D. (2021) Combating ecosystem collapse from the tropics to the Antarctic. Global Change Biology. 27(9): 1692-1703. doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15539.
Australian Rural & Regional News welcomes and has sought a response to this article from Murdoch University.
