Australian Rural & Regional News asked some questions of Frank, who has responded. See below.
Frank Batini, July 2025

In summer 2011, following a very dry winter there was limited but noticeable tree crown scorch and some deaths of jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata) on sites with shallow soil. This event was repeated in summer 2024. On both of these occasions the forest growing on deeper soils was healthy.

Academic and media comment immediately linked these deaths to human induced climate change. Their proposed solution was to achieve “Net Zero” as soon as possible.

Based on contributions of Working Group II (Australasia), the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, in their 6^th assessment report dated 2022, listed the northern jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata) forest at a “key risk of transition or collapse from drought (high level of confidence)”. This prognosis was accepted in the development of the Western Australian Government’s Forest Management Plan (2024 to 2033) covering forests in the south-west. The FMP now identifies that “climate change will be a persistent, escalating stressor on all ecosystems in the planning area”.

I have observed and researched the health of eucalypt trees in the northern jarrah forest for 60 years, primarily in the Wungong catchment, located about 50 kms south-east of Perth. A 50 km road survey in January 2025 showed that this forest is healthy. My observations, based on long-term rainfall records from 1882, on monitoring of vegetation response for over 50 years and on tree-ring analyses to 1350 CE lead me to a different conclusion to that of the climate alarmists.

The sites on shallow soil where some tree deaths were seen have always been unsuitable for tree growth. Seedlings may invade during periods of higher rainfall and develop into saplings, but these will suffer when a drought occurs. These cycles of invasion, decline, recovery and decline have occurred for hundreds of years.

The jarrah forest is resilient and the tree deaths we have observed in recent years are simply natural ecological changes as the result of multi-decadal cycles that are wetter or drier than average.

Why has our society developed this obsession to attribute all natural events to “Climate Change”? Why not accept them for what they are?

Frank Batini is a forester and an environmental scientist with qualifications from Oxford University, the University of WA and the Australian Forestry School.

Australian Rural & Regional News asked a few further questions of Frank on this article (and his article in Quadrant, November 2024).

• What are your objectives with this article and discussion?
• If the different element compared to earlier ecological cycles is the increased level of CO2 in the atmosphere, is it that we can’t yet really have any good idea of what effect that might have had on the jarrah? Especially allowing for a lag time of possibly decades between an increase (or decrease) in CO2 emissions and environmental impact? Isn’t it just that we can’t – yet – really know how much difference the level of CO2 in the atmosphere makes?
• The 150 year rainfall chart is not long enough to show the cycles that have occurred over hundreds of years that you refer to. Indeed that chart appears to show a generally downward trend. Until it climbs back up to, say, those 1966 levels, those long term cycles don’t seem to be evident?
• When might the cycle be expected to turn in WA, if the cycle is as normal? When might the farmer hope for a rainy period? So, if it does not, the evidence mounts that there are other contributing factors altering the natural cycle?
• Are you concerned that your conclusion (that the evidence does not show that the jarrah is at risk due to climate change (correct me if this is an oversimplification)) could be (mis)used to support a case for taking no action to reduce CO2 emissions? When, as the argument goes, by the time we have sufficient proof that the increased CO2 emissions do contribute to adverse environmental impacts, it may well be much harder to address?
• With global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel and land use change at more than 40 billion tonnes per year and atmospheric CO2 levels at 426.40ppm (50 per cent higher than before the Industrial Revolution), it is hard, indeed almost impossible, to believe this is not making a difference to the global climate. What is your view on this?
• Have you developed any overarching principles for how best to approach land care and forest management in these times when the climate may be changing?

Frank Batini: Dear Ms Fox,

I do not have the knowledge to reply to your very complex set of questions in detail. I wonder if anyone has.

I am a forester not a climatologist, an observer with an interest in long-term rainfall and ecological trends here in the forests of south-western Australia. This part of the world has recently experienced a long period with lower rainfall, supposedly the worst seen in Australia, and is regarded by the relevant Government Department as the “canary in the coal mine” as far as human induced climate change effects on rainfall is concerned. Modelling for that Department suggests that much lower rainfall will occur in the future as CO2 levels continue to rise. The solution proposed is to decarbonise as rapidly as possible.

 Even if the world can achieve net zero by 2050 (a very big ask) it will only mean that inputs equal outputs. For CO2 levels to decline we will need to reduce output to well below net-zero. Even if we can achieve this task successfully it will then take a long time, possibly 100 years, for CO2 levels to fall back to those recorded n the 1950s. Even then, there is no scientific “proof” that the climate will flip back to its previous condition.

It is now common in the media to claim that all extreme weather events: bushfires, floods, droughts are “unprecedented” and are caused by human induced climate change. No proof is required or asked for. However when the long-term records are checked, similar or far worse episodes of drought, flood and wildfire can be readily found. As an example there are peer-reviewed data on tree ring analyses for inland south-western Australia from 1350 to 2017 CE that record many multi-decadal periods of pluvials and droughts.* The authors state that the twentieth century was the wettest on record and that the decline in rainfall over inland south-western Australia since 2000 CE is not unusual in terms of either magnitude or duration.

The authors also selected six unusually wet and six unusually dry periods.  It is interesting to note that half of the very wet periods occurred in the 20^th Century when carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were rising rapidly, whereas half of the very dry periods were recorded in the 19^th Century when carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were low. The current and “unprecedented” dry spell does not rate a mention.

These findings are quite the opposite to the claims made by climate scientists and modellers. The data clearly do not support the widely held hypothesis that human-induced climate change is responsible for the current drought in the south-west of Western Australia.

Bureau of Meteorology rainfall records since the 1880s from several towns in the south-west show significantly lower rainfall for about 30 years and again indicate that that the current drier spell is not atypical and that it simply reflects natural, long-term variability in rainfall. Extended periods with above or below average rainfall have also led to explainable ecological responses in the forest, such as deaths of jarrah from waterlogging and Phytophthora disease in water-gaining sites during the very wet 1940-1970 period and drought scorch and some deaths on shallow soils in 2011 and 2024 during the current drier phase.

As a forester, I have an interest in trees. An individual jarrah tree may live for 300-400 years and the jarrah forest ecosystem has evolved over four to five million years. During this time they would have experienced major weather events such as drought, flood and bushfire, as well as substantial climatic shifts. The jarrah forest has also survived several very wet and very dry cycles over the last 650 years and I am confident that it will continue to show resilience in the future.

Kind regards,
Frank Batini
18 July 2025

* O’Donnell, Alison J, W Lachlan McCaw, Edward R Cook and Pauline F Grierson (2021) Megadroughts and Pluvials in south-western Australia, 1350 CE – 2017 CE. Climate Dynamics, Springer Publishing. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-021-05782-0