According to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change late last month, sequestering carbon dioxide is only one of the crucial climate-regulating attributes inherent to the world’s forests.
According to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change late last month, sequestering carbon dioxide is only one of the crucial climate-regulating attributes inherent to the world’s forests.
The smell of smoke in the autumn and spring air is an increasingly familiar one to many Australians. It signifies that time of year when land management agencies in southern Australia feverishly try to meet their burning targets. But what are the consequences for biodiversity of setting such targets in Australia’s ecosystems? In recent research …
The tiny marsupials who spend their nights digging for truffles on the forest floor could be holding together ecosystems in ways scientists are only beginning to understand. TAKING AN EARLY MORNING walk through the scrubby forest in Tasmania’s south-east, Professor Chris Johnson from the University of Tasmania can tell if the local bandicoots and bettongs …
The Abbott government has given $15 million to AID THE BURNING OF FORESTS. Tasmanian Liberal Senator Richard Colbeck (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture) has set up a ‘National Bushfire Mitigation Program’ supposedly for more deliberate burning of the forest understorey and midstorey. It will kill off huge areas of ground level wildlife and …
Incompetence, chaos and lack of direct attack on bushfires in far East Gippsland saw 170,000 ha burnt in January and February this year. Why did this happen when so much more could have been done? Many of the problems experienced were avoidable. The Emergency Services Commissioner and Minister has only offered an internal review. The …
What’s this called Ryan Smith? A bulldozer driver paid to carry out restoration work (at least $200 an hour we hear) goes 40m inside Nat Park boundary @ Brown Mountain – fells old growth tree opposite the EEG “Valley of the Giants” walk track. Can this be regarded as ‘fire safety’? Or could it be …
“Huge bushfires in far East Gippsland went largely unchecked for over 2 months in early 2014. Some locals claim that DEPI staff and contractors lit unnecessary backburns, abandoned dangerous backburns at night, knocked down old growth hollow trees inside the National Park boundary as “revenge” against greenies and did so without fire-control rationale. Victorian Fire …
The east Gippsland fires have been estimated to have cost the government (tax payer) up to $140 million to manage. We are hearing that so much of this was reckless waste – machines laying idle at $2000 a day or more, bulldozers left to do their own thing just to keep them employed. Strike teams …
The arrival of autumn means fire crews are busy lighting fires instead of fighting them. And there is an increased amount of country to burn this year before the fire season returns. But determining where to burn to minimise risk is a complex task. Following the Black Saturday fires which killed 173 people, the 2009 …
How did forests ever cope before the era of government planned small scale bushfires? Forests had many brilliant systems in place that digested leaf litter, kept the understory damp and a layer of nutrient rich humus at ground level, all operating with clever symbiotic relationships between plants, animals and fungi. Below is just a selection …
