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News > Australia

Australian Forests Will Not Recover From Fires Easily

  • An Air Tanker drops fire retardant in the Southern Highlands, New South Wales, Australia, Jan. 10, 2020.

    An Air Tanker drops fire retardant in the Southern Highlands, New South Wales, Australia, Jan. 10, 2020. | Photo: EFE

Published 21 January 2021
Opinion

The drought that preceded the last bushfire season was so severe that it reduced forests' capacity for regrowth.

Australian National University (ANU) and Griffith University on Thursday published a study warning that early signs of recovery from the fires could be deceiving.

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Their research revealed "massive concerns" about Australian forests' long-term recovery from the devastating 2019-20 bushfires.

The drought that preceded the last bushfire season, which has been dubbed the Black Summer, was so severe that it reduced forests' capacity for regrowth.

Over 18.6 million hectares of land, mostly on Australia's east coast, were burned by fires that raged for more than half a year.

"It's wonderful to see the green growth back in the forests," said co-author David Lindenmayer from ANU. "But there are some underlying issues that are creating real problems and I have massive concerns about what we will see there in 20 years time."

"Our ecosystems have not been geared up to deal with the high frequency and severity of these disturbances. It's burning far too often now," he said.

"This century we've had three megafires (over 1 million hectares) on the east coast, in 2009, 2014, and 2020. But in the century before that there was one, and in the century before that we also just had one."

Forests in the northeast of Victoria and south of New South Wales (NSW) were hit hardest by the fires.

A forests' ability to recover from fires is largely dependent on big trees that produce a majority of seeds, pollen, flowers and nectar.

"There's a big risk now the wetter forests across huge swathes of Victoria and southern NSW won’t be able to recover,” Lindenmayer said.

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