NEW information has emerged regarding the severity of the 2019 and 2020 ‘Black Summer’ bushfires, suggesting drought and hot dry westerly winds were mostly responsible.
The study, titled ‘The severity and extent of the Australia 2019-20 Eucalyptus forest fires are not the legacy of forest management’, was published on May 10.
Sampling 32 per cent (2.35 million hectares) of the area burnt, the study found 44 per cent of the native forests suffered severe canopy damage.
The study also found past logging and wildfire disturbance in natural forests had “a very low effect on severe canopy damage, reflecting the limited extent logged in the last 25 years (4.5 per cent in eastern Victoria, 5.3 per cent in southern New South Wales and 7.8 per cent in northern NSW)”.
The study supported the theory the massive geographic scale and severity of these Australian fires was best explained by extrinsic factors: “an historically anomalous drought coupled with strong, hot dry westerly winds that caused uninterrupted, and often dangerous, fire weather over the entire fire season”.
The report’s findings were welcomed by the Institute of Foresters of Australia, the association representing some 1000 scientific and professional forest land managers in Australia.
Australian Forest Growers president Bob Gordon said the study highlighted the need for new ways of thinking about how Australia managed the risk of bushfires.
“There’s no doubt Australia has a wicked bushfire problem,” Mr Gordon said.
“There is no quick fix to this problem, however active and adaptive forest management, across all land tenures is paramount to ensuring our forests are resilient to fire in the future.
“Some commentators opposed to timber harvesting have tried to use bushfire disasters as a lever to end native forest harvesting, but it’s clear that to move forward we need to move past the era of conflict and focus on what we can do to prevent, prepare and manage our forests to best withstand future catastrophic events.
“Active and adaptive land management across all land tenures, long-term thinking and the use of a range of techniques informed by the latest science and long-held cultural knowledge from Traditional Owners is what’s needed to make sure we can mitigate devastation such as that seen in 2019-20.
“We also need to establish new shared governance models and an approach to policy that brings together government agencies with Indigenous Australians and stakeholders from the private sector and civil society across all tenures.
“Through these strategies, we can conserve forests for a broader range of values, and proactively manage current pressures and increasing threats from climate change and the interrelated impacts of bushfires and invasive species.”
One of the paper’s authors, Professor Rodney Keenan, said there was little evidence timber harvesting contributed to the severity of the Black Summer fires and, therefore, future policy needed to reflect that.
“Policy proposals to mitigate fire risks and impacts should be evidence-based and integrate multiple perspectives,” he said.
“Traditional Indigenous knowledge, experience of local and professional fire managers, and the breadth of evidence from bushfire research should inform strategies for reducing bushfire impacts and increasing forest resilience and community.”
The Australian Forest Products Association chief executive Ross Hampton said the report and its findings should be the catalyst for all sides of the forestry debate to focus on combating climate change.
“Since the Black Summer fires a number of activists have tried to link sustainable forest harvesting to bushfire severity,” he said.
“Last year one of those attempts, using what the Australian Senate called ‘bodgy science’, led to a journal article being retracted and an investigation launched into the research methods used by its authors.
“Those who want to shut down sustainable native forestry in Australia are at odds with the global environmental leaders who know we need more, not less, fibre from sustainably managed estates like ours where only six trees out of 10,000 are harvested and every tree used is replaced by law.”
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment concluded that a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest carbon stocks, while producing an annual sustained yield of timber, fibre or energy from the forest, will generate the largest sustained mitigation benefit.
“That report and the findings of this new research … are the starting point for an end to the argument over if forestry has an impact on bushfires and move towards a united front on the common enemy of climate change,” Mr Hampton said.
