Smoke billows in great heaps above a dry, smouldering forest. Thick ash darkens skies across the country, as far east as New Zealand. Entire towns are reduced to skeletal wreckages; evacuees gather in terrified groups on beaches that were once the image of an Australian summer holiday. Injured wildlife recover in loungerooms, turned into makeshift outpatient wards.
The images are familiar to many of us, now, in Australia and abroad. The wildfires in the country’s east, burning since September, are being labelled the most destructive in Australian history, with no end in sight, not yet. The causes are complex, exacerbated by their interconnection.
Recurring over and over against the backdrop of unprecedented destruction is the question: could this have been prevented? Though this question is inevitably subject to extraordinary amounts of scrutiny and debate, bushfire prevention and recovery constitute two key tenets of conservation. Understanding how these processes work is essential to our ongoing response to bushfires in future – fires which are set only to get worse as climate change continues to transform the Earth we inhabit.
Fire Prevention
Bushfires are an inevitable, powerful force of nature. While we cannot entirely prevent them, conservation has an important function in minimising their frequency and severity. Bushfire prevention begins with reducing the fuel available for a fire to take hold or sustain itself with. Fuel is the organic material found in bushland ecosystems: leaves and twigs, grasses, fallen bark, dry undergrowth. In the right conditions, lightning may strike dry fuel and spark a blaze; other times, human activity (accidental and deliberate) is responsible for the birth of a bushfire. The fire’s speed and ability to spread is contingent on several factors, including drought, wind speed, temperature and fuel load.
Land management is a central aspect of bushfire prevention. These strategies aim to reduce the amount of fuel available and, should a fire start, contain the spread of fires. Controlled burning is one example of a land management strategy, being the process of deliberately starting fires in areas vulnerable to bushfire in order to reduce fuel. Land and fire authorities conduct controlled burns during cooler periods, igniting large areas of land to remove as much fuel as possible. A similar process has existed for thousands of years among Australia’s Indigenous communities. Using an intimate knowledge of the environment, these burns are smaller in scale, less intense, and cooler. The outcomes are holistic: not only is fuel reduced and fire risk lessened, but the process is beneficial to local flora and designed to protect native fauna, as well as enables spiritual reconnection between Indigenous communities and the land.
Education constitutes another valuable bushfire prevention strategy, in which conservation organisations have a key role. This bushfire prevention strategy involves educating landowners about the dangers of burning on their property, holidaymakers about correctly extinguishing campfires, citizens at large about the unique volatility of the Australian landscape and how best to prepare. Through increased awareness and knowledge, the risk of man-made bushfire is significantly decreased, and community members can make informed decisions about their responses to bushfire emergencies.
Fire Recovery
As Australia’s fire season has so far exemplified, once a bushfire starts, it is difficult to predict the intensity and duration of the burn. In the wake of what can become enormous destruction to human and animal habitats alike, conservation is essential to the recovery of affected ecosystems.
Nursing and rehabilitating fire-affected animals is a primary task of conservation organisations. WIRES, Australia’s largest animal rescue organisation, facilitates rehabilitation and rescue through designated clinics and indirectly through advising people on how to care for injured wildlife. The work of animal rescue centres, such as WIRES, in addition to countless veterinary clinics and local groups, provide an essential lifeline to animals impacted by bushfires. Importantly, this work is not only carried out in-house; as needed, conservation organisations provide support in the form of distributing food and water to animals who remain in fire-affected regions, supporting repopulation.
The re-establishment of fire-damaged vegetation is another central function of conservation in aiding bushfire recovery. In some cases, such as Australia’s Kangaroo Island and the Blue Mountains region, damaged areas are the unique home to certain species of flora and fauna, not found in abundance elsewhere. In order to assist the recovery of flora species and animal habitats, replanting and cultivating native, local species is undertaken by conservation groups. Such tasks may be the difference between extinction and survival for rare and endangered species.
With extensive expertise and broad knowledge of various ecosystems and species of flora and fauna, conservation organisations are well-positioned to inform government response to bushfires. This cooperation comes in many forms, from informing policy making around bushfire prevention, to coordinating local responses in fire-affected communities. With this in mind, the enormity of the contribution made by conservation organisations is evident; there is no single aspect of bushfire recovery and response not involving, at least in part, the work of dedicated conservationists and community members.
The role of conservation in bushfire prevention and response is vital to the recovery and maintenance of thriving ecosystems. With Australian – and global – bushfire seasons set to increase in length and severity, our attention to prevention and response becomes all the more necessary. Understanding the diverse and numerous activities of conservation societies is only the beginning; their success is contingent on continued engagement and support from communities nationwide.