PROPERTY Rights Australia has pulled up the ABC for blaming local weather change for obvious eucalypt decline.
PRA has as a substitute referenced a retired, long-serving forester by the identify of John O’Donnell, who has simply printed a World Evaluation of Forest Decline, which is sort of solely lacking from the general public debate.
O’Donnell’s overview of forest decline attracts collectively 82 key scientific references from Australia and abroad. His conclusion is that the dominant driver of forest decline, together with eucalypt decline, just isn’t temperature alone, however the long-term exclusion of standard, low-intensity (delicate) hearth and the soil modifications that comply with.
O’Donnell reveals that when delicate hearth is excluded, forest soils essentially change. Nutrient cycles are destabilised, soil physics and chemistry are altered, and the very important root–mycorrhizal methods that underpin tree well being are degraded. The seen signs we argue about like crown thinning, insect assault, dieback, are penalties.
This aligns intently with the work of researchers similar to Vic Jurskis, Burrows and others, who’ve lengthy warned that fireside suppression and “lock-up” conservation weaken forests, enhance gasoline masses, and make landscapes way more susceptible to extreme, uncontrollable fires. It additionally reinforces what many practitioners know from expertise: human administration choices, not summary local weather variables, are the first drivers of declining forest well being.
The relevance to present fires couldn’t be clearer. Once we exclude delicate hearth, neglect gasoline administration, and delay early suppression, we don’t simply see a rise in hearth depth, we undermine forest resilience itself. Then, when forests burn arduous, the injury is blamed on local weather fairly than on many years of coverage failure.
“This overview is value studying in full. It gives the scientific depth that’s so typically lacking from media protection and coverage debates, and it reinforces a easy however uncomfortable message that we repeatedly argue.
“Wholesome forests require lively administration, common delicate hearth and the braveness to intervene and apply lively administration, not simply to lock them up in reserves and apply the lazy administration goal of benign neglect,” PRA notes.
The complete overview might be learn right here: https://www.timberbiz.com.au/…/World-Forest-Decline…
In the meantime Forestry Australia is in search of proposals for tasks that can help farm forestry and agroforestry in Australia. The funding is made accessible by way of the Forestry Australia’s Grower Reserve Fund, with as much as $ 10,000 accessible per venture.
Closing time: COB Monday 2 February 2026
Submission handle: growers@forestry.org.au
