Professor David Bowman is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and the Director of the transdisciplinary Fire Centre at the University of Tasmania, where he holds a research chair in Pyrogeography and Fire Science. He is recognised as a thought leader in wildfire science and management publishing influential research in high-impact journals, providing policy advice to government, and serving as an expert media commentor. From 2019 to 2022 he was listed as a Clarivate highly cited cross-disciplinary Researcher. He has been privileged to have spent most of his life engaged with natural ecosystems both researching and recreating, including 25 years of research working with the Kune people in the ‘Stone Country’ of Western Arnhem Land. He is passionate about sharing his knowledge and experience to help mitigate the adverse environmental impacts of climate change amplified bushfires on human and non-human communities.

Managing wet eucalypt forest fire risk through ecological thinning: Opportunities and constraints

Abstract

A gravely serious dimension of anthropogenic climate change is the escalating global wildfire crisis. Reduction of fire hazards in flammable vegetation types such as eucalypt forests is an urgent priority. Prescribed burning is a well-established method to reduce fuel loads in dry eucalypt forests and hence the energy available for landscape fires. This approach is becoming more difficult to apply at scale in dry forests because of adverse side-effects including smoke pollution, biodiversity harms, and shrinking windows of opportunity to burn safely due to the increased frequency of droughts and dangerous fire weather. Wet eucalypt forests, however, cannot be practically managed with prescribed burning, hence there is growing interest in the mechanical removal of forest understorey and thinning of overstorey trees.  Forest thinning combined with prescribed burning is widely used in the western north America, by contrast the approach remains embryonic in Australia. I review the Australian experience with mechanical fuel treatments, highlighting the differences between commercial forest thinning and ecological thinning. I discuss opportunities and barriers for managing wet eucalypt forest fire risk with mechanical thinning.