Ancient forests destroyed by fires
This a transcription from a radio interview on Saturday Extra. NCC Ecologist Mark Graham sits down with reporter Geraldine Doogue about the fires that have burnt down ancient forests and vital habitats.
Geraldine: As fires continue to burn in several Australian states, what are one of the impacts that's perhaps been overshadowed? This is a suggestion from one of the listeners via a text line request. Namely the ecological damage beyond the Koalas, tragic as that situation is. National Park areas on the New South Wales north coast, some of them World Heritage listed have been burning for three months now and there's no sign of them stopping, with no rain forecast. These areas have some remarkable treasures that most of us don't even know about. Mark Graham is an ecologist with the Nature Conservation Council which is the peak body in New South Wales for 160 member groups, and he specializes in fire and biodiversity. He's based on the north coast. Thank you very much for joining us Mark.
Mark: Thank you for having me Geraldine.
Geraldine: This is quite personal for you, isn't it? Because you've had your own losses, could you tell us about the conservation area you own please?
Mark: Sure, I have private conservation areas on the Dorrigo Plateau which is one of the world's areas of greatest significance for its ancient biodiversity. Biodiversity that goes back to the time of ancient Gondwana, when Australia was linked to Antarctica and South America. In the first week in Spring, the Bees Nest fire commenced burning and roared up the Guy Fawkes gorges and burnt out the majority of my private conservation blockout Billy's creek to the west of Coffs Harbour and the southwest of Grafton. It burnt out about 80% of that block, some of the deepest and most special areas of rainforests have thankfully not burnt entirely through, but the edges of them have been heavily impacted. These permanently moist refuges in the landscapes have been eroded.
Geraldine: Are these areas that are generally, usually not touched by bushfires?
Mark: Absolutely, these areas have been permanently wet for tens of millions of years and we're now seeing fires going into these areas where fire is not simply meant to go. In particular, the Fauna in these landscapes requires permanently wet conditions, and many of the fauna species in this landscapes simply have no tolerance to fire.
Geraldine: And now there's this other fire to be worried about, at Ebor which is near Armidale - I think it's been downgraded, it was an emergency warning, I think it's been downgraded to a watch and act is that right?
Mark: Correct, so thankfully conditions have eased somewhat and that fire is still out of control it's still burning but it's not at the emergency level. That is a great concern because there's now a fire at some 4, 000 hectares immediately to the west of the largest areas of Antarctic beach rain forest in this region, and there are forecasts for persistently hot conditions in the coming week and for westerly winds and that's a great concern, things are now so dry that these most special of rainforests run the risk of burning and the incredible creatures within them run the risk of suffering.
Geraldine: Look people are frantically trying to protect houses and you know if you'd listen to country breakfast this morning, you could just hear all that up close and personal. You've been frantically trying to protect old-growth forests. I wonder how you do that?
Mark: Because of the general absence of water in the landscape now, a lot of that is hard manual work. Raking lines in the forest to create breaks in the continuity of the leaf litter - so raking leaf litter back to bring it back to mineral soil, so that the fire won't carry into the rainforest areas. And there's been many, many kilometers of that work done and there's a lot of work to do yet because of the new fires, the new fires that appear to have been lit by arson yesterday near Ebor.
Geraldine: And why does raking it back to the mineral sand level make a difference?
Mark: Because in these areas, fire carries through the leaf litter and if you can physically remove the leaf litter from the soil surface it creates the physical break and the bigger the break you can make, the greater chance of protecting these ancient rainforests.
Geraldine: So have you been doing that on your own or have you had help?
Mark: No, thankfully I've had a bunch of friends and really wonderful people who are concerned about the wellbeing of these ancient Gondwana ecosystems and in places like the Mount Highlands World Heritage Area back in the first and second week in Spring. There were teams of people out in the forest raking and breaking apart smouldering logs to extinguish fire, looking at strategic approaches to protect significant patches of rainforests and we were lucky in that Mount Highland Area that we managed to put in place a series of breaks and to save about 3500 hectares of really, really ancient world heritage rainforests.
Geraldine: Explain to us please Mark, why these forests before we get into their creatures, you know as I said are quite remarkable. Why these particular forests themselves, up in the north coast of NSW are so special and important?
Mark: They're basically mountain top islands that have been permanently wet for tens of millions of years. They are the remnants of the relics of the types of rainforests that used to cover the whole of the aust continent as well as much of Antarctica and South America. So, as Australia has broken away from Antarctica and has drifted northwards, Australia has become very, very dry. And the only areas on the continent that have remained permanently wet have been the mountain tops of the Eastern Seaboard. Basically, atop the Great Dividing Range Places, such as Dorrigo, the Border Ranges, Wollumbin, south east Queensland Lamington National Park which of course had its own fires in the first week since Spring. So these are recognised globally for their outstanding universal values because they are essentially the oldest forests remaining on the planet. They have a continuous lineage going back many tens of millions of years.
Geraldine: And you told my producer Anne Arnold that there was a massive loss of tree hollows. Can you describe that for us please?
Mark: That is correct. So in this landscape, the Western Dorrigo Plateau where the Bees Nests fires have been burning for 10 or so weeks now, has the broadest expanses of native forests along this section of the Great Dividing Range. Many, many tens kilometres of intact expanses of forests, within that, the world's most diverse and significant tall Eucalypt forests and within that tall Eucalypt forests, are centuries old-growth trees which have abundant tree hollows and so much of our Fauna. A significant majority of our fauna species need these hollows to survive, they need them for shelter, they need them for breeding. And what's happened with these fires, because vasts sways of the landscape are burnt, very hot and hard are that there's been hundreds of thousands of these trees collapsing, potentially millions of these trees that are centuries old. It takes well over 100 years for these eucalypt trees to start to develop hollows, and those with the biggest hollows are many centuries old - 200, 400 or more years old and there's just been an immense count of collapse trees since the first week of spring. That loss is ongoing, so for all the species that depend on them, and there are hundreds of our significant fauna species, they're just losing homes.
Geraldine: Well maybe it's time to introduce listeners to the pouched frog and it's unique reproduction please, which is one of the species you’re describing.
Mark: Absolutely, the pouched frog is 2 cm long maximum and it lives in dense leaf litter, permanently wet leaf litter in these ancient rain forests between the Dorrigo Plateau and south east Queensland. Last week the area to the west of Byron Bay, the Nightcap Range National Park, another Gondwanan World Heritage Area - a significant amount of that reserve burnt in the fires last week and in particular the Terania creek basin, which is an area known to support some of the biggest populations of this frog in the world, was burned extensively. Now, they're tiny, they're 2 centimeters. They're a very delicate and moist creature, and they simply have no tolerance for fire. Also some of the southernmost populations of the pouch frog near the Dorrigo area have recently burnt through. Now the globally unique and amazing thing of the pouch frog, also called the marsupial frog is its unique reproductive strategy. The female frog lays quite advanced eggs below leaves and rocks in these permanently wet leaf litter, they develop slightly and then the male frog which has a pouch on either side of his abdomen, projects himself or squeezes himself against those early developing tadpoles, those embryos and they enter these pouches in his belly. Those pouches seal over, then some time later, 2 or more months later these miniscule pouch frogs emerge essentially as developed adults bursting out of these amazing little pouches.
Geraldine: Amazing. I mean, do we know the scale of the losses yet? I mean have you got any way of assessing that?
Mark: In terms of the actual count no, but what we do know is that significant strongholds for this species. For the ancient Gondwanan species, the fires have burnt through a large proportion of the leaf litter in these landscapes. In these ancient rainforests, the fires have burnt through from the NightCap Ranges, right down to the Dorrigo Plateau also the Lamington fires. That area is known to support significant areas of the pouch frog, it's now listed as Threatened in NSW.
Geraldine: And now I'm just looking at the time, because there's the long-nosed potoroo that we could talk about, and there's songbirds - how are they going to fair in this type of explosive fire environment?
Mark: Look, the north coast of NSW, south east of QLD has the world's most ancient song birds. All the songbirds on the planet evolved from these species that still occupy the forests in this part of the world. Now, because of the absolutely unprecedented scale of fire, we're now into the millions of hectares of recently burnt forests. These ancient birds, such as lyre birds, cat birds and tree creepers, this is their strong hold and they need in order to remain viable, they need habitat, they need food, they need shelter and they need water. Although many of these species have historically been relatively secure and common, and some of them even abundant, because so much of the forests have burned, there's actually a risk, quite a significant risk that the populations of these globally significant birds will be reduced. Listening to the dawn chorus in these forests is literally an acoustic window back in time. It's actually like listening to what the world sounded like back towards the time of the dinosaurs, when dawn broke.
Geraldine: Now, Mark I have to ask whether there are fauna species, before we slit our throats at the thought of what's been lost, are there fauna species that tend to cope best or escape best? I mean after all they must've had bushfires even if it hasn't come right into the forests, that's the story of Australia. So are there groups that do do well enough?
Mark: There will always be winners and losers. I suspect that carrion eaters will be benefiting, there's been a large loss of wildlife. So lace monitors and various crows and ravens are probably benefiting at the moment in a big way. Native plant species such as blady grass will benefit, it thrives on fires and there are definitely large parts of the Australian biota that can tolerate and benefit from fire. I’m not suggesting for a second here that everything has suffered,I guess I’m drawing attention to some of the sensitive and globally unique elements of our biodiversity.
Geraldine: No, no I take that. I mean - the Indigenous people, I was just reading the other day again, how the Indigenous peoples managed fire in these continents. In these permanently wet areas you were talking about, did they use them alot?
Mark: They would've actively protected these areas from fire, so using nuanced fire management practices developed over tens of millions of years to retain these patches in the landscape, and that would've involved very low intensity complex patches across the landscape. Keeping in mind that Aboriginal people lived permanently within the bushland, within the landscape, and they needed to manage it in a fashion for their survival. Also for ceremonial type purposes, I guess one of the problems is that there are very few modern people who live so intimately with nature. There's definitely a great role for contemporary society to look towards some of these traditional burning practices to maintain biodiversity.
Geraldine: Thank you very much indeed. The very best of luck.
Mark: Thank you Geraldine, it's been an absolute pleasure.
Tags
Forests and wildlife
Let others know about this issue