Australian bushfires: what will recovery look like?

Climate Futures researchers Rebecca Harris, Tom Remenyi and Gabi Mocatta, together with University of Tasmania Environmental Science researcher, Grant Williams, published an article in The Conversation, in which they refuted some of the current media coverage on natural systems’ “recovery” after the 2019/2020 bushfires. The article argues that while the Australian environment evolved with fire and in past conditions, could recover from fire, climate change has altered these rules irrevocably.

Under global heating, we are seeing a trajectory of change in which our climate will shift faster than most living things can tolerate. Some ecosystems, and many species, will never recover from these fires.