Traditional burning
Here is where I spent yesterday, at Warra National Park in the Northern Tablelands of NSW, Australia. It is high altitude (1300m) montane eucalypt woodland. I was volunteering my help on a PhD student's field work looking at the influence of Aboriginal burning on biodiversity.
At the moment very little is flowering as it's still Winter, but some Melichrus was out (Ericaceae). There were few if any animals about, just kangaroos and wallabies. It was windy and cold, though the sun came out in the afternoon and warmed things up a bit.
My work involved pegging out 20 x 50 m quadrats for long term monitoring and performing fuel hazard assessments. Currently National Parks of NSW are required by law to regularly burn all fire hazardous lands under their ownership to reduce fuel loads for the protection of neighbouring life and assets. This is currently being done at a frequency that far exceeds that which is recommended for the protection of fauna habitat and promotion of vegetation biodiversity.
The fires must reduce the fuel loads of the litter layer (fine surface fuel), under storey layer (near surface fuel), shrub layer (elevated fuel) and lower bark of all trees. The assessment of the fuel hazard hinges heavily upon the bark, as this allows fire to climb to the canopy and to spread fires by spotting. Loose stripping and fibrous bark of the type ranked highly as a fuel hazard is also an important fauna habitat, particularly for invertebrates, but also lizards and bats.
Also the surface litter and under storey and shrub layers are all important for habitat and resources for fauna. The frequency of burning is currently assessed by determining whether the fuel hazard is high or above. In eucalypt woodland and forest this can be the case within a year of being burnt. Recommended frequencies of burning for biodiversity are rarely greater than every three years, even where a vegetation type is highly fire tolerant.
Mobile fauna can move to other unburnt areas of vegetation, but this is restricted by habitat loss, the extensiveness of the fires, and habitat fragmentation. In a natural system, fire caused by lightning strikes mostly creates a mosaic of burnt and unburned patches within a landscape. Charcoal has been found to deter certain fauna species such as lizards and termites from using fallen timber and logs as habitat.
There are many more things to consider in the management of National Parks than litigation from asset loss in neighbouring properties. Currently of all the lands that pose a fire hazard, National Parks are the only areas required by law to impose these strict regimes of burning for fuel load reduction.