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Impact of changes in lightning fire incidence on the values of the Tasmanian wilderness world heritage area
journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-20, 00:42 authored by James KirkpatrickJames Kirkpatrick, Jennifer StygerJennifer Styger, Jonathan Marsden-SmedleyJonathan Marsden-SmedleyThe Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area has ecosystems and cultural landscapes that have been created and/or influenced by the interactions between the physical environment, the biological environment, fire regimes and people. Lightning is the dominant cause of fire in the 2010s, yet was rarely recorded as a cause of fire before 1980, when arsonists caused most fires. The main potential impact of this change in primary cause of fire incidence on the values of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area is the loss of ecosystems dominated by highly fire-sensitive palaeoendemics, organosols and Aboriginal cultural landscapes. At the same time as these values are threatened, a lack of burning threatens some fire-dependent vegetation types. We suggest an increase in planned burning of fire-tolerant and fire-requiring vegetation, maintenance of ignition suppression, an improvement in rapid response capability and an improvement in rapid detection of lightning fires is required in order to maintain many world heritage values.
History
Publication title
Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of TasmaniaVolume
152Pagination
27-32ISSN
0080-4703Department/School
School of Geography, Planning and Spatial SciencesPublisher
Royal Society of TasmaniaPlace of publication
AustraliaRights statement
Copyright 2018 Royal Society of TasmaniaRepository Status
- Restricted