BUSHFIRE RECOVERY

Issue 86

TOTAL OBSERVATIONS posted to the Environment Recovery Project, which monitors bushland regenerating from the devastating 2019/20 fires, passed 5100 (of nearly 1150 species) in midmay – “a pretty solid effort” says project coordinator Casey Gibson.

Geographically, observations stretch from southeast Queensland and along the east and south coasts to SA. COVID-19 restrictions have hampered the effort, but “we’ve still got a subset of people – landholders, property owners – who are really actively canvassing their own patches,” says Gibson.

Gibson says the project’s been typified by some “really cracking observations” and an underlying theme of optimism. “Before the pandemic took off, people were getting images of epicormic regrowth on eucalypts, almost as a sign of hope, that we can come through a bushfire disaster.”