UTAS apology sought for bushfire paper mistake

THE University of Tasmania has been asked to apologise for a now retracted scientific paper linking bushfires with forestry.

The Institute of Foresters of Australia (IFA) called for the apology when research by UTAS academics Suyanti Winto-Lewin, Jennifer Sanger and James Kirkpatrick was retracted on August 27.

Errors included incorrectly categorising forest types and geographical mapping issues.

The Greens were recently accused of using the paper’s link between bushfires and logging to levy attacks against the forestry industry.

IFA president Bob Gordon said he questioned the university’s review processes.

“What I marvel at is it took two volunteer independent scientists and academics to pick up these errors through publicly-available data and then contact the editors of this journal to highlight the substantial issues in methodology,” Mr Gordon said.

A UTAS spokesman said a fellow researcher had contacted the authors with concerns after checking the data.

“The authors re-examined their work, seeking input from an independent colleague with relevant expertise and, on confirming errors in their data that impacted their findings, they withdrew the paper and apologised,” he said.

He said the authors were correcting their errors and the university would review the matter.

The controversy follows a summer of devastating bushfires, but wetter weather is predicted to reduce this season’s risk.

The Australian Seasonal Bushfire Outlook, which last year reported significant danger for east Australia and smaller south and west zones, says wetter east Australia conditions through spring will quell east Australia’s and Tasmania’s short-term fire risk.

But the rain could cause fast running grassland and cropping area fires in summer.

Only Queensland’s Gympie area and small zones in northern Western Australia have been classified as possessing “above average fire potential”.