Biodiversity and Fire: The effects and effectiveness of fire management
Proceedings of the conference held 8-9 October 1994, Footscray, Melbourne
Biodiversity Series, Paper No. 8
Biodiversity Unit
Department of the Environment, Sport and Territories, 1996
Summing up session
Issues from the audience: Conclusions, outcomes, priorities
- The response of invertebrates and soil microbe ecology is important, particularly their response to frequent burning. While higher taxa level studies are important indicators, effort should be given to individual species level in research.
- Research is useless without community education.
- It is time to move away from the term Fire Prevention Committee to Fire Management Committee.
- Experimental design should avoid the use of space for time substitution methods at all costs.
- In Victoria we need an institutional mechanism to incorporate ecological burning with adequate resources provided for conducting these.
- Loss of specialised habitats for invertebrates is an important problem with all fires and should be considered.
- Both CNR and CFA should do more in conjunction with the Department of Planning and Development to avoid inappropriate subdivisions.
- There should be a system to ensure good dissemination of research especially to land managers.
- A broader range of habitats needs to be represented in fire effects studies.
- We have to ensure restructuring of the Departments does not remove the expertise on the ground to carry out ecological or fuel reduction burning.
- The conference should have covered a broader range of habitats including tropical and arid.
- We need more regular conferences – say every three years.
- The role of fire in forest ecosystems for management of biodiversity should be our main research focus.
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