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Managing fire risk in Tasmania

Held on the 26th Nov 2019

at 7pm to
9pm

, Northern Tasmania


Add to Calendar 2019-11-26 19:00:00 2019-11-26 21:00:00 Australia/Sydney Managing fire risk in Tasmania A group of experts will discuss, ‘What are the lessons from past fires that inform future fire management? Princess Theatre, 57 Brisbane St, Launceston
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Venue:

Princess Theatre, 57 Brisbane St, Launceston

Summary:

A group of experts will discuss, ‘What are the lessons from past fires that inform future fire management?

Presenter(s):

  • Professor David Bowman
  • Mr Jeremy Smith
  • Dr Steven Leonard
  • Mr Paul Black

Ecological Society of Australia Public Lecture

The large number of lightning strikes that resulted in ignitions in the 2018-2019 fire season easily eclipsed the unprecedented events witnessed by north-west Tasmanian’s in 2016. Over 210,000 hectares of Tasmania burnt in the 2018-2019 summer, particularly areas of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area and the southern forests.

Tasmania is a small, isolated and mountainous island. It is a refuge to many animal and plant species including some of the most ancient plants on Earth. Much of the vegetation is adapted to fire; ancient Gondwanan communities are not and are most at risk to fire. Looking at the landscape, you would be forgiven for thinking that the impact of fires is directly removed from affecting human population and biodiversity. In the 2018-2019 fires, communities of humans, flora and fauna were all critically impacted by fire.

This public lecture is all about managing fire risk in Tasmania. We bring together experts to discuss, ‘What are the lessons from past fires that inform future fire management?’ They will draw on their expertise to consider: what type of thinking is required for managing fire risk; what are the pathways for communities?; what social capacity is required?; what can we do to protect environmental and cultural assets?; how can humans co-exist with fire? The experts will then address the audience to answer questions about managing fire risk in Tasmania.

The next fire season is already upon us.

Are we better prepared?

Convener: Professor Libby Lester, University of Tasmania

Invited speakers

Plenary address: Professor David Bowman, University of Tasmania

  • Mr Jeremy Smith, Director, Community Fire Safety. Tasmania Fire Service
  • Dr Steven Leonard, Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment, Tasmania
  • Mr Paul Black, Parks and Wildlife Service, Tasmania. State Fire Manager

A question and answer session will follow the invited speakers’ presentations. The convener will take questions from the floor.


About the Speakers

Professor David Bowman, Professor of Pyrogeography and Fire Science. University of Tasmania

Professor David Bowman holds a research chair in Pyrogeography and Fire Science in the School of Natural Sciences and is the Director of the transdisciplinary Fire Centre Research Hub at the University of Tasmania. He is developing the transdisciplinary field of pyrogeography that provides a synthetic understanding of landscape burning that unites human, physical and biological dimensions of fire from the geological past into the future and spanning local to global geographic scales.

Mr Paul Black. Parks and Wildlife Service, Tasmania. State Fire Manager

Paul is trained as an ecologist and a bushfire management professional and has worked in land management agencies as an ecologist; planner, ranger; protected area manager; fire management officer and more recently as the State Fire Manager for the Parks and Wildlife Service. Paul has been involved in shaping research projects into the impacts of climate change induced fire regimes and development of decision support tools to assist management of these impacts. This experience has given Paul a thorough understanding of the management objectives of our most important and internationally significant reserves and operational experience in managing these reserves and values from fire and other threats in a changing climate.