Australia is Still Burning
Reactions to the devastation Down Under
Three kangaroos explore the remnants of their burnt-out home on Kangaroo Island. More than half a billion animals were killed in these fires, pushing many species to the brink of extinction. (Reproduced with permission from Coralie Riedel)
The catastrophic wildfires in Australia are burning half a world away, but for some members of the Browning community, their impact hits close to home. To date, the devastation wrought by the fires includes over 70,000 square miles of land consumed and the deaths of 34 people and nearly half a billion animals.
“My family in Sydney could smell the smoke from the fires,” physics teacher and Australian native Travis McIntosh said. “Fortunately, no one I know was affected by them, but it’s still a scary situation.”
Richard Symons, head of vocal music and a fellow Australian, also feels lucky that none of his family has been affected by the fires, although, given the extent of the disaster, “it’s a small consolation,” he said.
The fires began in October of 2019, with a long period of drought likely being the cause for the intensity of the blazes. The long periods without rain dried out the earth and vegetation and made the ecosystem a living tinderbox. The fires reached such a high level that a state of emergency was declared in Queensland and New South Wales.
Among the casualties of the fires are hundreds of thousands of wild animals, including many of the continent’s unique species like kangaroos, koalas, and echidnas. The fires have destroyed large swaths of habitat, threatening many species with extinction.
“Australia’s biodiversity will take a very long time to recover,” Mr. McIntosh said. “But these events all happened so suddenly that it’s hard to predict their true impact.”
Mr. Symons also fears that it will be difficult for the ecosystem to recover from the fires.
“Some of Australia’s ecosystem relies on regular fire,” he said, “but the rate and scale of these fires isn’t something that the ecosystem is designed to handle.”
Kangaroo Island, a major tourism attraction in the southwest and a reserve for populations of endangered wildlife, was severely hit by the fires, throwing the island’s residents and its economy into turmoil.
“Only half of Kangaroo Island remains untouched by the blazes,” wildlife tour guide and art gallery operator Coralie Riedel said in a correspondence with the author. “The fire burned right up to our gallery, destroying the trees in our car park but thankfully leaving the building intact.”
The burnt out husks of vegetation surrounding the Remarkable Rocks, a major tourist attraction on Kangaroo Island that consists of interestingly shaped rocks that have been formed over 500 million years. (
Coralie Riedel)
In response to these events, the international community made great strides to help fight the fires.
“The response from the international community was incredible,” Mr. McIntosh said. “Countries around the world loaned Australia their firefighters, their materials, even their firefighting aircraft. It’s incredibly moving to see such close bonds of allyship even amidst such a great tragedy.”
Despite the generous international response, the actions of those in power in Australia, particularly current Prime Minister Scott Morrison, severely increased the damage of the fires.
“Everybody knew we were in a very dry time,” Former Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull said in an interview with the BBC on January 22nd, 2020. “It was likely to be very bad. Rather than doing what a leader should do [Mr. Morrison] downplayed it, and at times discounted the influence of climate change, which is just nonsense from a scientific point of view. It’s just not consistent with the way a prime minister would or should act in a national crisis like this.”
Although fires are natural and expected during this season, the extent of the blazes was exacerbated by climate change. However, those in power in Australia, particularly Morrison and former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, have publically attempted to distance the causes of the fires from climate change. Turnbull blames them, along with other such climate change deniers, for the extent of the fires.
“How many more coral reefs have to bleached, how many more million hectares of forest have to be burned,” Turnbull said. “How many more lives and homes have to be lost before the climate change deniers acknowledge that they are wrong?”
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