PROPERTY Rights Australia has pulled up the ABC for blaming climate change for apparent eucalypt decline.
PRA has instead referenced a retired, long-serving forester by the name of John O’Donnell, who has just published a Global Review of Forest Decline, which is almost entirely missing from the public debate.
O’Donnell’s review of forest decline draws together 82 key scientific references from Australia and overseas. His conclusion is that the dominant driver of forest decline, including eucalypt decline, is not temperature alone, but the long-term exclusion of regular, low-intensity (mild) fire and the soil changes that follow.
O’Donnell shows that when mild fire is excluded, forest soils fundamentally change. Nutrient cycles are destabilised, soil physics and chemistry are altered, and the vital root–mycorrhizal systems that underpin tree health are degraded. The visible symptoms we argue about like crown thinning, insect attack, dieback, are consequences.
This aligns closely with the work of researchers such as Vic Jurskis, Burrows and others, who have long warned that fire suppression and “lock-up” conservation weaken forests, increase fuel loads, and make landscapes far more vulnerable to severe, uncontrollable fires. It also reinforces what many practitioners know from experience: human management decisions, not abstract climate variables, are the primary drivers of declining forest health.
The relevance to current fires could not be clearer. When we exclude mild fire, neglect fuel management, and delay early suppression, we don’t just see an increase in fire intensity, we undermine forest resilience itself. Then, when forests burn hard, the damage is blamed on climate rather than on decades of policy failure.
“This review is worth reading in full. It provides the scientific depth that is so often missing from media coverage and policy debates, and it reinforces a simple but uncomfortable message that we repeatedly argue.
“Healthy forests require active management, regular mild fire and the courage to intervene and apply active management, not just to lock them up in reserves and apply the lazy management objective of benign neglect,” PRA notes.
The full review can be read here: https://www.timberbiz.com.au/…/World-Forest-Decline…
Meanwhile Forestry Australia is seeking proposals for projects that will support farm forestry and agroforestry in Australia. The funding is made available through the Forestry Australia’s Grower Reserve Fund, with up to $ 10,000 available per project.
Closing time: COB Monday 2 February 2026
Submission address: growers@forestry.org.au
