5 January

When our collective orgasm of disaster and disaster appeals is over again, will we listen to those who say it’s all as simple as more hazard reduction burning? Or to those who want to lock up these spaces again as untouched national parks? Or do we go into these cleared spaces and create mosaic landscape patterns, of alternating thinned trees and grass clearings? That’s how they used to be. We could move earthmoving equipment in for example to start creating clearings, we wouldn’t even need fire for now. And when we do burn again, we don’t need ‘hazard reduction’ - our landscape isn’t a hazard - we need landscape-building burning, a vastly different thing. All very hard, all needs lots of thinking.