By shutting up the country, we're killing it says a Snowy-Monaro landholder who has been watching more closely than most.
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Barry Aitchison of Berridale lost a lot of his pasture in the height of the January 2020 bushfire crisis. However in doing so he has been able to see the results of an experiment 14 years in the making.
The "HighFire Risk Project" was a result of the inquiry led by then-Eden-Monaro MP Gary Nairn into the 2003 Kosciuszko bushfire.
Mr Aitchison was a member of that inquiry and previously served as a fire control officer for more than 30 years.
"What we pushed for in the inquiry was for better understanding of fire behaviour in that environment," he said.
"It's all about fuel management," the admitted climate change sceptic added.
"We have vegetation coming back that burns hotter. And with hot fires we're changing the ecology, changing the vegetation."
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On Mr Aitchison's high country property he has been participating in the research for the HighFire project. He has fenced off sections of his pasture of differing altitudes and vegetation as controlled experimental sites to gauge the effects of grazing and prescribed burns on the ecology and carbon emissions.
On half of each paddock he has been conducting regular slow burns for weed and pasture control, while the other half is left alone.
"We looked at water yield, carbon flux and the effects of grazing - water quality and yield is so important."
The results were already clear with the delineation of pasture regrowth in the two halves of the paddock.
However, it's even more striking now the entire area has been decimated by the January 2020 bushfires.
Mr Aitchison said it burnt so hot even the soil is dead.
But the half of the field that had been regularly burnt in a controlled manner clearly suffered less, he pointed out.
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While acknowledging there was some merit in discussions around traditional Indigenous "cool burns" as a preventative measure against bushfires of the magnitude seen over the new year, there's much more of which to take into consideration these days.
"There's a lot of talk about the firestick regime. Cattlemen did the same. But we're managing landscapes now that have heavier fuel loads and assets as well.
"We have to combine academics and practitioners and manage the landscape for what we've got today, not what we had yesterday."
