IF you lose one rivet from an aeroplane, it will probably not matter.
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But if you keep losing rivets, eventually there will be a point at which the wing falls off. Ecological systems can be seen in a similar way.
Biologists Paul and Anne Ehrlich have likened this to ecosystems in that they too can function well, until one critical stress pushes the system beyond recovery.
Are the current fires and the resulting increased fragmentation of our bush the proverbial critical rivet? The answer largely depends on how we manage our landscapes into the future.
OTHER RECENT ECO NEWS COLUMNS:
At the time of writing this story, around 20 million hectares have been burnt in the 2019-20 bushfire season, with an estimated loss of over one billion animals, and these only account for the furry, feathery, scaly ones.
The additional loss of insects and other animals living in the bush, the soils and in the water are beyond tallying.
It was voiced to me the other day that there is plenty of bush left and the effects of the fires on the environment have been sensationalised.
Clearly, the concept of how ecosystems function was lost on the observer, and I can partially understand, as population dynamics and the interrelationships between plants, animals, other organisms and the environment in which we all live is complex.
Once the fire season has ended, the bush will become more fragmented. The unburnt patches left do leave some refuges for wildlife, but what is even more critical is the integrity of the whole landscape.
Currently we manage the bushland pockets like treasure troves: little pockets of Australian bush where our iconic native species can live in open 'zoos'. We generally disregard everything else in between.
We are happy for the 'wild' to be contained in these special places, but these places are under increasing threat from climate change and fire as well as, for example, mismanagement and land development.
As individuals we tend to value our native wildlife, but collectively we don't. We can ensure the future survival of many of our species and their viable populations by improving our collective regard of both the fragments and the broader urban and rural landscapes.