The World Heritage welcome sign on Tasmania's Central Plateau remains amid a blackened landscape of dead pencil pines, cushion plants and scoparia that stretch for kilometres. Dan Broun
The World Heritage welcome sign on Tasmania's Central Plateau remains amid a blackened landscape of dead pencil pines, cushion plants and scoparia that stretch for kilometres. Dan Broun

Tasmanian fires: how climate change has ravaged ancient world heritage forests



When my parents and their friends began fighting the government to protest the Franklin Dam in Tasmania in 1982 they were harassed, intimidated, arrested, released and finally, victorious. It was the greatest environmental movement in Australian history and led to the creation of a global treasure – the Unesco Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.

Thanks to its combination of tens of thousands of years of Australian aboriginal culture and its magnificent, rare ecosystems, the park satisfies seven out of 10 of the United Nations criteria for World Heritage – more than any other place on Earth. Like all of their fellow protesters – doctors, bus drivers, teachers, farmers – my parents thought they had won a victory that would see the continuation of this beautiful region of wild rivers, ancient rainforests and alpine plains for me and my children.

Last month, my mum cried when I told her that those places were on fire.

Listen: Tasmanian Wilderness saved from loggers

She had shared her love of those special places with me. On childhood camping trips, the ancient groves of king billy and pencil pines became my backyard. Set free, I’d run through a wonderland of sphagnum mosses, bright flowers and muddy bogs.

The cushion plants still hold a special place in my heart. These luminous green mounds grow like alpine corals, each generation mounted on the woody skeletons of the last. They create huge green bulges that look soft and spongy – just the place for a child to jump and roll. In fact they are hard and fragile. Many times I was warned never to set foot on them, or risk wiping out centuries of construction. I tiptoed carefully around.

Two decades later, my big feet clump through their remains. The broken wonders crumble into dust, like giant over-toasted marshmallows. Here is the bitter entropy of climate change: complexity reduced to an un-beautiful monotony.

At the top of a remote pass on the northern escarpment that guards Tasmania’s high Central Plateau, a lonely signpost stands among the burned cushions and ushers intrepid walkers into the vast Unesco World Heritage area. Sprawling away southwards are thousands upon thousands of square kilometres of riotous, untamed life. But in this valley, something has gone terribly wrong.

A once-fantastical place has been reduced to ash. The branches of little bushes that once carried the bright honey richea flowers now writhe out of the ground like desperate hands. The shining black skeletons of 1,000-year-old pencil pines prick the skyline. The back of the signpost has burned, but on the front the writing has somehow escaped the flames. “World Heritage,” it says. The joke is too dark.

Once, as the sign suggests, this was a place of globally significant biodiversity – an ancient remnant of the upland vegetation of the supercontinent of Gondwana, which once stretched across the highlands of Australia, Antarctica and South America. Two-thirds of the plants in these valleys grow nowhere else on Earth. They are places of great beauty, in which time is stretched over a grand expanse.

Now, according to the warnings of forest scientists, we may be bringing about the end of this great natural treasure. Many Australian forests are uniquely adapted to burn, but not these ones. The ancient alpine conifers and the little plants that grow amid the bogs are blasted year by year with all the rain the Southern and Indian Oceans can muster. Normally, fire would be unthinkable in these sodden places, thus the plants here have evolved little resistance to fire.

But this is no normal year. The spring of September to November was Tasmania’s driest and hottest since records began. December and January smashed heat records. By January 13, even the mountain bogs were tinder dry. Then, in highly unusual weather, a huge, dry lightning storm flashed across the state, setting off more than 70 fires. Within days, the flames had roared through the dried-out rainforests that usually protect the highlands. They crossed into the World Heritage area, setting the peat alight. Parts of the protected mountains are still on fire, having burned for more than six weeks.

These types of conditions might combine to occur naturally once in 1,000 years, says David Bowman, a professor of forest science at the University of Tasmania. But now, he believes the fires represent a new normal.

"We just have to accept that we've crossed a threshold, I suspect," he tells The National. The island has been losing rainfall since the 1970s. "This is what climate change looks like."

In February, after a media flight organised to highlight that the tourist attraction was till largely unaffected by the fires, Tasmanian premier Will Hodgman attacked “activists” for “almost gleefully capitalising” on the fires, which he said were “naturally caused”.

There were certain natural factors that meant the fires happened in this year, rather than any adjacent one. A massive El Niño event combined with an Indian Ocean dipole. Both of these periodic ocean circulations have a drying effect on Tasmania. But these confluences have happened before and the forests survived.

The fires fit a global pattern of increasing burning in the wet forests of the world, and especially on the mainland of Australia, says David Lindenmayer, a professor of ecology and conservation biology at the Australian National University.

“That’s what other people have been forecasting to happen. We are going to see more fires, over larger areas, that are more frequent and of higher severity. What we are seeing in Tasmania would appear to be a manifestation of that,” he says.

The implication, says Bowman, is “goodbye Gondwana, because Gondwana can’t live in this sort of world”. Despite these warnings, Unesco remains silent. A spokesman said the organisation was “not in a position to speculate about the extent to which global warming is responsible for this particular fire”.

Around me, 1,000-year-old pencil pines huddle in little clumps, exactly as they stood when alive. Looking at them feels invasive, like staring at the victims of Pompeii locked forever in their private final anguish. Their skin has been burned to an iridescent black and cracked like dragon’s scales.

Sam Wood, a University of Tasmania forest scientist, estimates that four per cent of the world’s pencil pines were lost in the past few weeks.

A few have survived thanks to some quirk of the wind, or a fortuitous wall of protecting rocks or a little rain that came and finally doused the flames after weeks of burning. These trees have ridden their luck to bear witness to the dawning of the new age. One that Bowman suspects their species will be ill-equipped to survive.

“It stretches my mind to believe there’ll be much of this stuff left in 50 years,” he says. “But we’ve got to get through next summer and we’ve got to get through all these summers in a world that is getting hotter.”

Again and again, the flames will pass through these once sodden valleys. Fire-resistant species will move in and this global treasure will be forever changed.

Bowman’s prediction echoes the work of the great coral scientist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg. In 1999 he predicted that the great coral reefs of the world would be lost by the mid-century. As the world grows hotter, some species in particular will have no chance to adapt. These are the ones that already inhabit the extreme fringes of the biosphere.

Coral reefs cannot stand water that is much cooler or hotter than the waters around the Equator. The great global bleaching event that has rolled around the world’s oceans for the past two years is testament to their unsuitability to this new world. Similarly, Tasmania’s alpine forests cannot climb any higher to find a cooler, wetter place to live.

In all, about 22,000 hectares of the 1.5 million-hectare property have been damaged. It is a large chunk, but by no means absolute. I will still be able to revisit my childhood playground even though it will diminish.

This nibbling around the edges is the way of climate change. A little here, a little there, and then without us really being aware, species, habitats and a whole planet have been irredeemably changed. But in this little valley, far away from all of the grand ideas of science, the intractable politics of climate change and the symbolism of a World Heritage area burned, something simple happens. I stand among the burned old cushion plants and the child in me starts to cry.

Karl Mathiesen is an environmental journalist based in London.

Our legal consultants

Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais

Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.

Joker: Folie a Deux

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson

Director: Todd Phillips 

Rating: 2/5

Key changes

Commission caps

For life insurance products with a savings component, Peter Hodgins of Clyde & Co said different caps apply to the saving and protection elements:

• For the saving component, a cap of 4.5 per cent of the annualised premium per year (which may not exceed 90 per cent of the annualised premium over the policy term). 

• On the protection component, there is a cap  of 10 per cent of the annualised premium per year (which may not exceed 160 per cent of the annualised premium over the policy term).

• Indemnity commission, the amount of commission that can be advanced to a product salesperson, can be 50 per cent of the annualised premium for the first year or 50 per cent of the total commissions on the policy calculated. 

• The remaining commission after deduction of the indemnity commission is paid equally over the premium payment term.

• For pure protection products, which only offer a life insurance component, the maximum commission will be 10 per cent of the annualised premium multiplied by the length of the policy in years.

Disclosure

Customers must now be provided with a full illustration of the product they are buying to ensure they understand the potential returns on savings products as well as the effects of any charges. There is also a “free-look” period of 30 days, where insurers must provide a full refund if the buyer wishes to cancel the policy.

“The illustration should provide for at least two scenarios to illustrate the performance of the product,” said Mr Hodgins. “All illustrations are required to be signed by the customer.”

Another illustration must outline surrender charges to ensure they understand the costs of exiting a fixed-term product early.

Illustrations must also be kept updatedand insurers must provide information on the top five investment funds available annually, including at least five years' performance data.

“This may be segregated based on the risk appetite of the customer (in which case, the top five funds for each segment must be provided),” said Mr Hodgins.

Product providers must also disclose the ratio of protection benefit to savings benefits. If a protection benefit ratio is less than 10 per cent "the product must carry a warning stating that it has limited or no protection benefit" Mr Hodgins added.

Jigra
Director: Vasan Bala
Starring: Alia Bhatt, Vedang Raina, Manoj Pahwa, Harsh Singh
Rated: 3.5/5
Schedule
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ENovember%2013-14%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Abu%20Dhabi%20World%20Youth%20Jiu-Jitsu%20Championship%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENovember%2015-16%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EAbu%20Dhabi%20World%20Masters%20Jiu-Jitsu%20Championship%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENovember%2017-19%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Abu%20Dhabi%20World%20Professional%20Jiu-Jitsu%20Championship%20followed%20by%20the%20Abu%20Dhabi%20World%20Jiu-Jitsu%20Awards%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
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A%20QUIET%20PLACE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Lupita%20Nyong'o%2C%20Joseph%20Quinn%2C%20Djimon%20Hounsou%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EMichael%20Sarnoski%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%204%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Syria squad

Goalkeepers: Ibrahim Alma, Mahmoud Al Youssef, Ahmad Madania.
Defenders: Ahmad Al Salih, Moayad Ajan, Jehad Al Baour, Omar Midani, Amro Jenyat, Hussein Jwayed, Nadim Sabagh, Abdul Malek Anezan.
Midfielders: Mahmoud Al Mawas, Mohammed Osman, Osama Omari, Tamer Haj Mohamad, Ahmad Ashkar, Youssef Kalfa, Zaher Midani, Khaled Al Mobayed, Fahd Youssef.
Forwards: Omar Khribin, Omar Al Somah, Mardik Mardikian.

Tree of Hell

Starring: Raed Zeno, Hadi Awada, Dr Mohammad Abdalla

Director: Raed Zeno

Rating: 4/5

Thank You for Banking with Us

Director: Laila Abbas

Starring: Yasmine Al Massri, Clara Khoury, Kamel El Basha, Ashraf Barhoum

Rating: 4/5

The biog

Hobby: "It is not really a hobby but I am very curious person. I love reading and spend hours on research."

Favourite author: Malcom Gladwell 

Favourite travel destination: "Antigua in the Caribbean because I have emotional attachment to it. It is where I got married."

Most wanted allegations
  • Benjamin Macann, 32: involvement in cocaine smuggling gang.
  • Jack Mayle, 30: sold drugs from a phone line called the Flavour Quest.
  • Callum Halpin, 27: over the 2018 murder of a rival drug dealer. 
  • Asim Naveed, 29: accused of being the leader of a gang that imported cocaine.
  • Calvin Parris, 32: accused of buying cocaine from Naveed and selling it on.
  • John James Jones, 31: allegedly stabbed two people causing serious injuries.
  • Callum Michael Allan, 23: alleged drug dealing and assaulting an emergency worker.
  • Dean Garforth, 29: part of a crime gang that sold drugs and guns.
  • Joshua Dillon Hendry, 30: accused of trafficking heroin and crack cocain. 
  • Mark Francis Roberts, 28: grievous bodily harm after a bungled attempt to steal a £60,000 watch.
  • James ‘Jamie’ Stevenson, 56: for arson and over the seizure of a tonne of cocaine.
  • Nana Oppong, 41: shot a man eight times in a suspected gangland reprisal attack. 
The specs

Engine: 1.5-litre turbo

Power: 181hp

Torque: 230Nm

Transmission: 6-speed automatic

Starting price: Dh79,000

On sale: Now

The specs

Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
Power: 620hp from 5,750-7,500rpm
Torque: 760Nm from 3,000-5,750rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed dual-clutch auto
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh1.05 million ($286,000)

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%3Cp%3EDavid%20White%20might%20be%20new%20to%20the%20country%2C%20but%20he%20has%20clearly%20already%20built%20up%20an%20affinity%20with%20the%20place.%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3EAfter%20the%20UAE%20shocked%20Pakistan%20in%20the%20semi-final%20of%20the%20Under%2019%20Asia%20Cup%20last%20month%2C%20White%20was%20hugged%20on%20the%20field%20by%20Aayan%20Khan%2C%20the%20team%E2%80%99s%20captain.%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3EWhite%20suggests%20that%20was%20more%20a%20sign%20of%20Aayan%E2%80%99s%20amiability%20than%20anything%20else.%20But%20he%20believes%20the%20young%20all-rounder%2C%20who%20was%20part%20of%20the%20winning%20Gulf%20Giants%20team%20last%20year%2C%20is%20just%20the%20sort%20of%20player%20the%20country%20should%20be%20seeking%20to%20produce%20via%20the%20ILT20.%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3E%E2%80%9CHe%20is%20a%20delightful%20young%20man%2C%E2%80%9D%20White%20said.%20%E2%80%9CHe%20played%20in%20the%20competition%20last%20year%20at%2017%2C%20and%20look%20at%20his%20development%20from%20there%20till%20now%2C%20and%20where%20he%20is%20representing%20the%20UAE.%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3E%E2%80%9CHe%20was%20influential%20in%20the%20U19%20team%20which%20beat%20Pakistan.%20He%20is%20the%20perfect%20example%20of%20what%20we%20are%20all%20trying%20to%20achieve%20here.%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3E%E2%80%9CIt%20is%20about%20the%20development%20of%20players%20who%20are%20going%20to%20represent%20the%20UAE%20and%20go%20on%20to%20help%20make%20UAE%20a%20force%20in%20world%20cricket.%E2%80%9D%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
'Champions'

Director: Manuel Calvo
Stars: Yassir Al Saggaf and Fatima Al Banawi
Rating: 2/5
 

COMPANY PROFILE

Company: Bidzi

● Started: 2024

● Founders: Akshay Dosaj and Asif Rashid

● Based: Dubai, UAE

● Industry: M&A

● Funding size: Bootstrapped

● No of employees: Nine

How to protect yourself when air quality drops

Install an air filter in your home.

Close your windows and turn on the AC.

Shower or bath after being outside.

Wear a face mask.

Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.

If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.

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MOST%20POLLUTED%20COUNTRIES%20IN%20THE%20WORLD
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
 
Started: 2020
 
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
 
Based: Dubai, UAE
 
Sector: Entertainment 
 
Number of staff: 210 
 
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
The specs

Engine: Dual 180kW and 300kW front and rear motors

Power: 480kW

Torque: 850Nm

Transmission: Single-speed automatic

Price: From Dh359,900 ($98,000)

On sale: Now

The National Archives, Abu Dhabi

Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.

Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en

Three ways to limit your social media use

Clinical psychologist, Dr Saliha Afridi at The Lighthouse Arabia suggests three easy things you can do every day to cut back on the time you spend online.

1. Put the social media app in a folder on the second or third screen of your phone so it has to remain a conscious decision to open, rather than something your fingers gravitate towards without consideration.

2. Schedule a time to use social media instead of consistently throughout the day. I recommend setting aside certain times of the day or week when you upload pictures or share information. 

3. Take a mental snapshot rather than a photo on your phone. Instead of sharing it with your social world, try to absorb the moment, connect with your feeling, experience the moment with all five of your senses. You will have a memory of that moment more vividly and for far longer than if you take a picture of it.

Our legal consultants

Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais

Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.

Tonight's Chat on The National

Tonight's Chat is a series of online conversations on The National. The series features a diverse range of celebrities, politicians and business leaders from around the Arab world.

Tonight’s Chat host Ricardo Karam is a renowned author and broadcaster with a decades-long career in TV. He has previously interviewed Bill Gates, Carlos Ghosn, Andre Agassi and the late Zaha Hadid, among others. Karam is also the founder of Takreem.

Intellectually curious and thought-provoking, Tonight’s Chat moves the conversation forward.

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Company name: Farmin

Date started: March 2019

Founder: Dr Ali Al Hammadi 

Based: Abu Dhabi

Sector: AgriTech

Initial investment: None to date

Partners/Incubators: UAE Space Agency/Krypto Labs 

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UPI facts

More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions

How to wear a kandura

Dos

  • Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion 
  • Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
  • Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work 
  • Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester

Don’ts 

  • Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal 
  • Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying

The Dictionary of Animal Languages
Heidi Sopinka
​​​​​​​Scribe

Indika
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The Breadwinner

Director: Nora Twomey

Starring: Saara Chaudry,  Soma Chhaya,  Laara Sadiq 

Three stars

Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ENamara%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EJune%202022%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounder%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EMohammed%20Alnamara%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EDubai%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EMicrofinance%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ECurrent%20number%20of%20staff%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E16%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESeries%20A%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFamily%20offices%0D%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The specs

Engine: 5.2-litre V10

Power: 640hp at 8,000rpm

Torque: 565Nm at 6,500rpm

Transmission: 7-speed dual-clutch auto

Price: From Dh1 million

On sale: Q3 or Q4 2022 

The specs
Engine: 2.7-litre 4-cylinder Turbomax
Power: 310hp
Torque: 583Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh192,500
On sale: Now