The project, commissioned by the Murray Region Forestry Hub, seeks to investigate and address regulatory barriers that limit effective fire management across one of Australia’s most significant softwood plantation regions. Spanning 3.5 million hectares across southern New South Wales and north-east Victoria, the Hub supports a major forestry industry that has been heavily impacted by the 2019–2020 Black Summer bushfires, which destroyed approximately 42,000 hectares of plantation resource.
With ongoing bushfire risk and increasing pressure on already constrained timber supply, the project recognises that complex land tenure arrangements and overlapping state and federal legislation may be hindering the implementation of effective fire prevention, suppression, and recovery strategies.
To address these challenges, the project will deliver a comprehensive desktop review examining best-practice fire management, relevant legislation, and lessons from past bushfire inquiries.
It aims to define “effective fire management” within the Murray Region context, identify legislative constraints impacting land and fire management activities, and assess how previous inquiry recommendations have been implemented.
Through this analysis, the project will generate evidence-based recommendations to inform government policy reform, with the ultimate goal of improving fire management outcomes, strengthening industry resilience, and supporting the long-term sustainability and growth of the region’s forestry sector.