{"id":5445,"date":"2020-01-09T14:10:10","date_gmt":"2020-01-09T08:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=5445"},"modified":"2020-01-09T14:10:10","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T08:40:10","slug":"how-bushfires-affect-australias-ecosystem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/how-bushfires-affect-australias-ecosystem\/","title":{"rendered":"How bushfires affect Australia\u2019s ecosystem?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper III: Disaster and Disaster management<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>At least 24 people have lost their lives, nearly 500 million animals have perished and more than 12 billion acres of land \u2014 an area as large as Denmark \u2014 has turned to cinders as bushfires have ravaged large parts of Australia.<br \/>\n\u2022 The fires, among the worst in the country\u2019s history, have been raging since September and show no signs of abating.<br \/>\n\u2022 New South Wales, the country\u2019s worst-affected state, declared an emergency last week in its southeastern region and people were asked to move to safer locations.<br \/>\n\u2022 But the state government faced people\u2019s ire when those fleeing the inferno had to face long traffic jams.<br \/>\n\u2022 More opprobrium has been heaped on the country\u2019s Federal government. Across the country, frustrated Australians have vented their anger at Prime Minister Scott Morrison for playing down the blaze\u2019s association with climate change \u2014 a charge the Federal government has denied.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/AUS.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5446\" src=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/AUS.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"431\" height=\"472\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How bushfires affect Australia\u2019s ecosystem?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Bushfires are actually a part of Australia\u2019s ecosystem.<br \/>\n\u2022 Many plants depend on them to cycle nutrients and clear vegetation. In fact, eucalyptus trees in Australia depend on fire to release their seeds.<br \/>\n\u2022 But all this usually happens during a few weeks in late January-February, when the country is at its driest.<br \/>\n\u2022 The prolonged blaze this year has coincided with Australia\u2019s harshest summer. Parts of the country recorded their highest recorded temperature in December.<br \/>\n\u2022 Then, longer-term factors have been at play. Much of Australia is facing a drought that is a result of three consecutive summers with very little precipitation. This, according to climate scientists, is unprecedented.<br \/>\n\u2022 Moreover, as the Australian Bureau of Meteorology\u2019s 2018 State of the Climate report notes, \u201cAustralia\u2019s climate has warmed by just over 1 degree Celsius since 1910, leading to an increase in the frequency of extreme heat events.\u201d This has led to more rainfall in northern Australia, but created drought-like conditions in the more densely populated southeast.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Way ahead:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Australia is home to nearly 250 animal species, some of them like the koalas and kangaroos are not found elsewhere.<br \/>\n\u2022 But the region also has the highest rate of native animals going extinct over the past 200 years. The fires will aggravate this situation.<br \/>\n\u2022 Experts, for example, reckon that more than a quarter of the koala habitat has been consumed by the blaze. The fires have also caused a drop in the bird, rodent and insect populations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/2-catastrophic.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5451\" src=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/2-catastrophic.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>These creatures are the building blocks of the ecosystem and the fall in their population is bound to have long-term impacts.<br \/>\n\u2022 In Australia\u2019s bushfires lie a warning about the complex ways in which climate variables interact.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper III: Disaster and Disaster management Context: At least 24 people have lost their lives, nearly 500<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123,42],"tags":[392],"class_list":["post-5445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-general-studies-iii-technology-economic-development-bio-diversity-environment-security-and-disaster-management","tag-union-public-service-commission-upsc"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5452,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5445\/revisions\/5452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}