Just Ecology

Many years ago, I began noticing some serious impacts on bushland following planned burns, or fuel-reduction burns. I was seeing the loss of old trees, destruction of rare and threatened plants, loss of habitat, and impacts on native fauna.

But over time, something else became even more concerning. These burns were being carried out with the aim of reducing fuel loads, yet in many places I was seeing the opposite. Burning was stimulating dense recruitment of shrubs and other fire-responsive pioneer species, and changing the structure and condition of the vegetation. In some places, within a few years of being burnt, the vegetation seemed denser and potentially more flammable than it had been before the burn.

I've done quite a lot of work in this space myself, and I won't go into all of that here. But if you're interested, I gave a talk for the Victorian Forest Alliance looking at some of these issues, which you can view here: https://www.victorianforestalliance.org.au/recording_karl_just_webinar

When I started digging more deeply into the science behind what I was observing, one researcher whose work really stood out to me was Associate Professor Phil Zylstra.

Phil is a fire ecologist and fire-behaviour scientist, but importantly, he didn't come to fire purely from an academic background. Before and during the early years of his research career, he worked in fire management and as a remote-area firefighter in the Snowy Mountains. So his understanding of fire comes from both working with it on the ground and studying it scientifically.

Over many years, Phil has investigated some really fundamental questions about how fire actually behaves in Australian forests and how vegetation changes following fire. He's developed sophisticated fire-behaviour models that look beyond simply how much fuel is present, to consider things like the species involved, plant traits, vegetation structure and how those characteristics influence whether and how a fire spreads.

A major focus of his work has been on what happens to the flammability of forests as they recover from disturbance. His research has challenged the relatively simple idea that older vegetation necessarily means more fuel and therefore greater fire risk. Instead, his work shows that in some forest ecosystems there can be a period of increased flammability as dense vegetation regenerates after fire, followed by a decline in flammability as the forest matures, plants self-thin and the structure of the vegetation changes.

That was particularly fascinating to me because Phil was finding, through detailed and peer-reviewed research, patterns that were very similar to things I'd been observing in the field for years.

In the podcast we talk about what actually happens to vegetation following fire, how fuels and flammability change as ecosystems recover, and whether repeatedly burning forests to reduce fuel can sometimes have the unintended consequence of maintaining them in a younger, denser and more flammable state.

We also get into some of the broader complexities of fire ecology: the relationship between fire and vegetation, the effects of repeated burning on ecosystems and biodiversity, and what the evidence tells us about how we might manage bushfire risk differently in the future.

I also want to give a quick plug for a Eucalypt Identification and Ecology Course that Vicky Shukuroglou will be running, and that I'll be helping to teach.

The course runs over four days across October and November 2026, and we'll visit a range of very different ecosystems around Melbourne — from tall, wet mountain forests to much drier woodlands in the west. We'll see a wide diversity of eucalypts, learn how to identify them, and, importantly, explore their ecology and their relationships with the landscapes and ecosystems in which they occur. If you would like to learn more about the course, please visit Vicky's website at: https://eucalyptsmelbourne.au/course/

What does it take to restore diversity to a profoundly altered landscape? And how do we accept and work within novel ecosystems when there is no intact reference point to guide us?

It was a real treat to sit down with one of the best restoration ecologists I know, Ian Higgins. On a cold winter’s day near Campbells Creek, Ian showed me what decades of patient, thoughtful restoration can achieve.

When Ian first came to the area, there were just five individual wattles along Campbells Creek between Castlemaine and Guildford. Today, following years of care by the Friends of Campbells Creek, there are thousands. But the restoration effort has extended far beyond trees and shrubs. In a grazing-exclusion plot about the size of a house block, Ian has established more than 100 indigenous plant species, including locally rare and threatened species. For Ian, however, establishing a plant is only the beginning. The true measure of success is whether it can reproduce, recruit new individuals and ultimately become part of a self-sustaining ecosystem.

Our conversation explores the enormous legacy of gold mining, clearing, grazing, weeds and fertiliser—and the difficulty of restoring landscapes where almost nothing remains to tell us exactly what was once there. We discuss soil fertility, phosphorus, grazing exclusion, direct seeding, climate change and the sometimes-blurry distinction between indigenous, introduced and locally invasive plants.

Above all, this is a conversation about experimentation, patience and hope. Ian’s work shows that restoration does not necessarily mean recreating an imagined past. It can mean working carefully with the landscape that remains, learning from successes and failures, and helping diversity return—one seedling at a time.

I have always believed that the way we raise children, and the opportunities we give them to deeply experience and connect with the natural world, can be a powerful way to create a better future. So much of the destruction we see around us stems from a disconnection from nature that often begins in childhood. There is also a growing body of evidence showing that time spent in nature can improve children’s happiness, wellbeing, attention and emotional regulation, with particularly strong benefits for some children experiencing symptoms associated with ADHD and other forms of neurodivergence.

It was therefore a great pleasure to sit down with my friend Nectar while we were attending a nature camp beside the beautiful Clyde River in southern New South Wales. Nectar is the founder of Punk Caterpillar: Wild Nature for Kids, a program she has been running for more than five years. Through child-led play, exploration, practical skills, shared meals, storytelling and time around the fire, Punk Caterpillar gives children and teenagers the freedom to express their wild nature, develop relationships with the living world and learn alongside older mentors.

In this conversation, we explore how Punk Caterpillar began, what happens during its gatherings and why children need opportunities to move, play, explore and simply be themselves. We discuss the strengths that can emerge when children who struggle in conventional classrooms are given space outdoors, the importance of mentors with different personalities and gifts and the deeper sense of belonging that comes from being held within a community. Ultimately, our conversation expands beyond nature education to ask how we might rebuild a village around children—and, in doing so, create healthier, more connected communities for everyone.

After more than 20 years working in ecology, I have come to realise that beekeepers, or apiarists, often possess a more detailed understanding of eucalypt flowering than anyone else. Their knowledge extends far beyond when particular trees flower, encompassing eucalypt ecology, geographic variation and the relationships between species, climate and soils.

Few people embody this knowledge more remarkably than Stuart Fraser. Now in his eighties, Stuart is a lifelong beekeeper who has spent much of his life travelling through forests with bees and closely observing the flowering cycles of eucalypts. He is part of a family beekeeping lineage stretching back more than a century, through which an extraordinary body of ecological knowledge has been observed, tested and passed from one generation to the next. As Stuart once said to me, when your livelihood depends on something, you tend to pay attention.

I wanted to introduce Stuart to Vicky Shukuroglou, author of Ace Guide to Eucalypts Melbourne, whom I interviewed for Episode 19, and this episode brings together a conversation between the three of us.

We explore the immense honey-producing landscapes known by earlier generations, including forests where nectar reportedly fell from the flowers and gathered on the ground. Stuart shares his remarkable knowledge of the flowering cycles and geographic variation of Ironbark, Grey Box, Yellow Box, River Red Gum and the mallees, and explains how beekeepers read budding patterns, rainfall, soils and even the overall appearance of a tree to anticipate whether it will yield nectar. We also reflect on land clearing, declining insects, climate change, fire, Varroa mite and the irreplaceable value of ecological knowledge built through generations of close observation.

Five key lessons from the interview:

Eucalypt flowering follows complex cycles. Different species set buds and flower over periods ranging from months to several years, influenced by the timing of rainfall, heat and seasonal growth.

Flowers do not necessarily mean nectar. A tree can be covered in blossom yet produce little nectar; experienced beekeepers learn to recognise whether a flowering event will actually yield.

The same eucalypt species varies enormously across the landscape. Yellow Box, Grey Box and River Red Gum can differ in appearance, flowering time and nectar production according to location, soils and local conditions.

Historic nectar flows were vastly greater than today. Stuart described forests where nectar reportedly dripped from flowers and collected on the ground, supporting immense numbers of insects, birds and commercial beehives.

Generational observation creates exceptional ecological knowledge. Stuart’s understanding was built through decades of experience and knowledge passed down by earlier beekeepers whose livelihoods depended on closely reading trees, weather and landscapes.

What does it really mean to listen? For Andrew Skeoch, listening is far more than hearing sounds or identifying bird calls. It is the foundation of relationship—a practice that invites us to pay attention, to be influenced and ultimately to learn from the living world.

Drawing on more than three decades of recording wild soundscapes, Andrew reflects on what birds, ecosystems and the remarkable lives of other species can teach us. Together, we explore why nature is better understood as a web of relationships than a collection of separate parts, and ask what might become possible if we approached the world with greater curiosity, humility and attention.

Andrew Skeoch is a naturalist, environmental thinker, educator and one of Australia's best-known sound recordists. For more than three decades, he has recorded wild soundscapes across Australia and around the world through Listening Earth. He is the author of Deep Listening to Nature, which explores how listening can deepen our understanding of the natural world and our relationship with it.

You can find about more about Andrew, including where to hear his recordings and buy his book here