WHILE Tasmanian fire crews monitored about 100 fires across the state last week, the protection of property and life was prioritised.
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However, while the devastation of bushfires throughout the Mersey Valley region largely avoided harm to farm land and people, concerns have been raised about the effects of fires on land conservation.
President of the Friends of the Great Western Tiers/Kooparoona Niara conservation group Deb Hunter has said there is a need for more discussions about the state of the land.
"What I suggest is that we begin to see as a community, further than just the protection of assets, (that) while we all use the mountains recreationally, it is also important to acknowledge their other services," she said.
"If the alpine vegetation burns and the peak soils comes on fire then it affects the hydrology and ecosystems service that supports our farming, our rural residential and lifestyle properties, as well as our hydro storages."
Areas of the Meander Valley affected by last week's fires include areas of the Great Western Tiers, the Overland track, Lake McKenzie, Chudleigh Lakes area and Mersey Forest.
"The alpine ecosystems that are not fire adapted, when they burn they cannot regenerate and it's not as if the Aboriginal management by firestick used to burn them because they didn't, otherwise these ecosystems would not exist," Ms Hunter said.
Geographer and conservation ecologist Professor James Kirkpatrick said many alpine shrubs and subalpine rainforest trees, like pencil pine, that are killed by fire do not resprout, nor produce seedlings from seed held in the crown, nor have seed that is blown in.
"They will take centuries to recover, if ever," he said.
In contrast, native grassland and buttongrass sedgeland will recover within a year or two and in between, the eucalypt forests will survive ground fires, but be set back to ground level by severe crown fires, he added.
In response to the fires, Ms Hunter has called for a co-ordinated, new approach to the fires in light of climate change, including: emergency services join fire ecologists in developing strategies of prevention, emergency response and environmental remediation.
