Bushfire mitigation and hazard reduction in Australian law | Natural Hazards Research Australia

Bushfire mitigation and hazard reduction in Australian law

Project type

ECR Fellowship research

Project status

Completed

This fellowship project helped to improve the clarity and operation of laws and policies for bushfire mitigation and hazard reduction, acknowledging the requirement for more than simply ‘fuel reduction’. The project builds on recent research investigating Australian landowners’ legal obligations to reduce fire hazards; and analyses of regulatory barriers to effective wildfire hazard reduction in California’s legal framework.

Project details

Climate change will render bushfire mitigation and hazard reduction activities such as prescribed burning both more challenging and more important. Evidence-informed law and policy will play a key role in meeting these challenges and improving the resilience of Australian communities and landscapes, but Australian law is understudied and underrepresented in the literature about bushfire.

This fellowship project established a new collaboration between US and Australian fire law scholars; generated novel insights about hazard reduction laws and policies in Australia in the context of climate change; and developed practical recommendations to improve legal frameworks for bushfire mitigation and hazard reduction in Australia.