Last week, our beautifully biodiverse property, with its Koalas, Bettongs, Gilders, and a host of other native animals, was once again engulfed in flames.
This is the third time in the last 14 years, and after putting our hearts and souls into conserving wildlife for almost 50 years, Pat and I now face the reality that we’ve failed.
Virtually all the old trees that had survived for hundreds of years providing shelter and sustenance to countless species of native fauna, many of them threatened, are gone and will never be replaced.
In some respects, we could consider ourselves fortunate. Neighbouring forested land, just 400m away, has suffered from wildfires in 2011, 2016, 2019, 2023, and now in 2026. None were caused by lightning strikes or other natural phenomena.
For the past six months we have watched the northern hemisphere on fire - Canada, the US, Russia, all of Europe, even the UK, and now it’s our turn, and all because the world’s governments have failed to act on climate change.
In 2008, 30 years after emissions reduction was first discussed at the Geneva World Climate Conference, NASA climate scientists proposed that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations needed to be kept below 350 parts per million to avoid catastrophic climate change. Two decades later, the current level is 425ppm and rising, with the most optimistic prediction being that they’ll peak in 2030, and we’re already reaping the consequences.
Last year, 12,773 homes, 5,116 minor structures, and 496 commercial structures were destroyed by wildfires in the United States, yet the Trump administration opposes federal caps on greenhouse gases and has revoked numerous climate action initiatives.
For our part, Australia is exporting near-record volumes of coal and gas, volumes that have been steadily increasing for years, decision-makers seemingly oblivious to the consequences; and this is a government that purports to believe that climate change is happening.
With further global temperature rises already locked in and guaranteed, the need to reduce greenhouse gas emission has never been greater, for without it, we’ll all be the losers.
- John Edwards
Published in the Voices for the Earth column in The Clarence Valley Independent 18th September, 2026.
