Considering sustainability trade-offs in bushfire policy for the wildland-urban interface

ABSTRACT

In Australia, bushfire risk in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) is increasing due to climate change and urbanisation. Like other complex issues, policy strategies for addressing bushfire risk are multi-faceted, involve diverse stakeholders, and are highly contested. Based on a case study of south-west Western Australia (south-west WA), we identify three key policy strategies for adapting to increased bushfire risk in WUI areas: broad-scaled prescribed burning, local bushfire risk management and land-use planning. We examine these policy strategies, firstly, to contrast their institutional arrangements and framing of goals and actions, and, secondly, to explore sustainability trade-offs. This analysis found that all policy strategies for adapting to increased bushfire risk in WUI areas have sustainability trade-offs that need to be considered. In particular, the research identified that the current bushfire policy regime has likely consequences for biodiversity conservation, nature-based interactions, health and wellbeing and local economic development. We argue that to avoid maladaptation, more sophisticated models of risk assessment, which consider the sustainability trade-offs of bushfire policy decisions and actions are needed.

KEYWORDS:

• Bushfire
• climate change
• sustainability
• trade-offs
• risk
• policy
• maladaptation

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge all the research interviewees who participated in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics

The research presented and reported in this paper was conducted in accordance with the National Health and Medical Research Council National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007)—updated March 2014. The proposed research study received human research ethics approval from the Curtin University Human Research Ethics Committee, Approval Number HRE2017-0103.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.