For more than two weeks, ancient forests in Tasmania have been battered by monstrous wildfires. Now, official enquiries have been called out to determine whether Climate Change is the culprit behind this devastation.
As per the Fire Service of Tasmania, 46 out of 70 active wildfires remain out of control. While no loss of lives has been reported, the fires have burned down over 100,000 hectares of land.The bad news doesn’t end here; 115 miles of a World Heritage Area has also been burned.
Some of these plant species are over a 1000-years-old and are remnants of the time when this region of Tasmania was a part of the Gondwana supercontinent about 180,000 years ago. The area is not only home to some of the tallest and oldest trees in the world, but some of the endangered wildlife also reside here.
According to local media, there had been a slight improvement in the crisis since mid-January when the fire initially began. But, environmentalists continue to believe that man-made climate change has been responsible for this prolonged massacre.
Similar to the United States, Tasmania has also been observing extreme weather events, which are caused due to man-made climate change. Globally also, the risk of wildfires are at a high at present. In the year 2015, Tasmania witnessed the driest and the hottest spring ever recorded.
This year, with the wildfires, the conditions have gotten even worse. The ongoing fires in Tasmania are a global concern as the large forest reservations in Tasmania play quite an important role in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
While the wildfires are likely to get extinguished during the next few days, devastating fires will make an appearance over Tasmania during the next few years. Also, in future, Tasmania may observe an increase of at least 1.6°C, which lies in the low worldwide greenhouse gas emissions scenario.
Image Credit: guardian.com
