The manipulation of landscape fire to maintain biodiverse, self-sustaining ecosystems in flammable landscapes is rarely considered by restoration ecologists. Fire regimes can interact with ecological processes, food webs, and biodiversity in complex ways (here called pyrodiversity) and understanding these complexities could be used to promote restoration and resilience. We illustrate this using an example from northern Australia. Understanding and using pyrodiversity in ecological restoration programs will be intellectually and financially challenging. In Australia, the considerable technical and financial resources of the mining industry could support such restoration programs, yet redirecting these resources from the current narrow focus on restoring native vegetation cover at the mine-affected site requires overcoming entrenched attitudes among policymakers and restoration ecologists.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	fire ecology, mine site restoration, savanna, trophic ecology, wildlife
Research Division:	Environmental Sciences
Research Group:	Ecological applications
Research Field:	Landscape ecology
Objective Division:	Environmental Management
Objective Group:	Terrestrial systems and management
Objective Field:	Rehabilitation or conservation of terrestrial environments
UTAS Author:	Bowman, DMJS (Professor David Bowman)
ID Code:	113710
Year Published:	2016
Web of Science® Times Cited:	22
Deposited By:	Plant Science
Deposited On:	2017-01-16
Last Modified:	2017-12-08
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