Landscape Management: Is it the Future?

As a Keynote Address at the 2004 Nature Conservation Council Conference, Bushfire in a Changing Environment - New Directions in Management, this paper argues that the landscape is a template with biodiversity assets, and human assets and bushfires overlaid. Two case studies, the Greater Glider and Eastern Bristlebird, are used to illustrate how the impact of bushfire on a species is contingent on it is distributed in the landscape, relative to the locations of its remnant habitat. Mitigation of bushfire effects, using fuel-reduction programs, is a process that also needs to be considered at a landscape scale, and has the potential to threaten biodiersity assets if not considered carefully.