Slow regrowth in Tasmania's Wilderness World Heritage Area after devastating bushfire

Aerial view of Lake McKenzie in Tasmania's Wilderness

 WHA one year after after 2016 bush fire.

A year on from bushfires in Tasmania's Wilderness World Heritage Area (WHA), some areas are showing signs of recovery but others are not.

Last summer bushfires sparked by lightning strikes raged across Tasmania.

The unprecedented event scorched about 20,000 hectares of the Wilderness WHA.

There are signs of recovery in areas of burnt eucalypts but not in some sensitive alpine habitats.

Ecologist Professor Jamie Kirkpatrick said once alpine flora such as pencil pines were burnt, they died.

"They haven't got any seed stores, so there's no seed in the soil and there's very seldom seed in the trees themselves, so if you burn the stands you'll often get rid of them for a very long time period," he said.

"It's those plants that actually make it a world heritage area because they're really highly significant scientifically as paleo endemics from the cretaceous period."

The fires wiped out plants more than 1,000 years old.

Read the ABC story - “Slow regrowth in Tasmania's Wilderness World Heritage Area after devastating bushfire.”