Biodiversity protection

Bushfire impacts on Victoria's environment

Since the end of last year, we have been focused on putting out fires and protecting lives and properties. It’s only in the last few weeks that we’ve been able to safely access some of the fire-affected areas by helicopter, and get a first glimpse of the fire impacts on biodiversity.

Parks Victoria scientists worked with the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP), the Country Fire Authority and others to plan a 1,000-kilometre reconnaissance flight across the fire-affected areas of Eastern Victoria, including Gippsland and North-East Victoria.

Dr Mark Norman, our Chief Conservation Scientist, was part of the crew who flew over 18 really environmentally-significant sites, to see whether they were impacted by the fires.

In this video, Dr Norman described what he saw during the flight and James Todd, Executive Director for Biodiversity at DELWP, explains how the Victorian Government is forming an action for biodiversity recovery.

Read our media statement

Conservation and bushfire recovery

Following the bushfires, work is underway to assess the extent and impact of damage to parks and work out the best way to protect Victoria’s most vulnerable and threatened native plants and wildlife. Guided by science we're gathering data to understand the impacts on biodiversity in our state’s parks, which is expected to be large-scale and long-term.

Unfortunately, some parks have been badly affected by fires and some areas may remain closed for a long period of time. To find out which parks are currently impacted by bushfire visit the Fire Affected Parks page.

As new information is available, we'll update this page with the latest conservation and recovery work that is underway.