Its most intense Bushfire Season on record. Up to 3 Billion animals were killed or displaced and huge swathes of their habitat were burnt. Im nick lazaredes, and 18 months on, ive been Travelling Australia to discover how its wildlife is faring now. Theres a complete removal of resources that wildlife needs. Whether they eat leaves, flower, pollen, fungi, all those resources, the foodstuff is gone. But From The Ashes of catastrophe, there are also signs of hope and new beginnings for some of australias most iconic animals. Yes, there were some casualties, but there was no species lost, and that is important. And people need to realise it takes time for a natural habitat to re establish for the wildlife to come back to it. But it will happen. In far northern nsw, not far from where australias worst Bushfire Season began in 2019, one of the countrys best known species is struggling under the strain. So yeah, imjust looking because he had an internal bleed, and he had a blood transfusion, im looking just for fluid in the abdomen, just to make sure that that bleeding has stopped. Here and in other parts of the country ravaged by the fires, slow moving koalas stood little chance. Yeah, koalas are in a tree, so they dont run away from fires, and the fires just sweep through. And if its a really slow burning, intense fire, theyjust get burnt, and then they fall to the ground, dead. With huge tracts of their native habitat destroyed, Urban Development and rampant Land Clearing has put the species on a fast track to extinction. You can see his broken nose there. And hes still a bit wonky on one side. In nsw, the push to protect koalas has been mired in bitter political debate. And weak national environmental laws appear to be hastening their demise. So it it is a concern with politics and the Koala Recovery plans and things that the governments trying to put in place. It makes us concerned that theyre not doing enough to protect these animals, because we do know that theyre very vulnerable at this Stage Due to habitat loss. This is triumph. Hello, baby. Hello, darlings. Aw. You want cuddles . At the lismore koala hospital, one of a handful dedicated solely to koalas, the list of long term residents is expanding. But this koala, named triumph, is already famous. So do you have a special bond with this koala . 0h, absolutely. I have him since he was a baby. With part of leg missing, triumph was recently fitted with a Prosthetic Limb a world first. Hey, buddy there you go. It is a welcome milestone in koala care. But for the frontline teams caring for australias iconic wildlife, the trauma of black summer looms large. Were already full with koalas that were suffering. We had record numbers. It was i think we had it once a 3k koalas, which is yeah, we we were struggling. So we were already building up runs. And then when the fires hit, unfortunately we had to wait until it was clear for us to go out, but most of them perished. It did bring a lot of awareness around. If only covid didnt come out shortly afterward, we could still be educating people. But yeah, absolutely, there was a keen interest all over the world. So in one way it was good, but it was devastating to our wildlife. With the recovery of the koala and other native species hampered by weak laws and toxic politics, the most substantive response is coming from the grassroots. So was your indigenous protected area affected by the fire . Yes. Yeah, yeah. 80 . And a lot of Animal Species have moved away, too. We know that over 80 in some areas of the Koala Habitat has been destroyed and affected by the fires, with over 61,000 koalas estimated to have perished in the fires. So we do know that all the way up the east coast of australia, there were fires affecting Koala Habitat, including in this area here. On this farm in tintenbar in northern nsw, the World Wildlife Fund is helping with a Community Effort to plant Koala Food trees on a massive scale. Evenjust today, were planting 9000 Koala Food and habitat trees and the cattle have been removed from the property and the landholders really want to see this part of the property restored for the koalas. With more farmers choosing to rehabilitate cleared land, there are hopes that if koalas survive, other wildlife with also thrive. Koala habitat is also home to a whole range of other species. So when we protect Koala Habitat, were protecting habitat for a lot of different species including a lot of other Threatened Species like quolls, or powerful owls, or lyrebirds, or lots of different marsupials like platypus, so by supporting Koala Habitat, we are protecting habitat for a large range of animals. The Gondwana Rain forests of australia are amongst the oldest on the planet. A world heritage site, these cloud Forests Date to the time of the dinosaurs, when australia began separating from the ancient supercontinent of gondwana, 99 Million years ago. The plants and animals that live here provide us with the best examples of the earths stages of evolutionary history that exist. So were looking here, basically, into the very middle of the biggest Unburnt Expanse of native forest in northern central nsw. But in 2020, as flames ravaged at its fringes, precious pockets of its astonishing biodiversity disappeared in a flash. There were fireballs leaping 50 or maybe 100m above the canopy. The whole mountainside alight, the whole sky glowing it was like watching a volcano erupt. The kind of stuff that you look at and say that could never burn. 0n the Dorrigo Plateau in the New England Tablelands of nsw, Ecologist Mark Graham has been studying the impacts of the black Summer Bushfires in a region hes known intimately for more than 30 years. Half of the gazetted area of the Gondwana Rain forests of australia burnt between September 2019 and january 2020. Thats wiping a global treasure from the landscapes that were the custodians of. The mortality in these forests has been that great that what all these incredible these globally significant fauna species need to survive is not there. Dead orchids. Its a deathly silent. Theres not a single bird calling. And that im crying inside at that, because ive been coming here since 1981 or � 82, and i know deep within my head what these forests should sound like. And theyre silent. As fires swept through from the west, the canopies of some of the states most treasured national parks were engulfed. More than 18 months later, many of the burnt eucalypts are resprouting in a process known as epicormic growth. But in australias harsh climate, with more frequent droughts, many will not survive. We know that one of our most ancient frogs have been almost entirely wiped out. All the litter in the Forest Floor burn through. They lived within these permanently wet soaks in the forest. And they are now gone from areas that we know they once occurred. And they have lineages going back to gondwana. So with lost, in a geological incident, Tens Of Millions of years of biodiversity. Thatthat what has happened on our watch. And thats infinite sadness. These trees would have to be well over 500 years old, some well over 1000 years old. These ancient antarctic beaches. And there are superb medicines in the fungi that are within these antarctic beech. And what happened to them because of the fires . Totally wiped out. Data is emerging that the bushfires of 2020 in the hottest and driest period in australian history were on a scale never experienced on this continent. Here on its bird edges, life will never be the same. The areas of Grey Forest visible in the distance are dead. A fire under a 90 Kilometre Win burnt through and there has been widespread mortality. Eucalyptus dont have dormant seeds. So because of the sheer scale it is highly unlikely that eucalyptus will be regenerating or germinating where whole mountainsides are dead below it. So that is effectively ecosystem collapse. Kangaroo Islands Story since the fires is one of extraordinary resilience and recovery. Separated from the mainland 10,000 years ago, it lies at the coast of sa, and is the countrys third largest island. Scientists say the interaction between plants and animals here provides a biological window into the past, a kind of Noahs Ark of australian wildlife. But with the Islands Iron rich soils are magnified lightning, the cataclysmic events of australias black summer conspired against it. Almost half the island around 200,000 hectares burnt. Here we are coming up to the area where the fire burned through, just up around here. Then it left these little patches of unborn vegetation here was nowhere right on the edge where fire stopped. Kangaroo Island Wildlife Researcher Pat Hodgins remembers the fear which gripped him in the days which followed. It was pretty clear to us the impacts for Threatened Species on the island was going to be pretty massive. If you see just the fire ripping through the habitat and taking everything away, its like a massive habitat loss, just like that, the click of a heartbeat, really. The dunnart is pretty distinctive. It runs along here, in front of this camera trap, and the camera will detect the movement and then take a series of photos. And this was what worried him the most. The fate of the endangered Kangaroo Island dunnart, a tiny marsupial. When you have species like the Kangaroo Island dunnart, thats only found here, its not on mainland australia, not on any other islands, not in captivity, and they only live in this really small location if you have a fire that comes through and takes them all out, takes out the habitat, you dont really know how that species is going to respond. So we were obviously pretty concerned there was going to be some pretty major impacts for that species. With predators on the prowl, teams worked quickly to create a Safe Havens for any remaining ground species, setting up simple contraptions like these netted tunnels, where animals could hide. Nearby, drift nets were placed with cameras attached to help identify anything moving on the surface. Within a couple of days, miraculously, we had found Kangaroo Island dunnarts that had persisted here, which was fantastic, and also a whole host of other Threatened Species like southern brown bandicoots, which were endangered, southern Emu Wrens and western whipbirds. So that was amazing, to know theyd persisted in this location. With that tiny success, a Rescue Plan was hatched to secure remaining populations, and within months, the western River Refuge was created almost 400 hectares of habitat protected with a Cat Exclusion Fence that ecologists hope will become a sanctuary for the dunnarts and other species. Because of that effort and because of the funding and the resources that have gone into the Kangaroo Island dunnart, we know more about the dunnart than ever, because of the bushfire, which i guess is a bit of a silver lining. And what weve seen from that is that we have found dunnarts in a lot more locations than we previously have. And its Notjust Dunnarts Which have survived. This is a possum, a brushtail possum. Its very, very nice to sort of see these guys, burrowing down and have sort of survived, or moved along in different areas. Tiny little pygmy possums, which you would never think would be able to survive such an intense fire. In the aftermath of the fires, anything that managed to survive the inferno faced a new threat on the charred landscape feral cats. With so many species already pushed to the brink, a battle is now underway to remove them from the fragile environment. So it looks like quite a contraption. Theyre a snap trap, so a cat will put its paw inside it, it will snap shut, it will hold the paw and then we come out, basically a sunrise, at the earliest time, and euthanise the cat. Its great that they can hold a feral cat and not damage native wildlife. At the far end of the island, untouched by the fires of black summer, wildlife is flourishing. This is a map of Kangaroo Island showing where the fires occurred, this last year, and the colours, they show you the intensity of the fire in a lot of area. So the western end of the island, you can see there was some very, very intense burns. But there were also some areas that didnt burn. So there were some refuges for the wildlife to escape some of this. Dr Peggy Rismiller has been studying the wildlife of Kangaroo Island for more than 35 years, with a particular focus on the islands largest natural predator, the rosenbergs goanna, which can live several decades, and the short beaked echidna, an egg laying creature which is the worlds oldest surviving mammal. Everyone loves echidnas, and echidnas are really good in the environment. Both echidnas and goannas are our natural gardeners. So theyre very, very good. Theyre both diggers, that means they are cultivating the soil, they are turning over the soil, and they are helping the natural environment actually spread. Just days after the worst fires in living memory reduced much of the Islands Bushland to ash, Dr Rismiller discovered the first Vital Signs of recovery. Immediately after the fire we still found invertebrate life. Still found the ants, the termites, the spiders. All of those were also Food Sources for other things. There were areas of refuge, areas that didnt burn, where animals did take refuge, so that there were areas that we have populations that were able to expand as the environment itself started to expand. The whole Chemical Powerhouse of the environment has changed post fire. So, after the fire, some of the first things we saw were these amazing fungus that have come up, because with all of the ash, the ph has to change before other things can start to grow. And its actually one step after another, is the way that nature does it. But thats not the way that humans usually think, you know . We want things to happen and we want them to happen much quicker than nature does. So natures time is definitely different than people time. Watch your head. Like elsewhere in australia, plant and Animal Species on Kangaroo Island have evolved with fire, and although the intensity of the black Summer Bushfires were off the charts, renewal of the environment is already under way. You can see the Termite Mound is actually covered with a type of soil, and what we found was that the termites will actually mine certain chemicals from the soil, and build that into the top of their mound, and that actually makes their mounds more fire resistant. So in some places, with the bushfire, the mounds look totally intact. You can see them with everything black and burned around them, and the mound is standing there looking like it wasnt touched. I think if youre a Scientist And Biologist you have to be positive about these things. Youre looking at species such as the echidna, which was around 120 Million years ago. Now, australia has gone through ice ages, gone through greenhouse effects, gone through probably a number of catastrophic fires in that time, and echidnas are still considered one of australias most common native mammals. So they are really true survivors, and its the true survivors we should look at and perhaps try to model ourselves a bit about them, about being survivors ourselves. They are resilient, the ecosystems are resilient, Kangaroo Island people are resilient. Australia is still assessing the scale of the immense damage done by its black summer. But the resilience of Kangaroo Island could hold the key to protecting the nations rich biodiversity from future catastrophic fires. As public attitudes to Climate Change Begin to shift, there is renewed hope that australias remarkable wildlife will be given a fighting chance. Hello. After sundays intense humidity and, for many, heat, things turning cooler and fresher through monday. It will be a quiet start week, but from Wednesday Evening onwards things are set to get very lively. The reason it is pretty quiet to get our week under way, this area of High Pressure, although it is sinking away to the south, as we see a cold Weather Front sliding its way down across the uk. That is the marker for cooler, fresher air coming in. We will still, though, Hang On to some very warm and humid air off southern England Right on into the afternoon, so temperatures in the South East could get up to 30 degrees. The Weather Front not really bearing very much at all in the way of rain. Basicallyjust a band of cloud, as it works its way south. A few showers though across Western Scotland. For much of scotland and Northern Ireland and england, sunny spells, but much cooler than it has been on sunday. There goes the remnants of the front off to the continent on monday evening. A fresher story pretty much across the board as we go into tuesday morning, quite humid as we go into the South East. For tuesday, daytime, High Pressure pushes north once again, a lot of fine weather to start the day, perhaps a few patches of Mist And Fog towards the south and east, but come the afternoon, as you saw there, low pressure starts to try to come into the North West and we will see some rain for the second half of the day, getting towards Northern Ireland and into Western Scotland. Sunshine in the east, still looking at a lot of sunny weather across england and wales, lower humidity, temperatures in the mid 20s. Midweek, however, this low pushes up into the North West and also ahead header that pulls up some very humid air, though, all the way basically from northern spain, hot and humid air. The humidity continues to rise through wednesday daytime and the Weather Front as it works its way across again a few showers in Northern England and western wales, but a definite boundary between cooler and fresher air across scotland and Northern Ireland and warmer and more humid conditions across england and wales. It is that hot and Humid Aircoming into contact with the Weather Front from Wednesday Night onwards that will produce some very impressive thunderstorms across england and wales. I think we will barely see anything across scotland and Northern Ireland, but the showers will rattle on through 30 day time, particularly targeting southern and eastern areas of wales. There is a picture of the worst of the weather, scotland and Northern Ireland finding, with some sunshine, still that muggy feeling, although it will be cooler than it has been across the weekend. Friday the low tends to pull off towards the continent, but still the threat of some intense thunderstorms to be found across Eastern England for the course of the day. Some patchy cloud elsewhere, but overall fine weather, a few showers across Western Scotland and quite a cooler Northerly Breeze if anything to the North West of the uk. But as you can see, lower temperatures across central and Eastern England for friday, as the Cool Air comes in behind our low. It looks like Air Pressure will stay across the uk into the weekend, but this one coming in from the atlantic will come in with Cooler Air and it looks like it could stay very much an unsettled footing right the way through into next monday, so some pretty big contrast to come through the course of the next 7 days. G7 leaders leave cornwall with pledges on covid, climate and china. It was their first gathering for two years, and while the uk and Eus Differences over Northern Ireland continue, the Prime Minister says they didnt dominate. The vast, vast majority of the conversations that weve had over the last three or four days have been about other subjects, and there has been a fantastic degree of harmony. 0n covid, with a Decision Due tomorrow on englands lockdown, well be looking at the latest data in detail