The present estimate is that my area has lost at least a third of its vineyards, which is going to be an economic disaster for the state as well as a personal disaster for the vintners. As we discovered in the 2017 fires, it’s not just the burned areas, but the whole Barossa will lose grapes to smoke damage, which ruins the wine. Same for olives, which are another big crop around here. My area is a mix of farms, orchards, vineyards, grazing, plantation forests of European trees, mostly pines, and natural bush. We are close to the Mount Crawford forest, which has areas of both, that being where I take my bushcraft and wild food foraging classes, unless I am hired to teach somewhere else. There is a lot of food and wine tourism around here, as well as nature tourism.
Australia is far more varied than most people think. There is alpine terrain in the Snowies and Tasmania, deserts out in the Centre, tropical forest in Far North Queensland and the NT, wilderness like Kakadu, temperate forest areas scattered all over, cold rain forest with swamps in East Gippsland and Tasmania, and prairie with patches of farmland and forest in Central Victoria. Wildly varied country. Look up Tarra Bulga Forest and you will see country that would not look out of place in Finland. One of my sisters lives on a farm near the edge of that forest.
And thanks for the good wishes. We need them.
