At Energy Resources of Australia (ERA), ecosystem re-establishment has been a central focus of research for about 30 years. Over that period, a large body of information has been accumulated on the technical aspects of successful ecosystem rehabilitation.

In May 2016, a team from ERA and Kakadu Native Plants performed a controlled burn to test the fire resilience of the 7 year old native trees on the Ranger mine trial landform. Six months on and following some good rainfall in October, the vegetation has returned to green.

Preliminary results from the vegetation survey showed that more than 95 per cent of individual trees survived the trial burn.

Principal Advisor Rehabilitation, Ecology, Water and Closure Strategy Ping Lu said the results demonstrated that the revegetation using local native species is resilient to bush fire.

ERA’s long-term vision is to return the disturbed area to a viable ecosystem in line with our obligations to our stakeholders and regulators and the expectations of the community.

12 days post fire recovery

5 months post fire recovery