One of the biggest ironies is the many reasons given for cutting down more trees after so many were lost in the bushfires. All good reasons in some people’s eyes or from certain perspectives. To clear the road, to make people safe from falling trees, to protect the infrastructure, to stimulate the economy through forestry, to create employment after the fire and the pandemic, to make way for development, to provide a better buffer against future fires.
The electricity company makes good on a promise to better protect infrastructure from bushfires by chopping another 5-10 metre swathe of bush on each side to protect the wires.
For the environment (and implicitly the future economy) this is a one way street. Each tree gone takes us further away from the sustainable future we need to reach.
At some point in the past it had been decided to chop two paths through the bush. One for the road and one for the wires, thereby already doubling the bush destroyed.