Stateside, environmentalists have prevented the harvesting of lumber that later contributed to wildfires. Is there a similar phenomenon down under?
Yes - not sure if it applies in this case, but it does happen here. They have also been known to prevent backburning that would create better firebreaks at times.
There is an alarming amount of acreage in Northern California that I know personally about which is monumental potential waste of natural resources just waiting to go up in smoke to satisfy the small percentage of the population which are insane, neurotic and self-important to a fault.
The cost of housing (lumber) has quintupled, or worse, as a result. To say nothing of the wildlife habitat affected. The rationalizations are absurd, and the enabling, ignorant legislators are generally unaffected by the consequences.
Just a casual drive along the narrow, dangerous and white knuckle drive between Garberville and Shelter Cove, reveals hundreds of thousands of acres along the route containing tree coverage so thick that it's a wonder that any survive at all in the choking environment.
And it doesn't matter if the cause of the eventual fire is natural or man made, the results will be spectacularly bad.
And that tiny ignorant minority will in no way feel the tiniest bit of regret, responsibility or remorse.
All the result of the fatal combination of do-goodism, egalitarianism and idiocracy.