Flinders Island, Tasmania

Human impacts, Flinders Island, Tasmania

For thousands of years low sea levels allowed humans to migrate between Flinders Island, Tasmania and mainland Australia. As sea levels began to rise 14 thousand years ago humans became isolated on Flinders Island and an absence of archeological evidence after ~4,500 years ago suggests humans no longer occupied the island. With this unique history of human settlement, we will use past records of climate, vegetation and fire to disentangle the relative influence of climate and humans in shaping fire regimes and vegetation in forests that vary between those dominated by species well adapted to fire (Eucalypt. spp) and (Callitris and Causurina spp.).