Mechanical thinning is increasingly promoted as a fire control solution. But new research finds its effectiveness is mixed and the ecological, climate and financial costs often outweigh the benefits.

There is a long history of the mechanical thinning of forests in standard forestry operations but is thinning effective for fire control and what are the associated costs and benefits?

Thinning typically involves removing some 30-50 per cent of the standing volume of trees via tracked or wheeled machinery. More recently thinning has been proposed to limit wildfire.

Our new study published in the journal _Biological Conservation_ has explored the ecological costs in relation to benefits associated with large-scale mechanical thinning. The study showed that, in many situations, evidence for the effectiveness of thinning is mixed. In fact, there can be significant environmental costs of mechanical thinning that often exceed its benefits, the magnitude of which vary with intensity and extent of thinning operations, as well as how frequently it is conducted.

In some ecosystems around the world, mechanical thinning can be........

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