Although there is an inextricable link between fire management and rainforest conservation, there is much contention about which fire regimes are appropriate. It is certainly the case that ‘one size does not Wt all’. Even similar rainforest types do not necessarily have the same fire management requirements, because the history of land use can be of overarching importance. For example, in spite of the ecological similarity of Northern Territory and Queensland monsoon rainforests, Russell-Smith and Bowman (1992) and Fensham (1996) came to very different conclusions about the consequences of current fire regimes. Russell-Smith and Bowman found that about one-third of the 1220 rainforest sites surveyed in the Northern Territory had boundaries severely degraded by fire, and concluded that this was the result of the near-complete breakdown of traditional Aboriginal fire management. In contrast, Fensham found that less than 10% of the 358 monsoon rainforest patches he surveyed in inland north Queensland were degraded by wildfire, and concluded that fire is not a major management issue. In north Queensland, intensive pastoralism has reduced grass fuels to such low levels that wildfire has become an unusual occurrence. However, Fensham noted that the situation in Queensland would change if pastoralists began to use fire to control native and exotic woody ‘weeds’ that have established on overgrazed rangelands.

In addition to directly threatening the biological integrity of many Australian rainforests, weeds also have the capacity to substantially change fuel characteristics across rainforest boundaries.