Integrating biodiversity protection into emergency management

Megafires have emerged as a considerable threat to biodiversity conservation worldwide. The biodiversity-focused response and recovery actions that occurred during Australia's 2019/2020 Black Summer bushfires demonstrate that it is possible to protect biodiversity alongside human life and property during disasters. During the fires, significant government support and collaboration between multiple stakeholders allowed emergency biodiversity conservation interventions to occur rapidly, often while the fires were still burning. To understand what was necessary to permit biodiversity-focused interventions, we conducted a thematic analysis of interviews with 45 people involved in the fire response. We then identified nine distinct themes critical to implementing an emergency response that includes biodiversity conservation concerns and successful planning and execution of interventions: political will, social expectations, collaborative leadership, data acquisition and use, funding, resources, communication, training, and reflection and incorporation. We further evaluated reports and documents describing the implemented interventions and their expected ecological or policy outcomes. Combining our findings with the Multiple Streams Framework approach, we developed a conceptual model demonstrating how the Black Summer fires simultaneously opened a policy window for biodiversity conservation action and revealed the importance of pre-existing networks, resource flows, and adaptive governance for translating emergency-driven political attention into biodiversity emergency management.