The ‘cure’ for maintaining the health of our human populations from COVID‐19 has been halting social functioning, which is unravelling economic systems and damaging the livelihoods of many people. There will be winners and losers, and social institutions and economies may take long timeframes to recover. Indeed, they may not be the same again.

This is not dissimilar to the ecological consequences of Australia’s recent bushfires. Building of ecosystems takes a long time if they are damaged to the extent caused by these fires, given that they followed extensive and broadscale drought and landscape drying. Over 1 billion mammals, birds and reptiles are likely to have been killed, according to calculations by Professor Chris Dickman whose interview on the subject is featured in this issue along with many other articles of value. Flooding rains followed rapidly in some cases, washing ash and soot into streams and rivers, realizing many of the losses in aquatic species anticipated by ecologists.

The Australian government’s post‐bushfire emergency response included food drops and fauna rescues for some species, not unlike the way society is now delivering economic stimulus and rescue packages for some businesses. This was rapidly followed by manipulations to reduce predation and competition, carried out in a manner not unlike the way financial assistance is being doled out to renters and mortgage holders. But, as Professor Dickman explains, there is in fact very, very little that we can do to help faunal populations recover once they have been hit so hard. Like in a complex economic system, the survival of ecosystems ultimately relies on the survival and reproductive capacity of the components and we hope to hell that the linkages that are so important can rapidly reconnect if severed. It is likely in this case, however, that the damage to fauna will prove to be very high and will have long‐term repercussions.

If a complex system cannot recover it changes shape. Changing shape can be a good thing if it improves our social and economic ‘work in progress’ – for example by reducing excessive global connectivity, revaluing regional and local industry and nurturing social relationship. But the same cannot be said for ecosystems that are works of nature, upon whose former shape we depend. The work of humans in this situation is not so much to find ways to change nature but to find ways that we can reduce our impacts upon it so that it can persist and repeat catastrophes can be averted.

There are myriad small ways to reduce potential impact during and immediately after wildfire and even strategies available to establish insurance populations of threatened species in advance of catastrophes, as outlined in the Threatened Species Recovery Hub blueprint (Dickman et al. 2020), cited in the Dickman interview. But the two main causal factors of the impact of the recent fires cannot continue to be ignored and require enormous effort and creativity to collectively address. These are our impact upon climate, causing increased drying and thereby the extent of fires – and the total area and configuration of our land clearing, causing fragmentation of habitats and thereby reducing potential for fauna recolonization.

The temporary ‘absence’ of humans during the global COVID‐19 pandemic has been good for nature, but our complete absence should not be necessary to conserve ecosystems. There may well be ways that humans can limit our impacts and interact with the rest of nature without putting our civilization or ecosystem at risk. Such ways may, interestingly, have their roots in ways our forebears related to each other and the rest of nature, evidenced by cultural practices that many Indigenous and traditional societies still maintain. Indigenous patch burning coupled with western science, in particular, offers insights into ways Australians could potentially create habitat mosaics without causing more fragmentation. Reconnecting habitats at a landscape level is still possible and necessary without causing further risk to humans and can be part of the solution to the carbon emission crisis. But this can only be successful if we simultaneously and collectively reduce global warming and its consequences through a radical change to economic systems that reduce land clearing and dependence on fossil fuels, alternatives to which appear to be distinctly possible.

Our economic system has suffered a massive shock. The difference between creative disruption and damage is whether we can learn from it and rebuild our economies in ways that better serve the needs of both humans and the rest of nature.

从COVID-19维持人类健康的“治愈方法”已经停止了社会功能，这正在破坏经济体系并损害许多人的生计。将会有赢家和输家，而且社会机构和经济可能需要很长的时间才能恢复。确实，它们可能不再相同。

这与澳大利亚最近的森林大火的生态后果没有什么不同。如果生态系统的建设受到这些大火的严重破坏，那么它们将花费很长时间，因为它们遭受了广泛而广泛的干旱和景观干燥。根据克里斯·迪克曼教授的计算，可能有超过10亿的哺乳动物，鸟类和爬行动物被杀死，他在这个问题上的访谈以及许多其他有价值的文章都对此进行了介绍。在某些情况下，暴雨随之而来，将灰烬和烟灰冲入溪流和河流，实现了生态学家预期的许多水生物种损失。

澳大利亚政府在大火过后的应急响应包括对某些物种的食物掉落和动物保护，这与社会现在为某些企业提供经济刺激和救助方案的方式不同。随后迅速采取了减少掠夺和竞争的操纵措施，其方式与向租房者和抵押持有人提供经济援助的方式没有什么不同。但是，正如迪克曼教授所解释的那样，一旦受到重创，我们几乎无能为力地帮助动物种群恢复。像在复杂的经济体系中一样，生态系统的生存最终取决于这些组成部分的生存和繁殖能力，我们希望地狱如此重要的联系一旦断开就可以迅速重新建立联系。但是，在这种情况下，

如果复杂的系统无法恢复，它将改变形状。如果改变形状改善了我们的社会和经济“在建工作”，那么这可能是一件好事，例如，通过减少过度的全球联系，重估区域和地方产业以及培育社会关系。但是，对于自然界的生态系统而言，我们所依赖的前者形态并不能说同样的话。在这种情况下，人类的工作不是寻找改变自然的方法，而是寻找我们可以减少对自然的影响的方法，以使自然能够持久并避免灾难的再次发生。

有许多小方法可以减少野火发生期间和之后的潜在影响，甚至有可用的策略来在灾难发生之前建立受威胁物种的保险种群，如《受威胁物种恢复中心》蓝图（Dickman等人，2020年）所述。迪克曼访谈。但是，最近火灾的两个主要因果关系因素不能继续被忽视，需要集体作出巨大的努力和创造力来共同解决。这些是我们对气候的影响，导致干燥增加，从而引起大火，以及土地清理的总面积和配置，导致栖息地破碎，从而降低了动物重新定殖的可能性。

在全球COVID-19大流行期间，人类暂时的“缺席”对大自然是有益的，但是我们完全没有必要为保护生态系统而没有必要。在不使我们的文明或生态系统处于危险之中的情况下，人类很可能可以限制我们的影响并与自然界的其他部分互动。有趣的是，这种方式可能起源于我们的前辈彼此之间以及与大自然的其他部分之间的联系方式，许多土著和传统社会仍然维持着这种文化习俗，证明了这种方式。尤其是，土著人斑块燃烧与西方科学相结合，为澳大利亚人如何在不造成更多破碎的情况下潜在地创造栖息地马赛克的方式提供了见识。在景观层面重新建立栖息地仍然是可能的，而且是必要的，而不会给人类带来进一步的风险，并且可以解决碳排放危机。但这只有在我们通过彻底改变减少土地清理和对化石燃料的依赖的经济系统的根本变化来同时并集体减少全球变暖及其后果的情况下才能取得成功。

我们的经济体系遭受了巨大的冲击。创造性破坏和破坏之间的区别在于我们是否可以从中学习并以更好地满足人类和自然界需求的方式重建经济。