Western Australia’s dying forests need urgent health monitoring as they face the impacts of climate change. Murdoch University forest ecologist Joe Fontaine said large areas of vegetation across the state started to turn brown and die off in February. He urged the state government to support university-government partnerships to develop a system to monitor the health and determine the risks of future events on WA’s forests. Climate change was set to make large-scale plant die-offs more likely. “The likelihood of WA’s event has been evident to scientists for months, yet there was no consistent monitoring or warning system in place to prepare the community or to influence behaviour such as groundwater use,” he said. …WA Greens MLC Brad Pettitt said we were witnessing a devastating ecosystem collapse that was likely to accelerate the loss of many of the state’s unique and globally significant species and ecosystems.