About

Synopsis

Like coral reefs across the globe the forests, woodlands and coastal heath of south western Australia are undergoing a ‘bleaching” due to rapidly changing climatic conditions. Scientists had warned that this was a possibility after observing a similar event in 2011 in Western Australia’s northern jarrah forest.

We are currently witnessing another collapse, but this time it is far more widespread and sections of these unique and ancient forests may never recover.
So far the brown off streches more than 1000km and has destroyed an estimated 100,000 hectares of vegetation, an amount equal to more than 53 Rottnest Islands or more than 250 Kings Parks.

Meanwhile Western Australia still does not have a 2030 emissions reduction target and some of the world’s biggest gas projects are in the pipeline
Browned Off will investigate the extent of this growing ecological disaster and what we can all do to turn this situation around.

Western Australia’s south west is known as one of the world’s most important biodiversity hotspots. Will we act in time to reverse this current downwood spiral?

This is the final in a trilogy of feature films that tell the story of our forest ecosystems in crisis. It follows Cry of the Forests (2020), which looked at the issue of logging and mining in Western Australia’s native forests and Black Cockatoo Crisis (2022), which told the story of our unfolding biodiversity crisis through the plight of endangered and threatenened black cockatoos.