This morning I woke to the astounding news that biologists have discovered that the populations of frogs in areas “devastated” by last summer’s bushfires have rebounded, including some “threatened” species.

This follows earlier reports that koalas, snakes and other animals are doing OK despite “literally billions” of deaths last year. Also platypuses in the Peel River aren’t doing too badly now that the drought is over.

Amazingly, glow worms in the Blue Mountains that were thought to have been wiped out are doing well, having sheltered in a disused railway tunnel – ironic that, given that in modern times the greenies would not allow that tunnel to be built because it would be a threat to the environment, and probably the exact same glow worm population.

My favourite example is the giant pink slug which lives in the Mount Kaputar National Park, near Narrabri. It was only discovered 20 years ago, but the usual climate worriers panicked that the slug had been destroyed by fires. Surprisingly, the slug which has weathered droughts, bushfires, torrential rain, earthquakes, plagues of locusts and other natural disasters despite our total ignorance of its existence, managed to survive this event.

So this morning, after my usual outburst of “What is wrong with these people?”, I worked it out.

The pseudo-scientific discipline called ecology is founded on two fundamental doctrines:

1. The natural ecosystem is very complex, with many interacting species, and so it is potentially fragile as the disappearance of one species may cause the system to collapse.
2. People are always bad for the environment.

In actual fact, natural ecosystems are very resilient because they are complex. They can self-correct as different parts of the system adapt to change.

That is why bush environments regenerate after fires and droughts. They have been doing it for thousands of years without the assistance of humans.

The other factor that is generally ignored is that everything was created by an infinitely wise creator. He designed Australia with a warm, dry climate and the slugs, frogs, koalas to suit that climate.

Strangely, God is better at being God than people are.