Fuel reduction in the vast forests behind the communities along the Great Ocean Road have been neglected for decades.
How many disasters must we have, and how much public and private money needs to be spent, before we stop accepting a situation that can and should be avoided?
The following article was written for The Australian newspaper back in 2009.
The author, David Packham, a bushfire scientist for more than 50 years, said that “it has been a difficult lesson for me to accept that despite the severe damage to our forests and even a fatal fire in our nation’s capital, the political decision has been to do nothing that will change the extreme threat to which our forests and rural lands are exposed”.
Seven year later and nothing has changed… Is anyone listening…
Stories like this one in the Australian are becoming way too frequent when the solution is low cost by comparison. These costs extend way beyond the public purse, there is a massive cost to our environment, local business and economy. A rethink of our hazard reduction targets is long overdue.
In reference to the article (The Australian – Dec 28, 2015) one of our readers said “Give the Volunteers back full control and get back to realistic hazard reduction targets. If a politician stepped up and made that decision, we’ll save lives, homes, our wildlife and heaps of money that could be better spent on hospital, infrastructure, the drug problem… the list goes on…”
Two weeks after Black Saturday, the Prime Minister of Australia was asked in parliament: “My question is to the Prime Minister, and I recognise that he answered part of this to the member for McEwen earlier. My question relates to the Prime Minister’s comments at yesterday’s memorial service that successive governments have failed in terms of bushfire management, and also comments made by Wurundjeri elder, Aunty Joy Murphy, from Healesville who said that Aboriginal people historically burned the land every seven years for ‘cleansing and regrowth’, but Black Saturday was a ‘torture of the land’. Prime Minister, could you elaborate on your comment and, given that every inquiry since 1939 has focused on fuel reduction in fire-prone areas, do you believe it is time we learnt from Aboriginal Australians, whose firestick management practices created the bush environment that white Australians are attempting to modify to a landscape that has never existed?”
One of Australia’s leading fire experts has warned that the failure to conduct enough controlled burns is exposing people to another large-scale disaster, declaring the lack of intervention is creating Black Saturday-sized fuel loads.
It is safe to conclude that it is not until we undertake a 15% pa burning program that we could expect no life loss. The gain at 5%pa is small but by 8% pa it is becoming very much better. There is informed opinion amongst fire managers that 10 – 12% is the optimum for fire protection.
In the last decade there have been a number of developments which are pulling Australian bushfire management in opposing directions. These include: publication of several Australian compendia on ecology and management of fires, transfer of large areas of multiple use forests into national parks and the declaration of roadless wilderness areas, listing of frequent fire as a threatening process under environmental legislation, many very large and damaging fires and subsequent government enquiries, a number of international conferences on fire management, establishment of the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre (CRC), a current trend of global warming, declining rainfall or droughts in parts of Australia, declining forest health in long unburnt areas and the ever-increasing numbers of Australians living at the urban/rural interface. Some of these developments are tempering the counter revolution, but the overall imbalance remains.
By Dr. Christine Finlay, (PhD, Bushfire Management, UNSW; BA Hons, Disaster Management, JCUNQ; BA UNSW) In my PhD, I find that fires in buildings were common news events, but until the 1920s stories on bushfires were rare. This change to
Aborigines came to Australia and burnt out most of the trees and bushes.
The megafauna starved whilst eucalypts, herbs, grasses and mesofauna flourished.
The ancient culture survived an ice age, global warming and hugely rising seas, forging economies in woodlands and deserts.
Europeans doused the firestick, woodlands turned to scrub, mesofauna perished, megafires and tree-eaters irrupted.
Foresters rekindled the firestick and greens stole it.
Megafires and declines are back with a vengeance whilst ecologists dream-up reasons not to burn.
Ecological history shows that we must apply the firestick frequently, willingly and skillfully to restore a healthy, safe environment and economy.
Who’s right – The RFS, conservationists, farmers, politicians or firefighters?
Decide carefully. If you live in the Blue Mountains or bushfire-prone country, your home could literally depend on it.