Comments on: The Wilderness Society and Bushfire Management

By: fire damage

fire damage — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:39:42 +0000

yes they reserve lot of things with this stuff.

By: David Ward

David Ward — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:08:10 +0000

Thanks Kuhnkat,
Vairrrry interrresting! I think soil charcoal is one of the jokers in the pack. There are a few others. Climate modelers and mountebanks beware.

By: kuhnkat

kuhnkat — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:59:52 +0000

A new report on soil charcoal from burns:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/11/17/2421790.htm

By: David Ward

David Ward — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:04:37 +0000

I suspect that the Wilderness Society would be opposed to grazing in alpine areas. There is an old debate about the value of grazing in reducing bushfire severity. I believe there is a bumper sticker saying ‘Grazing stops Blazing’. A paper has been published in the journal Austral Ecology which questions this. The authors (Williams et al. 2006) claim no difference between bushfire occurrence and severity on grazed and ungrazed land in the Bogong High Plains of Victoria. Has anybody any comments on this matter? Might history be of interest?

Ref:
Williams, R.J., Wahren, C-H., Bradstock, R.A. and Muller, W.J. (2006) Does alpine grazing reduce blazing? A landscape test of a widely-held hypothesis. Austral Ecology 31(8):925-936.

By: Bill Burrows

Bill Burrows — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:36:19 +0000

It seems incredible to this oldtimer that there remain people and organisations out there who still fail to understand that Australia’s flora and fauna (at least those elements not confined to tropical or temperate rainforest) co-evolved with fire. And that for the past 40K years or so fire was the core activity of aboriginal management. Two quotes from ecolgists with considearble field experience in the NT and Queensland respectively come to mind: “aboriginals lit fires at any time it wasn’t raining” and “the aborigines managed the land by burning it in three ways – frequently, regularly and often”!

Probably the best and informative read for anyone needing a good introduction to the subject of fire in the Australian context is Stephen J. Pyne’s (1991) Burning Bush – A Fire History of Australia. (Allen and Unwin: Sydney). It should be in the Wilderness Society’s library although that clearly does not mean that anyone there has read or comprehended it.

By: David Ward

David Ward — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:50:34 +0000

There is much in what you say, Ian, but a few years ago a fire in 20 year old fuel a few kilometres from my house was dropping embers on my roof. So I am not in favour of giving the ‘wilderness’ nincompoops a free hand to create the conditions for major fires, and so cause the loss of my house, plus the death of thousands of native animals and old trees.

By: Ian Mott

Ian Mott — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:00:42 +0000

The people who believe the wilderness society guff will get the quality of forest they richly deserve. Lets face it, these people will only lose influence when they have been given sufficient time and natural resources to completely destroy their credibility. The only problem is they will have to completely destroy vast areas of forest in the process.

It is a bit like North Korean “egalitarianism” really. Eventually not even the all pervasive propaganda will mask the abject squalor of their reality.

Best just to sit quietly and watch, making it absolutely clear who is responsible for the outcomes. Lets not interfere with their date with destiny.

By: David Ward

David Ward — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 04:20:34 +0000

Better try (bushfire+eneabba)

By: David Ward

David Ward — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 04:13:07 +0000

There is a belief in some quarters (including the Oxford English Dictionary), that ecology is a branch of biology, and that biologists are the only reliable source of information on the subject. History is dismissed as ‘anecdotal’. This dogma is an intellectual dead end.

Our understanding of ecology, including fire ecology, needs to be informed by a trivium of knowledge, drawn from the three main streams of humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Biology has much to contribute, but no more than social sciences such as economics and psychology, and humanities such as history and philosophy.

I suspect that the Wilderness Society is in the mental cul-de-sac described above, relying on selected papers from the biological literature (some, probably unknown to them, statistically invalid), plus a fair dollop of fire fantasy. History is ignored. Let them dream on, but don’t let us act on their ideas, so causing lives to be lost, money wasted, vandals given greater opportunity, catchments polluted, old forests destroyed, and animals killed. That experiment has been done, with replication.

Remember Cassandra urging the Trojans to burn the wooden horse, rather than take it into the city? Even though she was a minority voice, history shows she was undoubtedly right. Or is that just anecdote?

P.S. For some decades, the long, broadscale exclusion of fire from kwongan heath, around Eneabba, north of Perth, has been urged by some botanists, using a ‘dynamic seed bank model’. The model ignores local history, which tells of former Aboriginal kangaroo shooters lighting many small fires in winter, so creating a fine mosaic. Before that, there were ‘large numbers’ of Aborigines in the area. The responsible government department believed the model, rather than local people, and acted accordingly. In December 2004 a monster fire ripped through the Beekeepers’ Reserve. The results can be seen by Googling (eneabba+fire). Not much ‘biodiversity’ seen in that ‘wilderness’ for a year or two.

By: John Cribbes

John Cribbes — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:05:02 +0000

Norm Benson, I’m not sure where you are coming from. Have you read Harold Biswell’s book PRESRIBED BURNING in California Wildlands Vegetation Management?
Available through Amazon.com this book was written by the late Harold Biswell after a long life of research into the subject.
Roger Underwood recommended that I obtain a copy, which I did and read it thoroughly to understand the great benefits to be obtained by getting rid of the forest floor fuels.
Aerial detection is good but fires don’t go feral where there isn’t much fuel.