I wonder how many Koalas have been burnt in the bushfires raging across Victoria?
I received a letter from Roger Underwood today, he writes, “Arsonists do light fires, but they are not responsible for fires becoming large and damaging, especially forest fires. Blaming them is a convenient way for politicians and land managers to avoid taking responsibility themselves, which they should.”
Roger Underwood has over 40 years experience of bushfire management in Australia and overseas. He was formerly General Manager of The Deparment of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) in Western Australia, a regional and district manager, a research manager and bushfire specialist.
Dear Jennifer
I have been watching TV and reading newspaper reports on the recent (and ongoing) disastrous bushfires in Victoria and Western Australia. One common thread is the attempt to blame “arsonists, thought to be responsible for the fires”.
There are two non-debatable things about arson: (i) it has always been with us and will always be with us, as it is an expression of anti-social, criminal or sick human behaviour; and (ii) since arson-lit fires cannot be prevented, we should expect them to occur and take the necessary measures to minimise their impact, not whinge about them.
The ultimate irony to me was to see our Acting Premier promising large sums of money as a reward for information about the supposed arsonist, when the government in which he is a Minister has overseen a massive decline in the capacity of the State’s bushfire management resources.
Bushfires cannot be prevented.
On the other hand we can predict with great accuracy where and when they will occur and we can put in place very effective measures to minimise the damage they cause, and to increase the ease and safety of their control. In the publicly-owned forest, these measures are relatively simple.
In the first place we need a sound policy, and the strong support of government and agencies – this is a matter of simple, good governance and responsible public service.
In the second place we need a resource of permanent well trained and well equipped staff who can undertake fire management, supported by a well-funded volunteer firefighter force. Third, we need effective programs of green burning in our parks and forests, to reduce fuels and to ensure that fires do not become large, intense and unstoppable. Finally we need rural people, including those living at the interface, to take responsibility for making their own properties less hazardous or vulnerable, and if they won’t do it voluntarilly, they must be forced to do it compulsorily.
None of this is new. But for some reason it does not happen. Worse, we seem to be going backwards. I agree with those who blame the environmentalists for antagonism or fear of green burning – they have very successfully created a generation of young people who do not understand the role of fire in Australian ecosystems – but they are not solely to blame.
The political leaders who show no leadership, or who try to slip out from under by blaming the arsonists are also contemptible, but politicians are politicians, and we cannot expect them to behave out of character. I am also very disappointed with some of the new breed of braided Fire Chiefs who tend to see bushfires as theatre, and whose media popularity would be threatened by a fire management system which resulted in fewer fire disasters. But these people are simply a product of the media-dominated world in which we live,and they won’t go away any more than will the arsonists.
I conclude that the real villains in the piece are our professional land managers – the people who are today in charge of our national parks and State forests. They are well aware of the ecological research, they know about the decline in forest health in areas subjected to fire exclusion, they have staff in the field who are skilled in and enthusiastic about green burning, they have media and communications units, and they are in a position to influence government policy and priorities, to fight for a position which is right, even if it is politically unpopular. But they do not appear to be prepared to fight for good and effective fire management, and the result is an increasing number of large, high intensity fires which do no-one any good, and cause immense environmental damage.
The situation in WA is made more difficult by the fact that our land management agency (CALM) is not responsible for preparing the park and forest management plans which they are required to implement. The government has placed responsibilityfor management planning in the hands of a part-time committee of citizens and academics called The Conservation Commission, not one single member of which has any scientific expertise or professional experience in bushfire management or forest firefighting.
A thousand new arson detectives in every state will not catch every arsonist or potential arsonist, nor will they stop arson occurring in the future. What is needed is a new breed of tough, dedicated professional land managers who accept arson as inevitable, like lightning, and work to put in place a system which ensures that when fires start we can deal with them before people are killed, lovely forests incinerated and farms destroyed. What the government needs to do is to put these people in charge, chop off the influence of committees of well-meaning amateurs, and provide policy and political support.
Will this happen? The Bushfire Front developed a template for Best Practice in Bushfire Management in WA which, in early 2005, we sent to the Premier and the Minister for the Environment, together with an analysis of where WA needed to take steps to halt the decline in the standard of fire management, and to get the whole show back on the road. This submission was the outcome of several months work by experienced bushfire managers and former fire scientists. Neither the Premier nor the Minister replied.
Roger Underwood
The Bushfire Front WA Inc
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
These professional land managers must believe in fire exclusion? Is it really a matter of them being too gutless/apathetic to implement proactive fire management despite popular opinion?
Employed in the public’s service to conserve the environment, the bureaucrat would rather protect their pay-packet through a deliberate dereliction of duty than perform their duty and suffer wrongful dismissal. The difference is a measure of integrity.
Roger wrote “What is needed is a new breed of tough, dedicated professional land managers who accept arson as inevitable, like lightning, and work to put in place a system which ensures that when fires start we can deal with them before people are killed” – Aren’t that the truth.
Lets go one step further and put those good land managers in charge of all the would be arsonists early to really get the job done well. Serious, we all need the experience.
Two things I try to write about post 2003, arson and dry grasslands, both go together to ignite the bush come from years of quiet observation around the margins hoping to understand the frequency of our bushfire accidents. For Instance I was out and about the ACT in 2001 on the days the city was nearly wiped out from both sides. Those were the most critical holiday hours for some time. Authorities were lucky that time.
Working around potential arsonists give us a funny feeling. It was there, inside and outside those industries, over and over. Even at close range I failed to find the evidence, enough to be sure and act, only a few were caught. Two wore their captain’s fire fighting outfit for the clean up. They must have grown up with the necessary mindset on hazard reduction to ignore the rest of us on the bad days.
To understand more, I found a job as an independent with door to door sales in fire protection. Our company had an interest in all commercial protection business, official and unofficial, cause or concern. It was all steep learning and very rural. My work with industrial unions and arsonists is another story.
This was a region of major paper mill and forest operations. Although giant trash reductions were routine I never quite got used to their impact every summer. Let’s look at escaped burns in another post.
Things are looking up. Val Jeffery a veteran volunteer fire fighter and rural community leader on the edge of our bush in the ACT was awarded in the Australia Day list yesterday for fifty years of service. Someone has been listening lately.
The problem is with job description; by definition public servants are not performance oriented, their only function is to serve their political masters.
Politicians are not elected as land managers so they are not accountable.
Describe the function, elect someone to the function and sack them if they fail to perform.
Sorry this is irrelevant to the topic in general:
“public servants are not performance oriented ”
what a wide sweeping insult indicating your gross ignorance of the work and dedication of many good people in the natural resources field. I suggest you retract. In an environment when we have had public servants buying their own computers and paying their own way to conferences etc.
I take it Rog that you would be a hard self-made man.
I think the experience of guys like Ralph Baraclough in victoria amply demonstrates that the professional fire management heirarchy are addicted to their dose of publicity each year. It is a bit like certain high profile Lifesavers in my youth who would wait until someone was in serious trouble before dashing off to play hero and get the photo in the local paper again. The better ones could see a problem long before it happened and simply strolled out to get them before the rip even got them. No dramas, just good tradecraft.
Don’t tell me the same disease is not rife in the fire service and the political arm. It is one of the few times when plodding premiers can practice a certain churchillian resolve, the leader in the thick of it (blah blah). But we all know that good tradecraft, in just about every field, is all about prevention not cure.
I agree 100% with Rogers solutions but I don’t think this is the right time to implement them. For all that would do is make the grossly unjust and the grossly incompetent appear a bit more acceptable.
We need to recognise that the public get not only the government they deserve but also the environment they deserve. And it will take millions of hectares of devastated ecosystems before the sad reality sinks into the space currently occupied by survival shows, porn and sports re-runs.
But frankly, ever since the government gave me the choice of either accepting their complete but unlawful control of my forest or spending half a million bucks in the High Court, we no longer have any obligations to the community. We protect our own assets and those of our neighbours but if some departmental spiv wants a fire put out in their (my) forest then they can call Jeff Angel, Aila Keto, or put the bloody thing out themselves.
With great respect and regard for the article that Rodger wrote; I add this alternative ‘inside’ view of both arson and lightening as an issue for land managers and the authorities.
Let’s look for a moment at why prescribed burning and back burning in all hazard reduction campaigns across this country got a bad report from the greenies. But I must concede from the outset, bushfire problems across the country differ in some ways other than human nature.
The hazard reduction practice we had was very questionable. I ‘grew up’ watching a series of bad fires in Tasmania, later in Victoria through the 1960’s. Many were deliberately lit. My definition of arson became firmly associated with local “experts” attempting “prescribed” burns on bad days, including high fire danger periods, even total fire ban days.
In January 2003 I saw more of the same across our boarder in NSW. Back burns combined with the main fires and hit Canberra on the 18th. I wrote to the McLeod inquiry about parks and reserves elsewhere that had been ‘prescribed’ and burned from end to end before they were out. Although not specific then I may have referred to Rocky Cape, the west and south west wilderness in Tasmania, Mt Dandenong, Mt Macedon and the You Yangs around Melbourne.
I also wrote about blackberries and tall rank grass. From the evidence I saw, blackberries were significant factors in the major fires on the slopes of Mt Wellington in 1967 and Mt Stromlo in 2003.
But there are always doubts, especially when fires start in neighbourhoods or are ignited by lightening. In the 1950’s an uncle let me view government aerial photos, from vast areas of un-logged forests in Tasmania during his search for large undamaged trees. I recall there was almost no evidence of wild fires or lightening then.
Up to 2003 fires started by lightening were the least of my worries however it was my job over decades to find the damage to various electrical and communications installations. In systems engineering lightening can also be our bread and butter. I understand why frequency of strikes and resulting fire is an issue for land managers. But I don’t accept lightening is the cause of every remote fire in summer knowing as I do, who else has an interest in wildfire.
In 1972 greenies took to the air in order to spy on expanding dam building operations after I suggested that was the only way to get evidence on causes of fires wandering in the wilderness. I had seen many fires start in the bush near work gangs and places like local council rubbish tips. Machines are often blamed but experience taught me early that overtime near Christmas was an important factor in many bushfires. So are ‘grapevines’.
I had deep roots in the unions all round the country related to the paper industry. Wood was our bread and butter. Salvaging a forest for fine paper production after the fire meant colouring all the tissue. Carbon won’t bleach. The quantity of fire affects the quality of our resources.
As I wrote previously, working with arson is a funny business.
A creative individual with a private grudge can almost defeat us every time defending what we value most, our assets. Getting these people out in the open early in their careers with their practice on full view alongside the rest of us is so important.
Although arson like industrial sabotage is often only a personal protest I am well aware of its “convenience” in resolving other issues like getting rid of a problem including hazard build ups. I found these fires across the full spectrum of events.
The best, a farmer I knew well, frequently lent other struggling land owners a helping hand for years, sometimes way beyond his own district and right under all our noses. Oddly there were many write ups on wildfires in the news and the district fire chiefs all round got nice new fire fighting trailers before that ‘problem’ was solved.
Using fire as a good tool was an art form best learned in a master apprenticeship relationship. When OH&S came along it all went wrong. Fire needs to be handed down again through each generation on a fire stick. That should also be a community affair. Bombing the country with incendiaries from a helicopter leaves most of us with out an experience of what is good or bad.
Underwood misses a vital point here; he needs the support of the people. In developing the practice of bushfire management beyond conflicting interests we must have at least some ‘reconciliation’ on the way forward. That means obtaining universal acceptance from the public at large and the local community at all levels for an improved land management policy.
Val Jeffery was our local knowledge but he was ignored through a decade of modern bushfire management from the top.
Bushfire and Emergency Service Brigades strutting their stuff on a field day to raise public interest is not the way forward either. Everybody living on the urban edge must turn up for the practice at least once in a lifetime. Young people must learn to clear their/our way with an appropriate match in time. With good guidance they will become our forest keepers.
One aspect of the 2003 ACT fires that has had very little exposure is the fact that the conduit was a “connected riparian corridor”. The parts where stock had been excluded were completely destroyed because of the high fuel loads while those parts where stock still had access to the creek were burned but but not destroyed.
We really must take a good long look at this connectivity fetish. For in my own area, the only listed threatened, or endangered, species that were deemed unable to cross a 1000 metre gap were small Lizards etc, that regarded grass cover as “connected canopy”, or frogs and aquatic species that achieved connectivity along the stream itself.
So all we are doing with this blind insistence on continuous tree canopy closure in riparian zones is delivering a temporary, appearance based, sense of well being to ignorant punters that incorporates a statistical certainty of complete habitat destruction by wildfire within a decade or two.
And on a macro scale, the key essential fact in relation to fire damage is that fragmented (private) forests produce the most fragmented and smallest scale environmental harm. The larger, more contiguous the forest, the larger and more destructive the fire.
And that means that in the Australian context, fragmented forests are the most sustainable. At least they are capable of dispersing adverse impacts in time, scale and space, in a manner that enables dependent species to respond and recover within normal climatic cycles.
And it is also time we examined the role of strategically located strips of heavily (overly) grazed pasture in reducing the scale and impact of wild grass fires. At present, farmers have been browbeaten into avoiding such outcomes at all cost but it is infinitely more ecologically and economically sustainable than a sequence of total, broadscale burn outs.
Going back to Rog’s response, I think you may be guilty of a little broad and insulting generalisation there. I never do such things when commenting on the greens of course. One way to make public servants less motivated is to treat them like you do Rog. Then you can complain about the further decline and so on. So rewarding.
It is unfortunate that since about the Whitlam dynasty, senior public servants have increasingly been assumed by politicians to be people who carry out the wishes of the Minister. Alternatively, a committee of suitably inexperienced people is appointed by the Minister to tell the Minister what he/she wants to hear. The days of frank and fearless advice have gone. The opinion poll is uber alles.
Roger Underwood may actually provide a good example of what happens to people high up in the public service who stand their ground against stupidity; they are frozen out. Perhaps this means Roger’s integrity is intact, but it has also made the Minister for CALM’s life easier not having to deal with people who don’t say “yes” at every opportunity.
I am also reminded of a senior public servant in NSW during the last severe wildfire that ran over the Blue Mountains. He said that if we conduct a hazard reduction burn, we cop abuse from all sides. If we rush around with lights flashing and bells ringing during a wildfire, everyone thinks we’re heroes. The public is getting what it wishes for.
Ian, I’m not sure I follow your logic about fragmentation of forests being desirable. How come many of our forests were so extensive and yet managed to live with fire pre-European? Why do fuel reduction burns work relatively well where they are conducted according to an appropriate schedule? And what do you do with public forests that are still large and contiguous, break them up and clear them? Don’t like your chances with that one.
Good post Boxer.
Ian, your concept of fragmentation does not apply to old forests as I saw them. See my post re Tasmania’s 1950’s pristine forests. I reckon pure eucalypt forests all over this country particularly on the east coast had one characteristic that protected them all, very large and very old trees that grew well above fires on the forest floor.
It was obvious to me lightening strikes did not often start large fires in these trees either. Lightening and drought can kill a big tree but they stand there forever. Looking through my battered “Glimpses of Australia” V2 1897 again I find lots of wild forest photos and several reference to trees that were standing around Victoria with extraordinary heights of 420 and 480 ft. Remnants of buttresses on my steep block in Tasmania indicate a number of similar trees lived there before any farming occurred.
Old forest is dominated by giants with their heads torn apart. Fires in these great forests ran slowly too and high crowns survived. The difference between now and then are the crops underneath these giants. These old photos also show a profusion of undergrowth everywhere. With the absence of giants now, the re growth canopy itself is uniformly defenseless with a majority of young trees consumed in a major fire event
This is also true for the crowns of large trees in open country. In grassy woodlands it’s the grass that determines flame height in the open. Here the intensity of a fast moving fire depends only on the conversion rate of the fine fuel freely available.
There is another hazard. With a modern monoculture or regrowth forest, litter is not recycled naturally by the understory. Controlled fire and fertility must go hand in hand. That is another art form for some of us.
FROM TAZ, COMMENT BLOCKED BY SYSTEM SORRY.
I was hoping someone would bite into my comment regarding 2003 and perhaps discuss the particular trials and tribulations of Canberra around that horrific season. I look at it every day and wonder what we have learned.
To those on the outside we had a break through in the McLeod Bushfire Inquiry almost immediately afterwards. An Emergency Services Bureau, ESB was formed to replace the old regimes. We also got a Bushfire Abatement Zone, BAZ and a handful of fresh public servants to implement it all.
My job meantime from the armchair is to make sure nobody waters it down.
This city is again surrounded by a sea of yellow. For a few weeks it moved like waves in the wind.
Canberra for its small population has a huge urban edge. Ian mentioned a
connected riparian corridor. The Molonglo river valley leading to the
greater Murrumbidgee corridor is our Achilles heel. But there are many other
grassland corridors right through this city and none of it is ‘natural’ in
this old sheep country.
At this point we must move on to another crop fire issue. We had a large
pine plantation around the urban edge. Almost all pines were killed. They
added to the inferno intensity in an extraordinary way. Much of their
contribution to the furnace was fine fuel whipped up in the gale force winds
and fire front tornadoes, they burned like tall grass.
COMMENT FROM TAZ.
Generally the functions and activities of a Public Service is covered by a Public Service Act, with a different Act for each State and for the Commonwealth.
Public Servants usually have two functions, assisting in the formulation of policy and the delivery of policy – both entirely under the control of the government of the day.
How is that insulting?
Re public servants, there is obviously a very solid core of dedicated, professional people with high ethical standards with whom it would be far from an ordeal to be caught with in a small boat for a day or two. The problem for them is that they must operate in association with some of the lowest, sleasiest pond life this side of a Bangkok Klong. And any association between honourable men and women and low life can only be to the benefit of the low life and the detriment of the honourable.
Taz, you seem to be yearning for a forest that no longer exists. True, Tasmanian and wet coastal forests were dense and tall. On my own place there was only 16 large stems/ha at 25m spacing and avg 1.7m DBH. And this meant that on a 300 year life cycle, each hectare saw one giant come crashing down every 20 years. This produced an isolated 600m2 regrowth thicket and another similar sized 20 year old cluster of fiercely competing poles with no understorey. And this was not very fire friendly.
But whether we like it or not we now have a regrowth and/or thickenned landscape. And away from the coast the classic open woodland of Australia Felix was nothing like the congested riverbank and linking corridor no-go-zones that are being actively encouraged all over the country. The woodlands themselves were far more widely spaced than today so the fragmentation was built into the forest itself. And this was more easily augmented by fine mosaic burning.
Add to that the fact that any effort to reduce the spacing, to the levels at which all dependent species have evolved to inhabit, is still defined as clearing. Even the removal of a single tree is classified as a problem activity that must be subject to extensive assessment with a low prospect of approval.
And as for fixing the problem in National Parks? Put a long thin golf course right in the middle them, mostly on the upper South facing slopes. Allocate occupational leases (for weekenders) in small clusters and under appropriate covenants etc. and use the rents to fund park management. Break the parks up and assign total responsibility for the ecological health and survival of sub-units to a single person. Define the existing range of variation in dependent species stocking rates and allow the responsible officer to experiment in ways to enhance biodiversity, and reward long term results and penalise consistent failure.
This will guarantee fine mosaic fire regimes because the real risk of hotfire destruction will be incorporated into the payscales of the land manager, as it is already on Freehold land.
But, of course, this will never take place as long as regional environments are under the whim and fiat of metropolitan state governments. For all they want from the bush is cheap thrills, one liners and photo ops. Both the economies and ecology of regional Australia will continue to decline for as long as metropolitan ignorance is allowed to govern regional landscapes and communities. Nothing would succeed like secession.
Rog – A good many public servants in the agricultural and natural resources field have given years of dedicated service to the public, governments and industry often at personal expense. Ian may even know a few.
Not all are political sleaze bags, lazy or care-free. Their research may be politicised and they may be pressured at times to stand back. Their reports may be pulped and research funds terminated. They may suffer or have to endure the government(s) of the day but many would argue that an elected government has a mandate to deliver in areas they campaigned on.
Neverthless both state and Commonwealth public services have been extremely politicised over the last decade. Free and fearless advice and service to the public is disappearing. A small band of true believers hold the thin blue line.
There are elements of this fire story that are good fit for the circumstances I have described above.
Phil, once again you attempt to take over the argument with your own “opinion.”
For the record I did not say nor did I ever even suggest that public servants were sleaze bags, lazy or care-free. Those are your words not mine.
This ‘thin blue line’ that you refer to is not visible to myself nor to anyone else that I know and I can find no reference to it within reliable sources.
Perhaps this condition is the manifestation of an over excited and under utilised imagination and should be referrered to a more qualified practioner.
You may get a cheaper deal for your “small band of true believers” that collectively “hold the thin blue line”
Rog – you said public servants are not performance oriented. The context here is natural resources management. Stand condemned by your words. It’s your usual style.
I found Ian’s, Boxer’s & Taz’s comments on fragmention very interesting and hope you’ll continue that discussion. A valid point from Ian (paraphrasing) is considering the altered structure of the forests, establish a vegetative or riparian corridor/broader habitat that’s appropriate to the species being protected yet mimimises fire risks. I can’t agree with a general recommendation to increase fragmentation (as this can mean completely isolated tracts of forest), but graduated mosaics and differing approaches to corridor management seem in need of more support and experimentation. Keen to hear more on this!
Jennifer previously reckoned that the biggest destroyers of habitat on a per hectare basis over the last few year would have been feral fires (particularly January 2003 fires) and vegetation thickening/woody weed encroachment (particularly in the rangelands of western NSW and Queensland).
Habitat value and lack of representativeness within protected area estate drives acquisition and reservation, supposedly under the professional care of public administrators, as they currently identify.
As all states and territories are bound by the principle of proportioning environmental solutions to the significance of the problem, why should the taxpayer tolerate habitat destruction at all, on lands reserved and resourced to ensure protection?
Neil has a very good point, asking why we should tolerate habitat destruction on lands that have been set aside for their protection. It goes to issues of negligence on the part of the relevant Director General who is ultimately responsible for the custodianship of the assets entrusted to him/her.
If the head of the railways allowed rust to destroy assets over 20 years when proper maintenance could ensure a significantly longer life of the asset then, clearly, the harm would be reasonably foreseeable, and the lack of reasonable and practical steps to prevent harm would constitute negligence. That negligence would also amount to misconduct on the part of the DG.
It is clear that many “protected” forests are only lasting 10 years before being destroyed by a form of harm that is entirely foreseeable. There are also reasonable and practical steps that are proven to prevent or reduce the extent of harm. With these steps forests and their full suite of ecological assets can last 50 to 100 years or more.
So when will we see this parade of grossly negligent DG’s being drummed out of office for their misconduct? The willful destruction of a public asset.
Thinksy, the important issue is that we don’t have adequate definitions of connectivity or fragmentation. My orchard is not mapped as providing any form of connectivity between the stands of native forest on either side of it. But I can think of no species, and certainly no threatened species, that will not use that orchard for transit, food or procreative purposes. All forms of vegetation that are capable of facilitating transit of dependent species must be considered when determining connectivity and fragmentation.
Often, all that is needed for transit purposes over a very large gap (2-3km) is a few well spaced paddock trees. This is especially so at breeding time.
So connectivity and fragmentation should be expressed in terms of the number or proportion of dependent species that can cross a certain gap. So a realistic map of habitat connectivity should have;
1) the actual areas of native habitat,
2) other features that facilitate transit between areas of habitat, or which also deliver habitat services
3) and a set of distance arcs that define the point beyond which 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100% of local species cannot cross.
And what this will show is that there is a lot more connecting going on out there than most would think. It will make it clear how very few forest dependent species are incapable of crossing the kinds of gaps required for prudent fire management.
It will highlight the absurdity of local council by-laws like the one in Logan City that only allows a 3 metre fire break on boundary fences. But what this means is that, on the normal crown ratios, any trees with diameter greater than 40cm will have their crowns touching above the fence line and provide almost zero value as a firebreak. Apparently Logan has assumed that trees will never grow bigger than 40cm. Which is probably a valid assumption with that sort of high fire risk prescription in place.
In a nutshell, CONNECTIVITY DOES NOT NEED CONTIGUOUS CANOPY.
Negligence, at least to my way of thinking, enunciates an unfulfilled duty of care. One would hope that protected area managers, bound by good neighbour policies, would have a duty of care to protect persons and property from feral fires on lands contiguous with the boundaries of the reserve.
I remember being told by a senior Queensland fire authority official, that private property (and any other form of land tenure in Qld) may be protected from wildfire, by entering adjacent NP (for example) to within a kilometre of one’s boundary to establish a fire break with a D-9 if necessary and the full protection of the law.
But beyond negligence, what of misappropriation of public monies? Funds allocated for protective purposes, used almost entirely to sustain salaries and administrative costs, but without protection? What about fundamental breaches of the relevant conservation legislation?
Remember John Fredricks of NSCA infamy? His paramilitary organisation enjoyed the abundant economic and political support of an era, until he managed to accrue an alleged $280million debt. I thought the threshold of impropriety an interesting one.
What do everyone think of this statement:
“On the other hand we can predict with great accuracy where and when they will occur…”
I had previously thought that it was difficult to predict big bushfires – mind you my experience of this is extremely limited.
While small, non-catastrophic fires may be reasonable to predict, larger, out of control bushfires rely on a chaotic mix of heat, low rainfall in the lead up period, relative humidity below about 25% or something, and high winds.
The Bushfire CRC
http://www.bushfirecrc.com/research/program/programa.html
points to a need for better prediction, and seem to be undertaking research in this area.
Thinksy, we can do something most controversial here, end right now this obsession with science on all matters urgent in our environment. Policy makers also in their selective directions become notorious in building foolhardy programs remotely and long after our need has expired.
We can surely blame the policy makers now in their ignorance of local issues.
Ian and I are bound to differ on tree canopy separation, he has nuts and I have logs on the farm. But we should agree on this point, it’s entirely a local issue at ground level and we don’t need academics to sort our private patch. I am also sure we both need good neighbours.
On our place was a rare white goshawk, a colony of pigmy possum, a small white tipped ground hopper and a lone tiger cat, all next to neighbours who wood chipped everything above our deep creek.
But let’s make this confession here; I can’t burn anything safely as I discovered after a few trials on blackberries and scrub in between but a big bushfire is the most recognised way in my home region to restart a eucalypt forest. Mosaic burning on my scrubby slopes killed some of my best timber. It occurred to me later the original forest was not burnt ever but it decayed constantly in its natural fertile state. An extensive range of ferns, moss and fungus was the final clue. Life on this agriculturally poor and mineral deficient ground was rich once.
Things in the bush have changed Ian. The patches of giant myrtle, remnants of an ancient era are gone so is the recent canopy of the worlds largest giants. These plants must have been mutually dependent when an uncle first fenced this steep forest remnant to a ridiculous European pattern for rectangular farm blocks.
Coastal forests of E obliqua in my part of Tasmania built several cities on the mainland. With more care we can do it again.
Poet Les Murray has some interesting thoughts on tree spacing, his family were all timber cutters/millers on the mid north coast and knew the country well. Looking at old stumps and going back through colonial records he surmised that through the influence of aboriginal burning and hunting the bush was an open woodland with 3/4 (big) trees per acre. Post colonisation the influences of disease, drink, warfare meant the remaining aboriginals lived around the edges of towns and neglected the bush, which soon became thickened with smaller species and sapling growth. There is opinion from foresters, soil scientists and botanists that the forests up the north coast are now reverting back to an ancient regime, one that existed prior to aboriginal settlement.
Les quotes William Faulkner, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past”
Thinksy
I would propose that in some forests a fragmentation effect in terms of fuel age is perfectly achievable. There is no need to fragment the structure of the forest. And using cleared breaks, apart from being aesthetically unacceptable in an otherwise naturally forested landscape, would not achieve much under extreme fire conditions. Spotting ahead of the fire front can easily cover distances of thousands of metres when the fuel driving the head fire throws large amounts of burning material high into the air. A firebreak to achieve control under these conditions would be somewhat wider than a golf fairway. If litter is not allowed to accumulate to excessive levels at ground level, it is not possible for fire to reach the canopy of the forest and many forest structures can be protected in this way. However, reading these posts emphasises to me that Aust forests are highly variable and what is appropriate in one forest may not be not suitable for the management of another.
In the 1990s I was involved in re-establishing old survey transects that were established in the 1920s and 30s through forest south of Perth. These forests were first logged at that time. It was virtually a clear-fell, with trees not taken being culled later by ring-barking. Individual trees are identified by their distance along the line (thousands of metres long) and then their distance off to the side of the line. In this way it is possible follow the development of the forest post-logging by comparing the records made about individual trees when the line was established and comparing those records to the current conditions. Typically there are about 10 times as many trees now compared to the uncut bush (despite thinning operations) and a small sapling in 1930 is now a large pile – about 70cm diameter at chest height. It was an interesting experience because it was possible to visualise the forest then and now, especially because most of the stumps of the original trees are still there. Overall it gave the impression of a dynamic system that responds vigorously over periods longer than a human generation.
This same forest was totally defoliated in a large fire in Jan 1961, which was the culmination of a period of attempted fire exclusion since about the second war. The Royal Commission that followed re-established the burning-off culture that continues to this day, and which is so hated by most greens. In some of the forest, you can still see the dry sides (dead wood still exposed from an old fire scar) on the up-slope side of the trees where the ’61 fire ran up-hill and the turbulence around the back of each stem concentrated the heat and killed about half the cambium layer virtually for the full height of the main trunk. The bush can be read like a book and I was lucky to work with people who could still teach me a little of what they knew.
Thanks for all the replies. Clearly the govinmint aint gunna just leave it alone. There’s a problem with the timelag and conceptual gap between policy, science and on-the-ground understanding. Ian and Taz, neither of you welcome outside government or scientific intervention with the management of your property. It’s fair enough given that you’re both good land managers. But as Taz says, you need good neighbours. What if your neighbours, or others’ neighbours are neglectful or incompetent land managers or dumb hippies with lots of fuel? They might only be a minority, but how do you suggest achieving good management by all without impinging on those who know what they’re doing? Perhaps you can co-operate locally, but does everyone?
Boxer; I am very comfortable with your reply to Thinksy – I reckon some of this fits on the far side – see quotes.
1) There is no need to fragment the structure of the forest.
2). A firebreak to achieve control under these conditions would be somewhat wider than a golf fairway.
3) If litter is not allowed to accumulate to excessive levels at ground level, it is not possible for fire to reach the canopy of the forest and many forest structures can be protected in this way.
Regarding the width of a fire break, I wrote to someone, how a golf course seemed to have stopped the big fire in 2003 on the southern edge of Canberra after it tore through grassy woodlands from the river.
Note; we wait on an official report from the scientists.
Rather ironic that the most recent feral fire in WA started in, or near, the Lane-Poole Reserve. Charles Lane-Poole was, of course, the first Conservator of Forest for WA, and, true to his training at the Ecole des Eaux et Forets at Nancy in France, he hated fire. Old grasstrees show his influence clearly, with frequent burning (2-4 years) the rule in jarrah, wandoo, tuart, and banksia woodland up to the time of his appointment in World War 1. Charles was also very much influenced by his mentor, David Hutchins, a potty British colonial ‘forest consultant’ who wanted to interplant the jarrah forest with pine trees, because, according to him, pines do not burn. He has been quoted as a fire expert by some environmentalists. They seem to be unaware of some of his more revolutionary ideas, such as introducing pigs and deer to the jarrah forest, and logging the Stirling Ranges. However, even he recognised that the jarrah forest was traditionally burnt every 2-4 years.
Neil; Although John Fredricks of NSCA remains a mystery, by some fortune I witnessed part of an operation by his crack team. A former workmate’s brother drowned in that event and two trawlers sank in the first rescue attempt.
I also witnessed the freak storm in the early hours that caused it all. Even today I don’t comprehend that intense fury off shore. The energy then was probably one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen in the atmosphere.
The NSCA were there in about an hour with three orange aircraft and the team parachuted in before dawn to recover a lifeless Tony. The sea remained black for hours. Many of us in SES spent days down cliffs and along beaches looking for the fishermen.
The issue with fire breaks is not a question of whether they stop an 80MJ fire face but, rather, they form the base lines from which effective fuel reduction burns take place.
Furthermore, if they happen to be on the leeward side of a ridgetop then the hot dry air from an approaching fire will pass over the break and into the air rather than dry the leeward fuel to combustion point.
But my point about dropping a golf club into the middle of a national park is that it is a landuse that is capable of funding some very useful infrastructure when a fire approaches. EG;
1 maintaining a closely mown pasture with high soil moisture profiles,
2 funding numerous in-situ water features that can capture the entire enhanced water yield for use during the fire season,
3 a sub-surface irrigation system capable of serving almost the entire area simultaneously,
4 an over-capacity in pumping equipment, and multiple water points
5 an abundant water supply in close proximity to mobile fire units,
6 a large and accessible refuge for wildlife and important dry season food resource for herbivores,
7 a firebreak that is wide enough to restrict most fire fronts,
8 a capacity to fragment fire fronts while maintaining habitat connectivity,
9 maintain a set of well protected buildings from which firefighting operations can be directed and both the crews and the public can be accommodated, fed, and treated if necessary, and
10 well located tractors, implements, repair facilities and fuel supplies.
But that, of course, would require recognition of the benefits of “free market ecology”. And we all know that when the nationalisation of production was proven to be a complete failure, the trotskyites didn’t crawl into a hole, they just moved on to nationalise ecology instead.
History does, indeed, repeat itself. So get ready for the heavier and heavier hand of the state, the targeting of scapegoats, the dispossession of landowners, the persecution of dissidents and a set of outcomes that are the very opposite of the high ideals that gave the system it’s initial credence. Get ready for the “dear leader” in the brave new green utopia. Welcome to Australia 2006. Plus ca change?
Hey Ian,
Could you settle down for a sec, because you seem to know a lot about land management to prevent bushfires, and your hysterical rhetoric is getting in the way of good discussion. I’d prefer to laugh with you, not at you.
What do you think of this:
http://uninews.unimelb.edu.au/articleid_1121.html
I’m not so interested in the climate change predictions in this story, but rather the analysis that suggests that:
minor bushfires are frequent and do little damage and could be controlled with the kind of land management strategies you suggest, whereas huge, heavily damaging bushfires can rampage across large areas in a short amount of time if the conditions are right – conditions being low humidity, high winds etc.
How effective is a golf course in the middle of a national park in the face of a large bushfire supported by extreme weather conditions (say 2 months of no rain, a 35+degC day, humidity below 25% and high winds)? Just how much fuel reduction would be required to adequately reduce the risk associated with a big fire? How much manpower would be needed to reduce fuel across huge swathes of national park to prevent a fire that can cover 558000 hectares in 3 days?
Query from the US. I’ve been sent an email asking … “Some herbicides were used in putting out the bushfires, weren’t they. There are some issues here with restrictions on them.”
Comment?
Steve; Your first question on the CRC bushfire predictability caught my eye again late yesterday, then I sat through the night writing a response based on my personal doubts about most modelling, any dynamic events but I blew it all away in the wee hours.
I reckoned the CRC www page was just a load of modern jargon. People today can write so well what others want to see and I bet I’m not the only one to say that after the recent Federal Bushfire Inquiry. However lets be fair, its early days there.
I wrote a long narrative to CSIRO the bushfire research team last year with my thoughts on a series of extraordinary atmospheric events witnessed over a lifetime. One is mentioned briefly again in Which Climate Change – part 4. One of the researchers is part of a national group and possibly an international group looking at extreme weather and fire.
One bit of a theory relates to wandering fireballs detached from the main vortex through combustion explosions and lightening high above ground. I reckon they have a life away from the main event but are not ember showers. I asked the team to consider using industrial furnaces in the first instance to refine their models for both bushfires and grass fires. I thought it was much better than them all hanging thermocouples up gum trees. Besides they can’t get the necessary wind windup in the open unless that is; they had a gully full of old blackberries to make those instruments zing.
I can’t recall where Tolhurst fits in, sorry.
The bottom line; Ask yourself how the aborigines got on with out satellites, CRC, radio communications, 4×4 vehicles, water bombers etc.
Thanks Taz.
I was living in the Sutherland Shire when Janalli was burnt in about 1994. The fire was at first in Bangor and Illawong, then ‘jumped’ the Woronora River to hit Bonnet Bay and Janalli. That’s maybe 100m across water. A bit wider than a golf fairway.
There has been a lot of talk that somehow catastrophic bushfires are due to innappropriate environmental regulation, and they could be avoided with mosaic burning and local management for example. I’m not convinced that this is the case – catastrophic bushfires require a heady mix of climatic conditions, and if those conditions occur, I’m not sure that the bush won’t still go up in flames, even if the amount of fuel is reduced.
How did the Aborigines get on? Well, apart from their deliberately lit burns, presumably, plenty of them died by fire, or they moved house when fire burned out their current home.
My home was in a region of major paper mill and forest operations. Although giant trash reductions were routine I never quite got used to their impact every summer. From my parents place I watched huge bushfire smoke columns as the freshly logged coupes burned in the distance. Acres of eucalypt ash became seed beds but it was some years later that I realized this was natures way too.
Escaped fire here was rare as each operation seemed to be completely controlled by those short lived atmospheric columns. As the general public was excluded I never witnessed how they did it so successfully. Wild fire was something else. The difference was always visible in the smoke and it became my measure in all bushfires. Distant smoke tells us much about the land, the vegetation and the atmosphere.
With fifty years of smoke watching behind me I can recommend it as the best daylight bushfire indicator. At night I switch to flame heights. Both methods require the observer to maintain some distance from the events for valid observations in developing perspective. Can we do it all again with a hand full of fire sticks and bare feet?
Taz,
Sorry for the delay.
I have some familiarity with the inner workings of the (now-defunct) NSCA.
My previous post was not intended to denigrate the organisation or its leader as much as draw attention to the threshold of its unacceptability.
In the context of the thread and in particular, the call for a new generation of permanent well trained and equipped staff … I regard John Fredricks as having distinguished himself as a public servant by refusing to masquerade with an inadequate budget.
I suspect that the ‘missing’ millions are not hidden in some central Australian desert hideaway or anywhere else for that matter. Rather they were invested into the training and equipment of his beloved para-rescue service, beyond the unrealistic short-comings of budgetary allocation.
If I were the Executive Director of the Wet Tropics Management Authority, there is no way that I would stand idly by an watch $2million of my depauperate budget fritter away on the woefully inadequate community based feral pig eradication program. No doubt my professional career would be unremarkably short.
Mt. Hagen, PNG in the late 1980’s: a young girl was in need of emergency medical attention. The NSCA was called in from Townsville but unfortunately arrived too late. An angry mob of Western Highlanders surrounded the Bell Helicopter demanding payback. In the midst of heated negotiations the bravest of the brave challenged for who would dare stick their finger into the circular blur of the idling tail rotor. The most courageous thrust his finger forth and lost his entire arm in an instant. Payback was henceforth overturned by medivac emergency and the NSCA took the poor bugger back to Townsville General.
Let’s look again at burning in mosaics as a fresh concept. It’s no cure all! Without a decent application of all the local knowledge acquired over a long period, this freshness could be another disaster. Local knowledge starts in dealing with fertility in our own back yard, No hopers in the city will be no hopers in the bush. But collectively we depend most on our biggest neighbours. Can they cope? How do we measure their potential?
I came to Canberra to find how this place ticked. At a local level there is a lot happening after the 2003 bushfire, at the national level this town was always a hive of scientists. Although it’s a small population like Tasmania, in stirring attitudes on issues around the grass roots I can remain relatively anonymous.
In our most recent public debate on bushfire recovery, the International Arboretum Project I was ‘Dusty’ on the outside. We got a winning concept with a hundred forests and plantings of rare trees. Some patches on our burnt hill by the lake may be fired again as a routine. Things are looking up and I am delighted.
Neil Hewett: Your post on the NSCA adds to the questions I have on the downfall of that grand maritime emergency operation. You saw them working? I wondered where the people and gear went afterwards and I think it was covered up, all too embarrassing for some.
Your story on PNG is embarrassing too. A chap I knew in the late 70’s spent some time on holiday in that region and gave us a good account of relationships around there and unrealistic expectations within groups waiting to be ‘rescued’.
Others I knew around Bass Strait thought our bit of NSCA was a military style cover over the oil rigs.
Steve & Taz,
In my view something like Aboriginal patch burning is the only possible solution to uncontrollable bushfires. I have a model (about to submit to a journal) which shows, by simple geometry, that the only way to protect most (all?) fire refuges, is to burn around them, regularly, as often as the vegetation will carry a fire. This is pretty much what Aborigines did, and still do in some places. Ecologists might call this ‘burning the matrix to protect the longer unburnt metapopulation patches.’ Notions of random burning giving greater ‘biodiversity’ are simply eco-mumbo-jumbo – fire doesn’t work that way in the real world.
I have often heard the glib idea that ‘we cannot re-introduce Aboriginal burning, due to changed infrastructure, therefore it is irrelevant’, or similar. No real evidence is offered, but the idea is readily accepted, and parroted, by those who are ideologically opposed to prescribed burning. It is a typical misleading half-truth. Certainly the infrastructure has changed in some places, but there are still vast tracts where a combination of lightning fires and a modernised version of Aboriginal burning can, and must, eventually, be applied. Fly over Australia and have a look.
This fact must, eventually, dawn on our High Priests of Eco-mumbo-jumbo, perhaps when their house burns down, or they actually take a walk in the bush after a feral fire, and see the many dead animals, and the deaths of centuries old trees, which have obviously survived all previous, milder fires.
Steve, my 10 points on the fire management assets of a golf course hardly qualifies as hysterical rhetoric. Neither does the final statement of political context. And you would do well to note that the majority of the landowners who actually wear the risks of public sector fire mismanagement see it the same way. Get used to it, get some manners, or put your own fires out.
And why on earth would anyone assume that the golf course in the park option was meant as a stand alone one. Like any effort at fire fragmentation, it would work best with a host of other measures.
But lets not discount the potential contribution of overhead monsoon irrigation systems in minimising ember showers and stopping hot fires.
David Coonan of the ACT (pers comm) reported that the 2003 fire went right over his house (with him and wife in it) with barely a singed bit of paint because he had an overhead sprinkler system. I saw the aftermath myself.
And the comparison of a closely mown ridge top golf course under irrigation and the steep sided gorge of the heavily thickenned Woronora river is chalk and cheese. Of course a fire with no retarding influences would jump the gorge.
But a short, safe back burn onto a 3.6km long irrigated golf course, or any other sort of land use that can deliver similar infrastructure, can expand the fragmentation barrier in just about any conditions. So the 60m wide lawn can easily be extended to 200m wide in short order.
The key point is that the real and present need for fire fragmentation by hazzard reduction and canopy separation makes a much greater contribution to biodiversity conservation than the illusory, and dangerously inappropriate desire for undisturbed forest canopy.
Most wildlife have no trouble crossing a 1000m gap, especially when they want to get laid. So it is the height of stupidity to assume that 20m fire breaks, or even 100m ones, are a threat to biodiversity.
It should also be noted that the species that are normally found on ridges, where fire breaks work best, are able to cross wider gaps than those that frequent the gullies.
And it is not necessary to consider the gap crossing capacity of all species present. If they are not on the threatened list then they are unlikely to be of relevance in determining fragmentation threshholds. Just look up the threatened species list, eliminate the birds, eliminate the amphibians and aquatics that connect along the creek anyway, eliminate the large marsupials etc, and if there is anything left then the capacity of that species to cross gaps will define the maximum fire fragmentation width.
Tracking back Ian Mott; my bush block in Tasmania has a golf course sized clearing on the ridge that has not been properly fired for decades. Although it is grazed now by smart neighbours in my absence, none of us would dare fire the scrub for a variety of reasons. From my own experience, fire escape on those very steep slopes is almost guaranteed. Also there is only household water between us, besides our immediate neighbours like sharing with the wildlife despite the crop farmers nearby.
Reading between the lines now; they see my woods as their firewood sometime in the future.
I reckon this neighbourhood dilemma raises many other questions for authorities all over Australia. As private owners we are blanked if we do and blanked if we don’t.
My forest is only a regrowth remnant surrounded by rural enterprise, dairy and crop farming. It is situated at the head of a permanent creek that is home to the giant fresh water lobster and remains directly linked to state government timber plantations though a deep timbered valley. All gullies in this area are prone to serious landslip. Most properties on the edge of this public forest reserve were surveyed off in lots of less than one hundred acres and have been subdivided since. The range of views on environment matters here is extreme. Also no individual has the capacity to do a good job all round.
Your 10 points on golf courses isn’t hysterical rhetoric I agree, but your political context most certainly was. We’ll have to differ on that.
Brave new green utopia?
Persecution of dissidents?
“Dear leader”?
Please.
Its very colourful writing, but the attempts by yourself and others to characterise mainstream environmental thinking as big brother or stalinist or whatever is lame point-scoring. It is hysterical.
We live in a social democracy featuring a mix market and regulation, against a social fabric that is wary of government and celebrates individual effort. It works well, which is why Australia is one of the best places in the world to live.
Suggesting that we are moving towards some kind of dire, fascist control regime is hysterical, paranoid and overemotional.
You might be able to turn heads at the pub, or at your tree-farmer love-ins with this kind of emotive talk, but it is counterproductive in the wider world because most people are smart enough to be unconvinced by that blustering talk.
As Jennifer often says, we like objective, evidence-based discussion.
If you want to convince people who disagree with you, rather than simply getting gushing support from your buddies, maybe you could tone yourself down and show some manners yourself.
You obviously have a lot of experience in land management, and I would be keen to hear your view, but when i hear you harping on with political conspiracy theories, i find it difficult not to reflexively reject what you say. Most other people who aren’t part of your greenie-hating well-to-do landowner clique and don’t immediately identify with you would probably feel the same. Get used to it.
PS. Thanks for your responses to my comments. I can’t refute you saying that a ridge top golf course is not comparable to the Woronora gorge. I don’t know enough about bushfire. However, I still think 100m (maybe more?) or water is a significant barrier. Is it that easy an example to dismiss?
Since my last post to Ian was a truncated version salvaged from previous attempts to beat the blog curse, its somewhat out of context now. I should add my old neighbours know their limitations; they can’t get enough water in a bad season to drink. Stock on my place has to be watered from the household rain tanks and they have to be topped up from town.
Lack of water is the problem in all fire fighting.
In all my experience, the fires large and small were fought at the front with hand tools where some folk perhaps shared a knapsack in keeping the rest of us reasonably damp beyond the body sweat. When that tank ran out we all walked back before we fried.
A story on Hindsight has interrupted again; a familiar yarn about a walking talking “environmental computer” a pinner called Reg Morrison OA. This was all about water.
Steve, I suggest you talk to Ashley McKay, a farmer in western Qld who was persecuted all the way to the high court on an issue that the local magistrate ruled in his favour but which a bunch of departmental pond life, with public money, contested at every point until the high court ruled in Ashley’s favour on an issue that was obvious to blind freddy.
You clearly have not spoken to any farmers for years, or have done so with your head in an ideological paper bag. What is being done to the regional environment by ignorant urban political elites is criminal. And if you are in any way associated with urban dominated government, or the urban dominated green movement, then you need to recognise that the friendly and civil person who sold you the lunch and coffee, privately regards your kind as associates of the criminal class.
This is not some sort of isolated behavioural quirk here, it is a widespread response to the way people have been treated. And a response that is present over the entire range of personal profiles. It is especially strong amongst the people who are generally regarded as the community builders, the volunteers who make rural communities work.
Your apparent desire to have this discussion on a purely technical level, without regard for the perceptions and motivation of the people who are most exposed to the issue, and who will play the critical role in any solution, can only be regarded as evidence of denial.
I know the Woronora area well. And the water at the bottom of the gorge was irrelevant to what the fire, and the heat stream from it, was doing 50 metres above because each side was the same height. The other difference was that the edges that should have been back burned were full of houses, mulch, overhanging decks and, of all things, full $30,000 swimming pools without a $300 fire pump.
Furthermore, overhead sprinklers would not have worked because the mains pressure dropped because everyone was hosing their eaves with the down pipes unblocked. All that water went down the storm water drains.
And from a country perspective, these are the people who supposedly care most for the environment and elect the people who claim they know what is best for the regions.
Ian, you are correct – i dont speak to farmers, i live in sydney along with 4 million other people, and my work doesn’t have anything to do with land management, forestry or farming. I’m talking completely outside my sphere of experience on this particular thread about bushfire mitigation, but this being a blog, I paste up my thoughts and links to what i have read, and see what happens. Maybe I’ll learn something new.
You obviously speak to everyone though, you seem so very sure of how the quiet majority feels.
I like this one:
“…then you need to recognise that the friendly and civil person who sold you the lunch and coffee, privately regards your kind as associates of the criminal class.”
Not hysterical at all.
Nobody apart from fellow foresters and farmers and ultra-libertarian conspiracy theorists will listen to you with that Braveheart kind of attitude you got going. Maybe you’ll also be listened to by the odd political opportunist who wants to use the story of country hardship for their own ends.
Or by the odd urbanite greenie who has the stomach to persevere through your hysterical rantings and wait for the gems of knowledge. People like me. Or my mum. She listens to talkback radio, and hates to hear of the plight of poor rural landowners, the good soul she is.
Given that the majority of australians are urban dwellers, and the government therefore quite rightly puts more focus on urban issues, it looks like the ashley mackays of the world will have to largely get by without your assistance.
Because the bush needs practical, pragmatic, level headed people to represent their interests in the city (where the main spheres of influence quite rightly reside), people who can negotiate and debate without heat.
Who aren’t obsessed with how the country and the city differ, and so very bitter about it.
People who can accept that government policy and green thinking has been built on the legitimate but arguably sometimes overzealous urge to regulate the countless indviduals, farmers, agribusinesses, companies, industries, multi-nationals etc who have polluted the environment we all share, squandered resources, ruined land and thwarted the intention of existing law to satisfy their own ends, regardless of the impact on neighbours.
The bush needs people who can ensure that the legitimate needs of the country are incorporated into the formation of government policy, so that it is appropriate, fair and balanced, and limited to the necessary, and any mistakes are corrected. People who ENGAGE in good faith and with a calm demeanour.
Not parochial windbags who aren’t capable of accepting that the bush is not ALL or even most of what Australia is about anymore.
Urban dweller who knows everything that people in the bush need. Yeah, right, how refreshing, and novel.
You really don’t get it do you, Steve. Most people in the bush are so disgusted by the shoddy product being delivered by your urban majority that they just want you to crawl into a hole. The past three AGM’s of NSW Farmers have passed resolutions to investigate forming a new non-metropolitan state or states. It is hardly a fringe organisation although a twisted urban logic would grant more say in rural affairs to the more numerical sum of urban bus drivers on the bland rationale that “this is a democracy”.
My reference to the lady with the lunch was to a lady in the country being civil to visiting urban punters who can still open their mouth when right out of their depth.
More and more of us just want you and yours out of our space. You have stuffed up your own environment and are now destroying ours. You burn out 700,000 hectares of “our” forest and then bring in draconian laws to prevent 4,000 hectares of clearing by farmers each year.
We don’t want to consult with you, or advise you, or educate you, we’ve been there, done that. It is a complete waste of time. We want a big fence between your attention deficit and our solutions to our problems.
You are not part of the solution. Restore the Tank Stream to its former condition and then come and have a chat about the impact of development on the Murray Darling.
Ian – we’ve been here before have we not.
You’ll have to either stay bitter, secede, or get the guns out – as the urban majority will keep voting you down even if you’re right and they’re wrong.
“You have stuffed up our environment” – jeez –
urbanites have a fair bit to answer for don’t they?
so that explains rangeland degradation does it?
does that explain salinity and soil acidity?
does that explain over use of water in the Murray Darling?
does that explain weeds and feral animals?
does that explain why young people are deserting rural Australia?
How much of the rural problems are to do with urban Australia really?
Ian, I don’t know what country people need, but i think i know a bit better than you how they can realistically go about trying to get whatever it is they want.
Good luck with that practical idea of a new rural State – i can see that happening some time in the next million years.
POSTED FOR IAN MOTT
I forward this item from Ralph Baraclough, Fire Captain of Licola Vic. on the recent fire in the Grampians.
And Steve, this is par for the course all over regional Australia. And you have the gall to suggest that our concerns are fringe or hysterical and that your urban democracy is working for us. Ian Mott
“Well here it is, what really happened in the Grampians and remember there are two people dead because of this, it will be interesting to see just how the state government goes about covering it up. Full marks to John Vogels.
It will also be interesting to see how our Coroner preforms on this one.
Regards Ralph
Report on the Grampians fires written by local Upper House Liberal John Vogels MP
31 January 2006
I have spent the last couple of weeks meeting with local communities affected by the recent bushfires in the Western District.
During a recent visit to the fire ravaged Grampians Region, I received briefings by Ararat Rural City and Northern Grampians Council
representatives, the Municipal Emergency Coordinators, personnel from DSE and CFA, the VFF and the Incident Control Centre at Halls Gap, and many property owners affected.
I wish to firstly acknowledge all the volunteers who risked their lives to bring this fire under control and sympathise with those affected,
particularly those who lost loved ones, homes, stock and property.
The environment will now take many years to rejuvenate as approx. 70% of the Grampians National Park has been destroyed as well as a large slice of the Brisbane Ranges, not to mention the earlier fires at Tyrendarra and
Stawell.
Many landholders will never recover from this devastation despite the spin we are hearing from the Bracks Government regarding support packages. They pale into insignificance compared to the devastation and carnage that has
destroyed livelihoods in the Grampians Region.
Following my briefings, there is no doubt that the Grampians fire could have been controlled if local CFA personnel and CFA volunteers had been
allowed to act when the fire was first reported.
When investigated, an incident report will show that a single tree was reported burning in the Grampians National Park on Thursday 19th January.
However, little if any action was permitted due to bureaucratic red tape eg. damage to native vegetation in getting equipment to the seat of the fire.
By Friday 20th January, the fire had spread to approx. 40 hectares and once again locals demanded to be allowed to take in heavy equipment to tackle the fires. Once again, bureaucratic red tape caused delays.
We all now know that well over 100,000 hectares has been burnt in the Grampians area, not to mention loss of lives, 60,000 sheep, 200 head of
cattle, 1,200 beehives, thousands of native animals, flora and fauna, and personal property including 28 family homes, 10,000 tonnes of hay, the list goes on……
The Liberal Party will be demanding an Inquiry into the Grampians disaster, which possibly could have been avoided if the fire had been attacked when first reported.
The Bracks Labor Government being captive to the Greens is forever adding larger areas to our National Parks, especially prior to election time, but refuses to adequately maintain them.
I believe that if a fire starts in a State or National Park, which goes on to destroy private property and infrastructure which destroys the
livelihood of landholders due to a lack of fire mitigation works or failure to act when a fire is first reported, then the State Government should be liable and forced to compensate all those affected.
It is outrageous to hear the Premier and his Minister’s offering residents in fire affected areas that they can apply for $900 emergency grants and personal hardship grants up to $21,000 provided you are not insured or
underinsured and it is also means tested.
History shows that if you live close to a State Forest or National Park, you will be burnt out – it is just a matter of time if the State refuses to put in the resources for fire mitigation.
eg. In 2003-04, we lost a million hectares in the Alpine areas of East Gippsland. Last year, we managed to burn out Wilson’s Promotory. So far this season, we have managed to destroy the Brisbane Ranges and the Grampians National Park, and the Moondarra State Forest in Gippsland. The
heat of the summer and the worst bushfire season is always February (look out Otways).
It is interesting to note that there were hundreds of call outs during this heat wave across Victoria, including one on my property, and the only fires that burnt out of control for a week causing massive losses, were those that started in State controlled and owned Parks.
The evidence is overwhelming. A complete lack of access maintenance in our National Parks and the lack of fire prevention measures undertaken prior to bushfire seasons and an unwillingness to act by DSE and Parks Victoria at the critical time when a fire is reported.
A good example of bureaucracy occurred on my property on Sunday 22 January. In 40 degree plus temperatures, roaring Northerly winds, total fire ban day, lightning struck a 100 year old, 100 ft high gum tree which burst into flames. As soon as spotted, local CFA were alerted. First CFA truck arrived within 15 mins. Second in 20 mins. Managed to contain fire in and
around the burning gum tree with great difficulty and a third CFA truck was called in for support.
As this tree was hollow up centre, it became a roaring inferno with flames and sparks sprouting atop. Farm was under ember attack. It was decided by local CFA volunteers that the tree needed to be cut down to properly douse the fire.
However, this decision needed to be approved by DSE even though this tree was on private property. Some hours later a DSE Officer attended and gave permission for the tree to be cut down which he proceeded to do at great
danger to himself for by this time, this tree was an inferno which had been burning for some three hours or more.
In conclusion, instead of having one fire truck there for 30 mins to cut the tree down and douse the fire putting the whole district out of danger, three trucks actually attended over a five hour period, to stop the fire from spreading. Red Tape gone mad.
I have high regard for the excellent work our CFA personnel and volunteers carry out, who continually put their lives at risk.
In very difficult circumstances, DSE and Parks Victoria personnel also do an excellent job however, they are hamstrung by red tape and regulation imposed upon them by the Bracks Government.
For your interest, I attach a copy of my Adjournment Debate (Aug 2005) regarding Bushfire Mitigation and what action the Bracks Government is taking to prepare for this bushfire season. It is no surprise that to date, I have not yet received a response from Candy Broad, Minister for Local Government. I will of course be raising these matters further when Parliament resumes next week.
John Vogels
POSTED FOR IAN MOTT
Ian, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t misrepresent me.
I do not suggest that rural concerns are fringe, or that rural concerns are hysterical.
I suggested that YOU were hysterical on this blog, and that YOUR bitter approach of disengagement and dismissal of all things urban was not practical or useful to rural people, given that most people live in urban areas and that is where most decision making occurs.
Your concerns are real Ian, and your anger is understandable, but your approach isn’t the best way to get what you want.
I haven’t suggested that democracy is working for you – I have suggested that you should rethink your approach so that you can contribute effectively to making it work.
You can keep your us-vs-them world view if you want Ian, but don’t mispresent me to try and squeeze me into it.
Ian,
In WA we have a quasi-Marxist, centrally ‘planned’ forest management system. As I understand it, the politically appointed commissars of the Conservation Commission tell CALM and FPC what to do. The commissars in turn, seem to draw upon ideology.
As a draft idea, how about devolving control of all forests (and National Parks?) to the local government level? Ratepayers could then vote on what they want done in their own backyard, rather than being told by city-based commissars.
Should the forest be sustainably logged, so giving income to the local authority, or preserved for physical and spiritual recreation? Perhaps a mix?
How about prescribed burning? Would local ratepayers prefer protection and conservation by regular burning, or the life and property threatening fires which inevitably follow attempted blanket fire exclusion?
Might this be a workable, decentralised solution to the current series of fire disasters? Self-organisation at the local level, rather than naive attempted central control? We have seen the results of centrally planned economys. Are there still be a few in Africa (Zimbabwe) and South America (Bolivia, Venezuela)?
Decentralised forestry is not without precedent. I believe German forests have, since the Middle Ages, been controlled by local communities, with the Forstmeister an honoured post. I once saw a similar thing in South Africa, where the Pietermaritzburg Council had its own, presumably profitable, forest plantations.
If state departments, such as CALM, were abolished, their more competent staff should find ready employment with local government as ecologists, foresters and fire fighters. The Forest Products Commission could be converted to a Forest Research Institute, giving expert advice on forest management, protection and ecology to the shires (fee for service).
City councils would, of course, have no say in how rural communities choose to manage their forests, and the state government would shed a political hot potato, by distancing themselves from pestiferous and vociferous green parrots. They might also avoid looming ruinous class actions by victims of fires caused by silly, centralised policies. State governments would also reduce their staff, which should bring joy to any treasurer.
That’s an idea Davey.
Now who is presenting this idea to the right people?
Who is working out who the right people are?
Who is working out the best way to present this idea?
Who is researching the pros and cons of this approach to strengthen the case?
What are you doing to make it happen?
Do you have an answer to these questions?
Steve, you may interpret my written words as hysterical but those who actually know me would put “prone to hysteria” very low on my list of attributes. My views are confronting, particularly to smug and self satisfied urban day trippers who cannot conceive that a whole community of 1.6 million people in New North Wales and New Southern Wales (ie, more than SA) can look forward to the day when good (state boundary) fences make good neighbours. But being confronting is no excuse for you to describe them as hysterical. Unless you are only here as a propagandist anyway.
Right now the regional community has these uninvited guests who routinely raid the kitty, trash the bathroom, hog the remote and linger about the living room like a curried egg fart.
I think Davey Gam’s suggestion is an excellent one but no urban dominated government would give it a moments consideration. They get far too many cheap thrills at no cost to themselves with the status quo.
The only state government that would consider such an option is one made up solely of rural and regional communities.
Regarding DG’s suggestion:
Have you heard much about the New South Wales Catchment Management Authorities?
Heres a link:
http://www.cma.nsw.gov.au/index.html
“Thirteen Catchment Management Authorities (CMAs) have been established across the State by the New South Wales Government to ensure that regional communities have a significant say in how natural resources are managed in their catchments.”
A quick flick through their annual report
http://www.cma.nsw.gov.au/pdf/cma_ar_vol01.pdf
indicates that they have plenty of local landowners on their boards, many of whom participate in local bushfire committees after searching for the word ‘bushfire’. I didn’t see any specific actions relating to bushfire mitigation though.
Perhaps they would be a good vehicle through which locals could have a voice regarding bushfire management. Anyone have any thoughts?
I know of these CMAs, but have zero experience with how they work in practice, or how they are regarded by people living in the regions. I’d be interested to hear any experiences with them.
—
Ian I’m not here for propoganda, again with the paranoia!
I’d just prefer to debate with people who disagree with me than only with people who can’t show me anything different.
The way you smear and label public servants, greenies and urban people isn’t confronting, its just over the top, sometimes funny, but mainly a bit tired.
I hope that you and the supposed majority of regional people who you claim share your level of ire can continue to work to find practical ways to have a say, because if it is really true that the most popular preferred solution is simply to break off your own rural State, then its no wonder the bush is in a mess.
And who selected the members of the catchment committees, Steve? There are the token, minority local farmers reps but the rest are not elected by any representative process. They are appointed by the metropolitan dominated government, to deliver the desired outcomes of the metropolitan dominated government. It would be a joke if were not so disgusting. But the web site always looks good, so inclusive, so warm and fuzzy. Such a carefully orchestrated exercise in disenfranchising a constituency.
I have been riding shot gun on this stuff for 15 years, get real.
Davey: On the question of who minds the forests, I must ask readers to look briefly at say Japan. Those countries policies will affect ours. The 20/20 vision under all our RFA’s must also consider the state of play over there. We failed in recent decades to take heed of the overseas dilemma; it prematurely stripped our forests of ongoing assets.
Regional forest operations here over ran local operations long ago. Local mills disappeared all over at the whim of multinationals and that bad situation continues to some extent as old timber communities struggle to remain relevant in the global resource debate.
In my experience, small private holdings were the first to cash in what ever wood they could find. Our recovery requires quick crops, thickly grown in the short term .
Steve,
I can see you are passionate about this topic – good. I have not done any of the things you ask about. I have only floated an idea for discussion by people like your good self. If you disagree, that’s fine, I am old and ugly enough to accept that.
Perhaps its a bit of a tangent, but some decades ago, in the then Forests Department of WA, we did a survey on public preferences for forest recreation. The most popular picnic spots by far were not in native forest, but in pine plantations. People liked the ‘natural surroundings’. By initiating plantation forestry, local governments could generate income, create employment, and offer recreational opportunities for concrete-weary city dwellers, all in one hit.
Keep up your contributions – I think this is a very useful blog. I heard an idea from it used in parliamentary debate a while back, so it seems some of our movers and shakers do actually read it.
Davey said “so it seems some of our movers and shakers do actually read it”. I agree this is a very good learning exchange. Yes, Ian has invaluable knowledge to share that he could communicate more clearly and with more credibility if he stayed calm. Ian the recent disaster you raise above is the perfect leverage point from which to perhaps, finally get the bureaucrats to listen (even a little). (It’s unlike to help if you open the conversation by insulting them).
Ian unless you sincerely believe that in the near future you will be living in an independent agrarian state unaffected by the fire policies of neighbouring areas that might not belong to your state, then you need to keep trying to get your message across. This exchange is an opportunity to influence those dumb urban policy dictators. You actually have some of the people that you need to influence, here on this blog, listening to you! You never know who is lurking. Make good use of it.
Ian, if you’re normally calm face-to-face, even with people who question your position, then perhaps you’re experiencing *Cyber-disinhibition*:
“The tech problem: a major disconnect between the ways our brains are wired to connect, and the interface offered in online interactions. . . this disinhibition becomes far more likely when people feel strong, negative emotions. What fails to be inhibited are the impulses those emotions generate. . . The hallmark of a flame is that the same person would never say the words in the email to the recipient were they face-to-face. His inhibitory circuits would not allow it — and so the interaction would go more smoothly. He might still communicate the same core information face-to-face, but in a more skillful manner.”
http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_5.html#goleman
Deep in this blog is a plea. In April 2005 was a post from Val Jeffery asking for help with a petition.
Why has it got zero comments?
ionolsen23 I am really impressed!
1edb79f8cc5c Good work