A well thought out discussion paper Max, but the people who make the rules regarding forest management are still telling the Government that cool burning needs a scientific base.
Ignoring the fact that Creswick was not established 40,000 years ago when indigenous management was in force, it defies logic that in 1981 fuel reduction burning as a standard practice was abandoned. As a consequence of this, over the years fuel accumulated and the fires of 1998, 2003, 2007 and 2009 were quickly uncontrollable.
Until the green NGO's come to their senses and insist upon a high level of forest management we will continue destroying native flora and fauna habitat. Bare rocks after erosion have little capacity for colonisation
Once habitat is subjected to excessive heat it is only time before wind and rain erodes it.
Cost. The Bushfire Front Inc http://bushfirefront.com.au/opinion/occasional-papers Paper no 2 quotes cool burning cost as $50 per. This would total less than $20 million for 385,000 ha/pa. I don't know where your $80 per ha comes from. OK, so whats $10 million between friends.

When I saw this opinion piece in The Australian I tried to post this comment but comments had been closed after about five minutes...

Max Rheese "is secretary of the Victorian Lands Alliance, which includes the Australian Environment Foundation, Australian Motorcycle Trailriders Association, Australian Trail Horseriders Association, Mountain Cattlemen, Sporting Shooters Association of Australia, Victorian Association of Forest Industries, and the Victorian Game and Deerstalking Association."

This is predictable nonsense from the redneck lobby. Now that the woodchippers have plundered all but the last remnants of untouched native forest (and are on the nose with the public), the rednecks roll out their next gravy train...the "bushfire industry".

The largest fire in Victoria this season was started by loggers. They all jump on their dozers and make money they could only dream of making out of logging operations.

Of the 130,000 ha targeted for fuel reduction, most is in virtual wilderness not near the convoluted urban-rural interface of population centers. They've just burnt 7000ha near my property that was tens of kilometers from the nearest private properties. Who or what were they going to save? It will still burn. In fact, there is good evidence to suggest that the more you burn, the more likely the bush is to burn.

"The bushfire industry", watch out for a gravy train of rent seekers coming to an ecosystem near you soon.

Maate
You obviously have a problem with this article but I'm not sure why. Regardless of what you think about the groups represented by the author, they surely want the same thing as the environmental NGO's (which is where you appear to be coming from) - healthy forests and a reduced threat of bushfire.

I think you also have to stop thinking of fuel reduction burning as something that is only a tool to reduce the bushfire threat to human life and property. Equally as important is its role in reducing the severity of bushfire impacts on ecosystems. There are many examples since 2003 where fire severity mapping has shown that recently fuel reduced areas were far less impacted by bushfires and thereby provide refuges from which flora and fauna can recolonise the adjacent areas with heavier fuels which were completely devastated.

It seems to me that one of the problems that people such as yourself have with the concept of fuel reduction burning is that you equate it with the impacts of severe bushfire. However, fuel reduction is not total fuel removal because these fires are lit under cooler conditions when they burn slower and are far less intense, and usually burn in a manner that leaves patches of damper ground unburnt.

Burning in the remote areas away from private property is arguably as important as burning along the public private land interface. About 50% of the areas burnt each year by bushfire are ignited by lightning - often in remote country. Unless they can be quickly extinguished, they will grow and eventually threaten communities in more settled areas. This is essentially what happened in both 2003 and 2006-07. Reducing fuels broadly across the landscape even in remote areas also aids the protection of the community.

It is easy to say that there should be more burn-offs. It is much harder to specify exactly when conditions allowed for such a burn-off to happen in a controlled fashion.

I do like trees , scrub and large wildlife corridors well situated .

However,There is no doubt about it around habitation,unless we clear the trees , burn or mow the grass fire load under those remaining, Black Saturday will be repeated only with more damage,simply because the trees are still growing along with the fuel load !

What I can not believe and find absolutely absurd, as I drive along the new sections of the Calder Highway between Bendigo and Melbourne ,that the CFA has said it's fine for the Department of Mainroads and the DSE [ also a Fire -Fighter] to plant hundreds of thousands of scrubby plants and trees along this MAIN escape route for Catastrophic Fire Days !

Where is Bruce Esplin - The Emergency Services Commissioner ,has he NOTHING to do with planning ??

Where is the Foresight in the Planning?

This is the one well cleared SAFE AREA space available now to many of the public - it is being made into another guaranteed death trap with horrendous consequences .

Those responsible should be held to account !