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The Forum > Article Comments > New plan for Victoria needed in wake of the bushfires > Comments

New plan for Victoria needed in wake of the bushfires : Comments

By Gavan McFadzean, published 27/3/2009

Since Black Saturday one thing is certain, the rules about fire management have changed and a new approach is necessary.

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It would appear that the greens have entirely lost the plot. With the reckless policy of stopping fuel management, the damage to the environment was worse than if the recommended fuel management systems had been allowed.

None of the proposals mentioned in the article mention fuel management which would indicate that the terrible loss of life has had little impact on Gavin Mcfadzean, as he still pushes the lethal practise of laize faire environmental control.

The greens have a place as a social conscience, but allowing them to dictate policy where lives are concerned is like letting a teenager zonked on ectasy drive a school bus.

The two past royal commissions ignored by the greens provided sound recommendations. For god's sake implement them over fuzzy wuzzy ideals.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Friday, 27 March 2009 9:22:46 AM
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Shadow Minister,
I suggest you read the article again rather than scan it lest you make yourself look sillier than it appears.
• this is one group and is not the entire green movement.
• His article DOES talk about ‘scientific load clearing’
• The wilderness is a society is about wilderness what do you want them to say. Let concrete the lot?
• This article was measured and objective.
• It also mentioned fact about the grassland fires on private land first.
As for having all the answers of course not if they did then the RC would be unnecessary.
Clearly you have decided that the ‘greenies’ (who ever they are) are solely responsible. Rational thinking would be apposite
Posted by examinator, Friday, 27 March 2009 9:49:03 AM
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In response to 'Shadow Minister' re fuel reduction burns...
Fuel reduction makes some difference to fire intensity and spread in some conditions - those of low to moderate fire danger. The conditions in February were far outside the scale previously established to measure fire danger. In such conditions, fuel load is far less important in determining fire behaviour than are factors such as wind speed.
It is understandable that in the face of such great tragedy, people point to tangible actions (such as fuel reduction burns) that they feel would change the outcomes. We do not like to feel that there are events that we cannot control. However, the reality, according to current science is that 1) not all forest types can be cool-burned 2)many of the areas that burned in february either had regular fuel reduction burns or were grassland 3)in such extreme conditions (which are likely to increase in frequency of occurrence with ongoing climate change) fuel load has minimal influence on the behaviour of fire.
Further, I presume that many of the people who choose to live outside of urban areas do so _because_ of the forests, woodlands and other natural features that surround them. Degrading and destroying these features is then not really a solution at any level.

Finally, as the article mentioneds, it seems that the upcoming argument is not only about fuel reduction but also about salvage logging. I don't have any data, but it seems likely that this activity will increase the likelihood of future fires (by increased disturbance, including access and changing forest microclimates in the forest). I suggest that this, in addition to the obvious and direct ecological impacts should be matters of great community concern. The Victorian forests have suffered substantial damage - the deepening of this damage, which may prejudice their ability to recover should not be allowed to occur without being deeply questioned. This is not a time for opportunism in forest exploitation or scapegoating - it is a time for serious reflection on how we will protect our communities and ecosystems when such conditions arise again.
Posted by rosy apples, Friday, 27 March 2009 11:04:51 AM
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Actually examinator he does not.

" the protection of wildlife and their habitat through scientifically based fire management plans in remote areas and National Parks; "

Is not load management. In fact he does not even use the term load management, and it is clear from his "proposals" that land management and fire management are not synonymous with load management.

I hope for your credibility that you follow your own suggestion and actually read the article and my comment before making "silly" assertions.

Considering that the previous 2 royal commissions recommended load management as the primary tool for preventing loss of property and life, the only real reason I can see for an RC and a further report in 1 year is to delay any action or blame until the pain and anguish has faded.

The article is measured, but far from objective.

I don't hold the green movement responsible for the fires, but do blame them largely for the extent of the loss of life and property.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Friday, 27 March 2009 11:29:50 AM
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This is more spin from the so called Wilderness Society attempting to shore up its $10 million fund raising budget, after McFadzean’s disastrous appearance on Channel 7 when his outrageous claims were exposed by the bush fire victims.

Attempting to shift the blame from “green policies” that resulted in a build up of fire fuel loads on Black Saturday was tried on Channel 7 Sunday Night Program on, see http://au.tv.yahoo.com/video/-/watch/12047176. (You might have to watch an advert first)

The audience was not impressed when Gavan McFadzean, the Wilderness Society Victoria’s campaigns manager, tried to dismiss the need for fuel reduction. His credibility was questioned and found wanting.

One victim was so angry by the smooth response from this spin doctor, that he felt compelled to leave the studio rather than listen to “c**p”.

Now we have another dose, although ‘sugar coated” in spin.

Appearing on the same TV program was a real expert in fire scientist David Packham, who had warned of the disaster immediately prior to the fires and over 5 years ago. His report to the Nillumbik Ratepayers Association in 2003 on the bushfire threat to this “Green wedge shire” is chilling reading when almost half of the northern part of this shire was wiped out.

Sadly this report is still available on their web site http://www.nillumbikratepayers.asn.au/ (click on reports after watching the video) as well as the Association’s media release of 11 February 2009 that commences “We are all grieving at this dreadful loss of life…”

His conclusions were that the shire was living on borrowed time, that the prohibition on fine fuel reduction close to houses was a recipe for destruction and that the major bush fire threat comes from high fuel loads. He stated back then that the bushfire threat was extreme and ranked with the threat to Hobart before the 1967 fires.

Perhaps David’s report and that of fire chief Rod Incoll should be compulsory reading for McFadzean’s political lobby group.
Posted by cinders, Friday, 27 March 2009 11:30:14 AM
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As a local whose property was burnt and had to flee the inferno, I concur with the article in that it sends a resoundingly clear message - we haven't got the fire science right and the RC has an opportunity to achieve this. In 1939 Judge Stretton pronounced the blame for the ’39 fires on graziers, settlers and foresters in their misguided clearing, logging and burning of the land. In 2009 I fear, that again, it will come down to the hand of man, not tree, that will wear the onus of responsibility for Black Saturday.
From discussions with the experts (now forbidden to discuss their experiences by the arson squad and the states legal teams), the fires not only started due to arson, they ignited due to lightening in forests recently ‘fuel reduced’ whose flammability has been enhanced in the short term by such burning. Could it be that the hand of man has not only played a part in direct ignition but brocaded the lands with the drying effects of fuel reduction burns and logging and established fire highways upon which Black Saturday etched its historic path?
Today our shattered communities will be further traumatised by Vicforest’s burning their logging coupes and going in to salvage log over 1000 hectares of delicate forest - for what? Woodchips for Japanese owned mills not locals.
The risk that the Brumby government is willing to take by salvage logging around towns like Marysville is based on a 4 year electoral term and obligation to Japanese woodchip contracts .
What if this type of forest management is to blame? The science is now revealing that salvage logging makes the forests even more flammable than logging so should the Brumby government rebuild communities and surround them with logged forests, is this merely setting the pyre again? It won’t be Mr Brumby’s fault, for he will be long retired on his healthy pension but alas will fall on the fate of my children and many others who will still remember the day that the fires took our friends, our homes and our trust forever.
Posted by environment for everyone, Friday, 27 March 2009 11:50:46 AM
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Rosy apples,

No one is claiming that fuel load was the main cause of the fire, or the behaviour of the fire.

Fuel load increases the temperature and ferocity of the fire at that particular point. Reducing fuel load near populated areas will not stop all damage as seat belts in a car do not stop all fatalities.

However, it would save many lives as the previously mentioned royal commissions have found.

Will a third RC find any different? I doubt it. Gavan McFadzean's campaign is another example of an armchair city dwelling eco warrior pushing his own agenda in spite of the harm it has caused in the past.
Posted by Democritus, Friday, 27 March 2009 11:57:43 AM
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Shadow Minister, Democritus.

If you were better informed with environmental planning you would know that the sentence SM highlighted was enviro speak for the same thing only more accurately/diplomatically expressed. This was to exclude environmentally ignorant individuals with a chainsaw, bulldozer and burner doing more long term damage. (See CSIRO report on warming). And in the final analysis not achieving any more safety.

As the ranger from the affected area said he hasn’t seen an environmental management plan that doesn’t stipulate including firebreaks, burning off, clearing (reducing fire loads) etc. It is impossible to maintain species habitats without the above.

I repeat you show me the scientific based group that says no clearing (of fire load etc) it is monumentally ill informed to lump all environmentally concerned individuals into some pejorative title ‘greens or greenies’.

The article alludes to a number of other causes to the intensity of the blaze.
Including to drying because of loss of green covering in the south of the continent.
As is the authors’ clear intention is that the issue is far too complex for prejudicial knee jerk reactions….”the green(ies) are to blame” simply because there were many factors. This includes a public who want everything but doesn't want to pay thus ham stringing the government's spending priorities, relevant depts etc.

Your simplistic approach is myopic, selfish, uninformed and as such INSULTING to those who are responsible, thoughtful and environmently aware. To make my point how much environmental hands on work have you done? courses? etc.
Posted by examinator, Friday, 27 March 2009 1:04:26 PM
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I think there are enough facts out now to end the "greenie bashing" since the tragedy.
Have any of the greenie bashers been out to the fire site or spoken to the locals? Crown fires fanned by 100kph winds don't mess around with undergrowth, they vaporise the crown leaves and jump hundreds of meters. It does work, but not for 100% of fires 100% of the time.
"environment for everyone" raises excellent points: Fuel reduction burning is *not* a panacea, and actually has risks, not least being loss of life caused by reduction burning.
OK, some councils stuffed up by not allowing clearing. I'd suggest this is the usual council bullying and incompetance rather then the impact of true "green" influence.
So to reiterate: this is not a case of Left/Right, Business vs Greenies. This is complex governance issue and the Wilderness society is one of the *expert* contributors. The "all greenies are bad" brigade should stick to economics where everyone is a hack.
Posted by Ozandy, Friday, 27 March 2009 1:12:04 PM
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This is a considered and softly measured article from an organisation seemingly shell-shocked and fearful that the community may at last recognise that it has long been conned by the core message that 'saving' forests is as simple as closing down the hardwood timber industry.

Given this, it is surprising [and disappointing] that Gavan would continue to appeal to his organisation's core constituency by using the fires as a lever to sustain the irrelevant anti-logging stance. I refer to the sixth point of the Wilderness Society's bushfire action plan, and the appeal to prevent timber salvage.

It is also curious that Gavan believes 'the debates of the past about how to prepare for and manage bushfire .... are debates of the past' given that almost every 'green' spokesperson since the fires has been at pains to say that they have never opposed activities such as fuel reduction burning. Where is the debate?

In truth, there has never been much debate about fire because the 'green' groups have been so obsessed by logging, despite being constantly told that fire is overwhelming a more important issue. It seems that this is set to continue with only minor dilution.

Gavan has in fact constructed a fairly good argument for increased fuel reduction burning as reducing the intensity of summer fires is one of the few actions that will benefit the environment. Instead though, he implies (without ever stating the dreaded "FRB" phrase) that this would be like 'declaring war on the forest'. Go figure!

The article's primary message is that "the rules we all understood about fire management have now changed and a new approach is necessary" Not withstanding that the Wilderness Society have not understood or cared much about fire in the past, it seems that this pronouncement is a precursor to an "its all about climate change" campaign. If this succeeds in stymeing long overdue revisions to the approach and resources for public land fire management it will indeed be like declaring war on biodiversity and water.
Posted by MWPOYNTER, Friday, 27 March 2009 4:01:08 PM
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The simple point is that we can not exclude fire from the South East corner of Australia. The sooner that one fact is burned into everyone's mind the better.
On Sunday 22nd of March (last Sunday) a electrical storm passed across the northern Monaro and started many fires, some of which are still burning behind containment lines today.
Mother Nature started these fires so we better learn to live with her capricious acts and accept fire as a part of our day to day environment, both the good and the bad aspects of a fire in the Australian bush.
Posted by Little Brother, Friday, 27 March 2009 5:12:44 PM
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Suggested reading
http://www.abc.net.au/blackfriday/aftermath/dpackham.htm

I would also opine that less fuel on the forest floor would result in less fires caused by lightning strikes as well as reducing the ability of a fire to reach the crowns. David Packham and his fellow scientists have been researching fires for several decades and they seem to have got a very good handle on what is required but most of the recommendations of these very experienced fire scientists have gone unheeded because the opposition from the environmental movement has got the governments of all persuasions scared of losing their vote.

A few comments about salvaging the burnt timber are also in order. The "greenies" are making it sound as though all that will happen is that this timber will be cut and the area left to become a bare wilderness. The truth of the matter is that within a short period of time, all sorts of plants will spring up and without doubt, whoever is responsible will be spreading seeds of the species of trees which have been destroyed, so that in twenty years time, a vibrant forest will again be growing. This is exactly what happens as the result of planned logging, except that in the latter environment, old stags are left as habitat for the wild life, such as the revered Leadbeaters Possum, which then has a superabundance of young gum leaves to eat.

David
Posted by VK3AUU, Friday, 27 March 2009 7:49:07 PM
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It continues to amaze me that the "green" movement is forever slandered, despite the fact that raging bushfires have occurred long before the green movement was born. These bushfires occurred despite the fuel reductions which had been carried out for many decades, prior to the birth of environmentalism.

I am particularly concerned that the forestry and logging industry continue to duckshove in their endeavours to find scapegoats, when it is clear that logging and felling of forests has a drying effect thereby reducing the moisture content of these forests and making them more flammable which would surely exacerbate the fire risk.

As I alluded to in another post, this year's forecasts from respected climate scientists predict the return of El Nino which heats the planet. These predictions contain a grim warning that extreme temperatures will again place Australia's forests at grave risk:

"Given our expectation of the next El Niño beginning in 2009 or 2010, it still seems likely that a new global temperature record will be set within the next 1-2 years, despite the moderate negative effect of the reduced solar irradiance.”

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/
Posted by Protagoras, Friday, 27 March 2009 8:15:32 PM
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I might also add that contrary to the preface to this piece by Gavan where he says "Since Black Saturday one thing is certain, the rules about fire management have changed and a new approach is necessary", the rules have not changed at all, it is just that the Greens have finally admitted that their credibility is shot and a new approach based on real science is necessary.

David
Posted by VK3AUU, Friday, 27 March 2009 8:21:13 PM
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Greenies? Greenies? Less than 10% of the vote, and somehow they are responsible for all the damaging political decisions? Sounds a lot like scapegoating to me. But what is a more plausible explanation? How about people wanting to sell property in the area decided that if there were trees all over the place, it might be of more appeal to the tree changers, and so attract a higher price? The close alliance of property developers and councils is commonplace: Stop everyone cutting down trees and dont things look pretty? When things catch on fire you blame those rotten greenies. How sweet. Now let's see if we can weave Jewish bankers, homosexuals, the severely disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses and Gypsies into this tapestry of blame, and give the bigots a little satiety.
Posted by Fester, Friday, 27 March 2009 8:48:59 PM
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The whole blame for the burning of Victoria rests with the Judges and Magistrates of Victoria who have allowed the Parliament of Victoria to dictate results to them in their Courts. These nasty vindictive people who are nothing more than State appointed atheists, have over the past ten years punished everyone who would have saved their property, by clearing trees and undergrowth, by heavy fines, and not one of them has understood the consequences.

The extraordinary influence of the green lobby is only possible because at grass roots level, where most decisions should be made, the Judges and Magistrates of Victoria never call together a grass roots political meeting any more. If the Judges and Magistrates would do their job, in the Christian tradition adopted by the English Catholics in 1297, and abolished by the State Government in 1986, after the Australia Act 1986 was passed without referendum, and give every person charged with destroying a tree or conducting a precautionary burn, a jury trial, then many houses and lives would have been saved.

The Judges and Magistrates of Victoria whose courts should sheet the damage wholly home to the State government, and award total compensation to the victims, by being Australian courts, not Victorian Courts, will probably not do so.

The Commonwealth has created another alternative Court system, but that system is also a rort system. The Federal Courts of Australia are manned by the same type of egomaniacs who have caused this holocaust and although the Judges of the Federal Court of Australia can sit with juries at the expense of the Commonwealth they refuse to convene an Australian court.

Judges and Magistrates lack education. They should have realized the Australia Act 1986 continued the Australian Courts Act 1828 in S 11; an Australian court, is a court with a Judge/Justice, a jury of 12 local people with absolute power to call to account whatever maniacal legislation the central government tries to impose upon them. An Australian court was a local grass roots political meeting, that unlike the local CWA or Rotary Club, had real political power
Posted by Peter the Believer, Saturday, 28 March 2009 4:16:10 AM
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Examinator,

Your comments of

"If you were better informed with environmental planning you would know that the sentence SM highlighted was enviro speak for the same thing only more accurately/diplomatically expressed."

Does not mean that Gavan McFadzean implied that fuel load management was included.

As Cinders pointed out, his previous platforms have been strongly anti fuel reduction, and to infer here that he implied it is a little fanciful.

Having lived in a small town on a small holding on the fringe of national park, I am only too aware of the huge expense and bureaucratic run around that anyone trying to clear a fire break around his own home is given to get a permit.

The "scientific" planning procedures are sufficiently vague and open to interpretation to ensure that anyone trying to clear land is strangled with red tape and bankrupted before any clearing takes place.

It was only after the fires of 2003 that a previously rejected plan was passed as the council found itself facing an electoral lynch mob.

So before you hop on your soap box and start waving your pieces of paper, I have a mum with a PhD in Botany / Zoo and has years in agricultural / environmental planning and research, and combined with my masters (perhaps not in a directly related field) I am far from ignorant of the complexities of environmental planning, nor blind to what damage can be done. I have also done my share of cleaning up and rehabilitation.

My approach has been deliberately simplistic to counter the miasma of pseudo intellectual "anything you do will hurt the environment thus anything you do must be analyzed in triplicate at your expense and approved by a twit with a 12 month TAFE certificate" obfuscation.

My call is also simple. A simple set of guide lines for anyone wishing to clear land / reduce fuel load should be published with clear dos and don'ts, so that Joe Blogs can protect his family without damaging the environment or facing a $50 000 fine from bureaucratic pin heads.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Sunday, 29 March 2009 1:49:44 AM
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I see this article as simply an effort to try and deflect some of the criticism coming the way of greenie type groups in the wake of the recent Victorian fires. The author suggests climate change as a factor and also throws in the strawman of salvage harvesting to move the debate away from the greenie groups influence on preventing and delaying bushland fuel reduction programmes.

There is no doubt there has been a major influence by greenie groups in the adoption of policies by local councils and a multitude of government departments.

Having been involved in trying to get fire trails established and fuel reduction burns in large areas of bushland, I can tell you there is seemingly no end to the objections and delays such proposals encounter. All due to the flawed greenie ideology of 'no entrance or interferance'

Not only does one face local council hurdles but objections from greenie groups directly, then many Government authorities also having a say and influence. People such as National Parks, Forestry, Soil conservation, catchment authorities. Enviromental studies, aboriginal studies and archeological studies can be required. This can halt or delay the proposal for years. Consequently no where near enough is done.

I agree with Shadow Minister that simple guidelines are needed and the emphasis put back on the saving of life and property rather than some greenie groups ideology.
Posted by Banjo, Sunday, 29 March 2009 12:36:54 PM
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Banjo, I have only one thing to say regarding your post.

HEAR HEAR!

I can only hope that enough people think thusly!
Posted by Maximillion, Sunday, 29 March 2009 11:20:33 PM
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Apart from the practises of forestry management (and arsonists), the tragic loss of 210 human lives cannot be entirely attributed to the intensity of Victoria’s bushfires.

Residential encroachment on to Australia’s forested areas has resulted in placing more lives at risk.

Property development has increased the need for extensive land clearing, resulting in the destruction of animal habitats, beneficial native plants, contamination of soil and waterways, freshwater fish and the ongoing demise of beneficial insects and tiny organisms which once contributed to a healthy ecosystem.

Astonishingly, Australia’s fragile biodiversity continues to be seriously threatened by the forest and logging industry's poisoning by pesticides, insecticides and fungicides - some banned in other countries.

The use of the 1080 chemical ceased in the US in 1974.

Despite bans and restrictions in other nations on these chemicals (including a ban by the International Forestry Stewardship Council on triazine herbicides) Australia's forestry industry exempts itself and continues the aerial spraying and ground use of chemicals which are suspected or known carcinogens, developmental or reproductive toxins, endocrine disruptors and water contaminants.

Herbicides linked with cancer are being used at four times recommended levels and those responsible should be jailed, a Senate committee has been told in May 2008.

The triazine family of chemicals, was considered to be carcinogenic and their use should be more tightly regulated, NSW Liberal senator Bill Heffernan said.

Senator Heffernan grilled officials from the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority, who said they did not directly supervise herbicide use and did not keep data on how much was used.

"I will not accept that you can't find out or you don't know, it's bloody simple," he told the bureaucrats.

The whole issue of our toxic forestry management is trading on a lie, perpetrated by the double agents in industry and government who forget that Australia's forests belong to 21 million people who will not be gagged by industry's false prophets.

The shonky and patronising bureau-speke of these double agents, their gratuitous chemical carnage and raping of Australia's forests is entirely buoyed by their neanderthal mindsets and vested interests.
Posted by Protagoras, Monday, 30 March 2009 1:31:16 PM
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I can expand on any of the following statements if requested but the facts as I see them are:
* the Wilderness Society exists to try and achieve political change. It unashamedly uses the environment as an emotional tool to achieve that change
* the lessons learned from bushfire reviews and Royal Commissions have rarely been put into full effect except in Western Australia where the lessons learned from the 1961 Dwellingup fires have been acted upon
* The Society's call to improve aerial surveillance to detect bushfires as soon as they start is not new and, even if fully implemented, would not have made much difference in Victoria on Black Saturday
* if money is no object, then the use of hi-tech, quick response capability, including more “Elvis” helicopters to fight bushfires as soon as they ignite might be worthwhile, but this recommendation does nothing to help protect life, property or environmental values if the high-tech response fails (as it will) in extreme weather conditions
* the Society's call for more research into fire behaviour and the impact of fire on wildlife and their habitat is a diversion: high quality research has been done for decades around Australia - we know how fires behave and what the consequences of wildfires are
Continued on the next post......
Posted by Bernie Masters, Monday, 30 March 2009 1:52:18 PM
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* their call to prioritise the protection of life and property with fuel reduction and firebreak management plans around towns and urban areas has some merit, but leaves unanswered the potential to have huge unmanageable fires burn out all other parts of the forest estate, with devastating consequences for the environment
* their call to "prioritise the protection of wildlife and their habitat through scientifically based fire management plans in remote areas and National Parks" is strange as this is what is happening in WA right now, assuming the state government adequately funds their state agencies
* saving the silliest comment till last, the Society's statement that we should aim to make "native forests resistant to mega-fires by protecting old growth forests, rainforests and water catchments from woodchipping and moving logging into existing plantations" shows their absolute ignorance of what happens in some forest ecosystems. In the WA karri forest and in the eastern state's mountain ash forests, it is the one in 100 or 200 year fires that kill the existing trees and create the conditions for new forests to start growing from seed. There is no such thing as a genuinely old "old growth karri forest" in WA as fire always kills them every couple of hundred years, stimulating the growth of a new forest.

Please, don't believe what these snake oil salespersons from the Wilderness Society are saying. As players in Australia's political system and, with Peter Garrett (a former president of the ACF) now the federal environment minister, they are trying to maximise their influence and political outcomes. The Victorian bushfires have created a serious credibility problem for their anti-development attitudes towards forests so they are trying to re-build credibility by making statements that superficially seem balanced and science-based but in fact are biased and mostly based on emotion.
Posted by Bernie Masters, Monday, 30 March 2009 1:54:56 PM
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It is pretty simple really. Respect that private landowners should be allowed to safeguard their homes and lives by clearing trees and bushes that they consider are a danger on their freehold property.
Environmentalism has become a means of controlling landowners and is straight out of the Marx book on communism. Australia has fallen into the trap of listening to these so called knowledgable people but they have been duped.
Environmentalism is a socialist tool as far as I am concerned.
Without our freedom to control what we do with our land we won't have any freedom.
Posted by 4freedom, Monday, 30 March 2009 3:39:27 PM
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Bernie, If you want to find a snake oil salesman, look no further than yourself:

”the lessons learned from bushfire reviews and Royal Commissions have rarely been put into full effect except in Western Australia where the lessons learned from the 1961 Dwellingup fires have been acted upon”

WA’s Bushfire Front's committee of eight comprises of self-professed experts – all have had over 40 years experience in bushfire research and management, prevention and control, hands-on fire-fighting and land use planning and land management. One member is Roger Underwood, former General Manager of CALM in WA, a regional and district manager, a research manager and bushfire specialist.

The following excerpts, which the committee published last month, are in complete contradiction to the nonsense you peddle:

“We have one over-riding concern:

“A catastrophic bushfire crisis is imminent in Western Australia unless decisive action is taken to avert it. By this we mean a Canberra-style disaster on the fringes of Perth or extensive damage to a major southwest town such as Bridgetown, Denmark or Margaret River.

“Alternatively, the disaster could be a major forest fire with large-scale loss of old growth karri forest, disastrous impacts on associated birds and animals, and pollution of water supplies.

“Such a disaster is not just possible but highly probable.'

Interestingly, in 2007, Underwood wrote of the wholesale destruction of WA’s remaining jarrah forests by Alcoa’s bauxite mining. Unbelievably he went on to cluck about Alcoa as "an efficient and clever organisation and it is a pleasure to see the professional way in which they have approached their operational and research obligations."

Unable to refrain from expressing his hatred of environmentalism, he then insisted that environmentalists are to blame for Alcoa's vandalising of the jarrah forests because they failed to campaign against Alcoa. He speculated that their passivity may be because “they have been bought off”, presumably by the company whose professionalism he so admires.

These are the hypocritical delusions of those plundering our forests, whose farcical, forest management contains a treacherous incubator of errors - conveniently attributed to the faceless greenies. Who would believe such nonsense?

http://savingiceland.puscii.nl/?p=3185&language=e
Posted by Protagoras, Monday, 30 March 2009 6:23:18 PM
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There is no need for a Royal Commission and John Brumby should NOT be congratulated for calling one.
Public television and some of its journalists need a wake up call. Just because we have had some very hot weather doesn't mean that people should be narcisstically and indulgently suggesting we need bunkers and space age housing designs to allegedly reduce the risk of homes being lost. This is all nonsense.
The real elephant in the room for those who vote Green and also for the ALP and Coalition who take Green preferences, is back-burning each year in the cooler months.
Any park ranger can tell you this.
Farmers who cleared up branches and debris and saved their properties were fined by the Vic State Govt.
Time for an end also to secular liturgies for the deceased as organised by the Victorian Government. Leave that to the Church to organise; the Church whose laws you politicians love to flout and the Church you love to hate.
The NCC and DLP have proven to be correct all along about the real causes of events eg bushfires, river conservation, ethanol, keeping manufacturing here in Oz; giving workers trade union strength through pre 1980s laws etc. The Libs and their opposite number the God hating Left and secular humanists continue to rely on media mates to spin out the lies to deny the facts every time.
A Royal Commission and congratulations for Brumby?!. Get a life !
Posted by Webby, Monday, 30 March 2009 7:19:53 PM
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Webby,

The only person who was reported in the press and on TV as being fined was someone who illegally cleared 100 metres around his house and who had cars and a shed well within that 100 metres burnt. If everyone cleared 100 metres around their houses, there would hardly be a tree standing in the townships in the fire areas. People like living in treed environments – that’s why they moved there.

The DLP’s environmental objective can be found below:
‘In order to bring about this free and just democratic society, the DLP is pledged to the following political principles –

‘The creation of a nation economically strong, nationally secure, fully employed, in which poverty shall have no part, with the greatest possible educational opportunities and the highest possible moral and cultural values, and dedicated to the principles of liberty and peace….

‘The protection and conservation of our natural environment and the planned use of natural resources in recognition of the close relationship between man and nature and the finite nature of the earth’s resources.’
(The DLP Looks Ahead, 1976)
In other words, the DLP believed in the protection of the natural environment.

The implication that the DLP was a Church party is also false. While the majority of its members were Catholics, that was simply a consequence of Catholics being more anti-communist than others. It was a secular party founded by those anti-communists expelled by the left-wing controllers of the ALP in the 1950s and it welcomed those of all religions and those of none.

The implication that the DLP and the NCC were the same is also false. Many DLP members, including former MHRs Stan Keon and Bill Bourke, were anti-NCC.

A Royal Commission is a sensible step. The real debate will come when its findings are handed down.

Chris Curtis
(Vice President, Victorian DLP, 1976-78)
Posted by Chris C, Monday, 30 March 2009 9:35:21 PM
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Chris,

You have obviously misread the reports. The farmer cleared trees upto 100m from the farm house. The majority of the clearing was no more than 50m.

The present municipal bylaws allows only 6m from the house, which is clearly ridiculous.

Permits are then required for anything further. That the farmer went too far is probably not in doubt, but even if he had cleared 10m he would have been in breach and still would not have done enough.

He would have had more chance of falling pregnant than getting a permit to clear 30m.

When laws are unreasonable, reasonable people are outlaws.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Tuesday, 31 March 2009 7:35:05 AM
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The flow of donations into the wilderness society's fund raising buckets has almost dried up by the drought caused by the Sydney Morning Herald article on the Victorian bushfires published immediately after the disaster and reflecting the emotion of many of the victims.

“It wasn't climate change which killed as many as 300 people in Victoria last weekend. It wasn't arsonists. It was the unstoppable intensity of a bushfire, turbo-charged by huge quantities of ground fuel which had been allowed to accumulate over years of drought. It was the power of green ideology over government to oppose attempts to reduce fuel hazards before a megafire erupts, and which prevents landholders from clearing vegetation to protect themselves.” So wrote Miranda Devine in her article “Green ideas must take blame”.
See http://www.smh.com.au/environment/green-ideas-must-take-blame-for-deaths-20090211-84mk.html

Before dismissing this article as green bashing, the SMH who sponsors Earth Hour, quoted Dr Phil Cheney, the former head of the CSIRO's bushfire research unit and one of the pioneers of prescribed burning. He said if the fire-ravaged Victorian areas had been hazard-reduced, the flames would not have been as intense.

Yet many have already claimed he was wrong as even where fuel reduction was carried out it did not prevent the fire or stop it. Yet Dr Cheney and other real fire experts do not make this claim, but that reducing fuel decreases the intensity of the inevitable fire and gives hope to be able to fight it. Clearing fuel loads near your residence, gives a better chance to save your home.

Due to the preference system and the unwieldy Senate paper we now have the greens, with a vote of less than 10%, having huge influence over mainstream politics, a bit like the tail wagging the dog. Who can forget the 2004 election when the ALP adopted the greens forest policy, and the last minute change by the Liberals not to out-green the ALP, and instead save the jobs of working families.

Major political parties must heed the lesson from this tragedy and refuse to make deals with the greens.
Posted by cinders, Tuesday, 31 March 2009 3:32:42 PM
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Chris,

30 to 40 metres will do. Just because some inner city 'don't have a clue' hobby idealists moved to rural Victoria to hug trees doesn't mean that we go along with them in their naiveity, does it? There'd still be trees aplenty left in the national parks. The number of dwellings in towns outnumbers the number of farms. This means that farm properties engaged in land clearing around their homes and assets is not a problem. Still plenty of bush after any clearing. Towns mainly need clearing just around them. That's not asking too much. Thus not a problem for the precious trees.
The DLP in NSW do not believe in supporting stupidity and thus hobby idealists should never be catered for or pandered to. I leave that to the self indulgent on the ABC's pseudo -intellectual Q & A programme and SBS's programme with Jenny Brockie ( boy was she silly tonight ! pandered to sexual deviants and libertines just like on Q & A the other night. Senator Conroy gets 110% for commonsense over the invited flips. I do digress; hope you see the point I am making.)
Stupidity has no rights.
A fully employed rural sector can create many jobs in back-burning Chris. Preferencing Greens is an immoral value not a moral one and hence not in line with DLP policy. There is no "liberty" in placing hobbyist starry eyed city migrants to the bush fantasies over the common sense of rural folk who have lived there for generations and have more commonsense. As for "poverty" you need more than full employment. Wages and conditions based on strong unions is the way ahead; not National Party supporting farmers who have traditionally paid low wages to agriculture workers.

Re: Bourke and Keon. So what!
I am from a younger generation schooled in Young Labor and the ALP. Left them on good terms. Just think the DLP is better. I can see you didn't get the constitutional majority required to wind up the DLP. John Mulholland provided organic continuation of the Party;legally validated.
Posted by Webby, Tuesday, 31 March 2009 9:13:51 PM
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Chris

The Royal Commission will result in getting Brumby and previous governments including the Coalition, off the hook. Royal Commissions are often set up with the terms of reference framed so that the government of the day is never to blame.

Yet someone ( plural) is to blame for the nearly 200 deaths in Victoria.

Now as for the DLP being a secular Party. I never said or implied different. As for the NCC, I am a member. I think it has great ideas and policies which any political party can take up to their betterment. I personally dislike some of the pro Coalition and pro Family First/CDP leanings of some of its members. But hey ! So what. That's life. I generally associate with the pro ALP/pro DLP secular and religious within it. It is a civic organisation non aligned to any political party. That is how it should be today. However, its five primacies can be taken up from a Laborite persepctive. That is where I am coming from Chris. I support ALP candidates where there is no DLP candidate so long as they are pro life and pro trade union and pro protection, anti privatisation. Grassroots Labor that rank and file within DLP and ALP share in common.
If an ALP candidate is not the above but favours big immigration and loss of Aussie identity or supports the selling of our resource industry to Chinese sovereign funds etc then I wipe them. The letter 'A' in ALP means nothing to many of them today.
Posted by Webby, Tuesday, 31 March 2009 9:26:25 PM
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“There'd still be trees aplenty left in the national parks. The number of dwellings in towns outnumbers the number of farms. This means that farm properties engaged in land clearing around their homes and assets is not a problem.”

Not a problem, Webby? You ignore official statistics. The agricultural industry occupies almost two thirds of Australia’s land mass and for those who remain in denial, turn away now.

Upwards of 90 per cent of some native vegetation communities in the Southwest Australia region have been cleared, largely for agriculture.

Whether pastoral leases or agricultural freehold, the agricultural industry has over-cropped, over-grazed, over-cleared and are continuing to do so.

The public and environmental good has been neglected through government ignorance. Successive governments have favoured private land property ownership in rural areas and the land clearing continues.

Seemingly you have little comprehension of Australia's salinity and desertification problems or of the current pressing need to retain what is left of natural forests, undisturbed soils and carbon sinks.

Over 67 million hectares of Australia – an area bigger than France – burnt in 2002-03 due to unplanned grass and forest fires.

But if you wish to know who was responsible for the lack of prescribed burning in the Victorian bushfires, consult with the chief fire officer in Cinders' (a most insensitive pseudonym) link where he acknowledged, with great discomfort, that it's "catch-up" time for fuel reduction. Is he the detestable "greenie" to whom you all refer?

The inconsiderate urban brigade with their large carbon footprints, who are exacerbating the present (and future) dire situation of Australia’s climate impacts by land clearing to set up house in our fragile native forests, must accept the consequences of their own imprudent actions.
Posted by Protagoras, Tuesday, 31 March 2009 11:07:12 PM
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Protagoras is about as wrong as a person can be while pontificating on his version of how he sees the world. Most of the clearing that occurred in south west WA was of woodland and scrub/heath, certainly not jarrah and karri forests over which the greenies wage war against almost any commercial use. The 67 million hectares of fires last year were mostly in northern Australia's grasslands and central arid spinifex country, mostly lit by lightning strikes. The size of these fires is a serious environmental threat and a return to Aboriginal fire regimes is urgently needed.
Salinity in south west WA is serious but it's slowing, in part because of reduced rainfall and in part because of revegetation and the construction of deep drains. The solutions aren't perfect but they're improving all the time.
Like the USA and Europe, Australia's forests are expanding thanks to plantations. Again, they're far from providing the environmental values of a natural forest but they're a great improvement than grazed or cropped farmland for many birds and animals.
Posted by Bernie Masters, Tuesday, 31 March 2009 11:25:32 PM
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Shadow Minister,

I stand corrected about the distance of clearing but not about the fact that things inside the cleared area still burnt. There needs to be a balance in these things. I live in the Shire of Nillumbik, an area affected by the bushfires. It is in one of Melbourne’s designated Green Wedges (a policy the Bolte Government adopted in 1968), and I would hate to see the whole shire become another urban area because of excessive subdivision and tree-clearing. People live here because they like the natural environment.

Webby,

I think you need a more sophisticated approach to trees. We live here because we like trees. We actually plant them. If people do not like the natural environment in this area, they can choose not to come here. There are plenty of growth corridors set aside for urban development.

The Royal Commission’s terms of reference are very broad, and no one will get off the hook.

I know that John Mullholland argues that as the DLP did not have a constitutional provision for disbanding common law rules require a special majority. Whether he is legally right or not is never going to get to court because there was no registration of political parties in those days those of us who disbanded the DLP are not going to take a case – lack of money and lack of point being the reasons. I am satisfied that we did the right thing. We had 10 full-time staff, we had regularly raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past (millions in today’s dollars) we could man the booths, we could letterbox the state, but we did not have enough people left to approach our c18,000 potential donors, and the votes just weren’t there any more. Jim Brosnan said he did not want to be secretary of a party that operated from someone’s kitchen table. I still agree with him.

(Senator Conroy was particularly patient on Insight, just as he was on QandA, in explaining the same thing again and again. He did a good job.)
Posted by Chris C, Wednesday, 1 April 2009 9:14:36 PM
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Chris,

Policy should not be decided by people with starry eyed views placing their lack of reality upon their environment. This is post modernist selfishness. Governments that pander to this pantheism are being irresponsible. Tree clearing doesn't have to mean excessive subdivision however, if more people do wish to move out of Melbourne why should the selfish views of existing former city farm hobby yuppies try to stop them? Decentralisation would be a great way to live for families and a great way to break up old unprinciples Right and also abortion loving Lefties from the inner city and wealthy suburbs, don't you think? Jobs closer to home in rural communities does make for less gothic extended university promiscuousness and to larger families. I think this would be a great way to undermine the growth of the chattering classes.
Chris, your view isn't very sophisticated and you are sounding like an ALP apologist drone. All those trees you "actually" planted , are now literally up in smoke. Nature never forgives post modernists. God forgives though.

The Royal Commission is just another junket. They usually are.

Mulholland is legally and morally right. You failed to have the required two thirds back then. Chris don't be such a snob. It is better to work from a kitchen table than to operate from a corporate boardroom and jeopardise your soul.

Yes Conroy did a very good job considering that much of the audience sadly are of the narcissistic and cynical corporate variety , only interested in either profit or libertine promiscuity or both. My wife thought the same. We are not oldies Chris. We have two children under five and we despise the types of narcisstic audiences sadly becoming more representative though still a minority albeit very noisy. Maybe a good thing from 300,000 plus immigrants p.a. Chris will be to outnumber the promiscuous Anglo-Celts. I'd like to think so.
Posted by Webby, Wednesday, 1 April 2009 10:37:48 PM
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