Until the Greens understand that Australian forests are different to the deciduous forests of Europe and Asia they will continue to advocate locking up our forests.
In 1981 the Cain Government saw a great reduction of Government personnel in our forests. At that time, outdoor workers were on a ratio of 3,600 ha per. By 2005, the ratio was 8,000ha per outdoor worker.
Admin staff in 1981 were 114. By 2005 there were 624. (Source: National Parks Act, Annual Reports for 1981 and 2005)
Kicking out Timber, Cattle and Apiary indistries have contributed to a lack of knowledgeable manpower to attack the seat of a fire in a short time.
Fire fighting teams have to be assembled and then driven for hours to attack the fires. 4WD Clubs are rewarded for maintaining fire access tracks.
Federal Government financial assistance where fires are out of control incite a relaxed attitude to fire fighting. Professional fire fighters can earn more when fires burn longer

Hi Mark,

Your article strikes a chord with me, having seen first hand the destruction of so much of the Ash forests of the Snowys in 2003 due to rampant wildfire.

Looking at the vast dead forests in kosciusko NP, I was struck by 2 points - 1. If logging had caused such mass destruction of forest & imapct on water catchments the Forestry Commision would have been hung out to dry (the NPWS congratulated themselves for their efforts when rain finally put the fires out). 2. The $ loss of this potentially valuable timber resource would be huge - all burned to the ground for the sake of the 'protection' ideology.

The National Parks of NSW are certainly begining to take their role as a fire management agency more seriously now, but I still can't help but wonder why we choose to let so much of our forest simply burn, rather than be harvested sustainably.

The end of native forest harvesting in Australia, as supported by the greens, would lead to 4 outcomes:
1. A greater incidence of unmanaged forest with extreme wildfires,
2. Massive increases in management costs for state governments (already in the order of $500Million/yr in NSW)
3. The end of natural Australian hardwoods timbers (a truly great shame)
4. The further separation of Australian society from its environment.

All these things are detrimental to our scoiety.

Let's hope no government is prepared to suffer these costs for the sake of political convenience.

Support free-range, organic timber: Don't vote Green!

What are the GREENS on about ?

Is it the enviromment?

or..something else.

http://habitat.igc.org/vancouver/vp-d.htm

...read the first sentence of the preamble.

NOW...see how such thinking has been translated into destroying freedom, acquiring power, channeling wealth into the hands of the environmental elite few... backed by powerful foundations.. with fat cat salaries..

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7934453684194357754#

After viewing that video...you will never trust a Green again, any further than you can kick one.

Shamefully I must admit I wasn't aware of this absurd Greens policy. Where do they expect us to get our timber from? Some pretty little rainforest by the Amazon River?
Good forestry management here decreases poor forestry management elsewhere. It also upholds local jobs/communities, supports the economy and -as Mark has admirably demonstrated- tends a forest system that cannot now revert back to pre-european form while we remain a part of it. It's a no brainer.

That's a predictably one-sided opinion piece Mark.

No mention of climate change.

No mention of the impact of landscape scale modification of forests from past and present logging operations and how that might influence bushfire. In particular no mention of how clearfelling predisposes forest to catastrophic fire.

No discussion of how inappropriate application of fire in forest might exacerbate the risk of catastrophic fire.

Hopefully more money will be spent getting to better understand historical fire regimes and the impacts of present and proposed regimes.

Maate

Writing an opinion article constrained by limited space inherently leads to the appearance of putting a one-sided view. I would need to write a book to address all the matters which you have accused me of avoiding.

I will say though that your raising of those matters (with the exception of climate change) suggests a lack of perspective of their respective environmental impact compared to uncontrolled severe summer bushfires burning in heavy forest fuel accumulations, and in some cases, a lack of real understanding as to whether they actually have an impact (ie. clearfelling and regenerating forests).

With regard to climate change - the concept of doing more fuel reduction burning to avoid much bigger, hotter, and more destructive summer bushfires is certainly the better option than just locking-up forests and hoping for the best ala the Greens forest policy.

Mark, when your store house is made of wood it seems sensible to protect it from fire. On a recent ABC program the greens claimed that”it would be fantastic to see our forests protected as carbon stores”.

By protection they mean “end logging in native forests” except, “in limited areas where small volumes of timber can be taken from defined areas under strict conditions and for specialty purposes.”

To back up this “carbon store” claim the Wilderness society has released a TV election advertisement featuring Dr Peter McQuillan identified as from the University of Tasmania.

He claimed “But remarkably we’ve just discovered that our native forests store more carbon pollution than any other forest on earth. If we stop logging our unique forests they can store the carbon pollution from nine coal fired power stations every year.”

To back up his claim the wilderness society’s media release explained:
“Research by the Australian National University has found old growth eucalypt forests in Victoria and Tasmania ... could store up to 136 million tonnes of carbon pollution every year ...”

What is not said is that the ANU analysis was funded by the Wilderness society and released in Bali in 2007, and has been subject to detailed criticism.

The ANU made this discovery of “the world’s highest known total biomass carbon density (living plus dead) in 13 sites in the O’Shannassy Catchment Central Highlands of Victoria” which according to the ANU “In February 2009, extensive areas of the O’Shannassy Catchment and elsewhere in the Central Highlands of Victoria were burned in a major conflagration.”

They promised to undertake a major survey of the network of permanent field sites in the catchment to assess changes in post fire carbon stocks.
Will they find the carbon store burnt to the ground? Then we should know if stopping harvesting protected the forest and saved the carbon store!

A quikc glance at the Greens policy page ( http://greens.org.au/policies/environment/environmental-principles ) shows:

"climate change will increase the intensity and frequency of bushfires; scientifically-based, ecologically appropriate use of fire is an important means to protect biodiversity and manage habitat effectively"

And further down:

"develop and adequately fund fuel reduction burning strategies based on the latest research on scientific fire ecology, fire behavior information and indigenous fire management practices, in consultation with experts, custodians and land managers"

"increase funding for bushfire research to include the effective use of fire, strategies for controlling arsonists, and best environmental and fire risk minimization in building practices."

This idea that the Greens Party opposes fuel reduction is just plain wrong.

R1

If you read the article, I did not say they formally oppose FRB, but that their policy of locking-up the forest will create a situation which will invariably make it more difficult to maintain current rates of FRB let alone enable it to be significantly increased as the Bushfires RC recommended.

However, you will have to forgive me for being skeptical about the Greens "support" for FRB when their supporter base in the environmental movement are falling over themselves to so heavily qualify any support on contingencies such as more research that will make it difficult, if not impossible, to meet the RC's recommendation for tripling FRB.