Did you know that the National Forests were once inhabited with cattle
owned by by people who called themselves "Bush Bandits" these people were closed down (in NSW) in the mid seventies . They didn't have a defined run , they were very refined Bandits who worked co-operatively, the honesty system prevailed , roundup time was also co-op .
Did you know that you can't run cattle in the bush if you don't burn the undergrowth in early spring ? The colourful Bush Bandits were the nations original "Back Burners"
Forrests with tonnage floor combustables won't grow grasses that will sustain cattle.
Forrests with tonnage floor combustables get destroyed and people die .

Cheers .........ideekay

If we want democracy, we have to tolerate things which aren't what we like, less than perfect or just plain stupid. This article puts opposition to traditional forest management into this categeory. It's an example of numbers of vocal people (electorally significant numbers)getting what they want, at the expense or loss to others - the silent majority.
At my age of 70 after a hectic career in media and issues management, I watch as new generations of politicians and pressure groups, and new issues come and go. I only hope that something as beautiful as our forest regions survive even when expert management advice is neglected. If there's one thing that is noteworthy about forestry managers - they are experienced hands-on experts, rather than emotional, idealistic theoreticians.

The forests that once belonged to, and formed part of local communities have been misappropriated by influencial inner city greens for their exclusive use. They managed to do so on a promise of greater protection that has since been demonstrated to be groundless. They obtained valuable public assets by fraud and deception and now preclude access to those forests to ensure that the character and scale of the habitat destruction that has resulted from their negligence is neither seen nor understood.

And every one of us has an obligation to our own children to ensure that they inherit a society where anyone who obtains anything of value by way of fraud and deception does not get to enjoy those benefits. This is a particular obligation on experienced fire fighters who risk their own lives and the future of their family to minimise the harm caused to stolen forests.

For in doing so they prolong the suffering of wildlife and aid the degradation by shielding the corrupt regime from responsibility for their negligence and hence, help maintain their grip on power.

It is time for the real protectors of forests to boycott stolen forests and restrict their contribution to safeguarding their own community. This is the only way the urban public will understand that the only way they can protect these forests is to give them back to the local communities that know how to.

No joy after half a lifetime as a bush fire fighter but we need to look again at this problem.
I have never served in a brigade that did not have a fire bug in it.
And I have not in the last ten years seen a fire that was not fought by burning a bigger fence around it than the fire would have.
Yet the greatest danger to us all is the national parks and wildlife and the ratbag heap of paper work that condemns our bush to burn in far more intense fires as winter burning is near stopped .
Right now fires burn longer to justifie the jobs of highly paid underskilled people who are the problem not the solution.
We those lifetime members did not need marchs to say thanks but some have become hooked on hero whorship and fires are started or prolonged to keep that fix going
fight fires not light them please.

Mark Poynter has written a thoughtful and logical essay on an important issue. The simple fact is this: without effective bushfire management (and by "effective" I mean actions which minimise the risk of very large high intensity fires)nothing else is possible in our forests: everything suffers, everything is damaged.

Mark overlooks one irony. The green activists who campaigned to transfer State forests to national parks also played another card which has had even more unfortunate consequences. This was the demolition of the traditional forest services in Australia. Other than in Tasmania, no Australian state has a dedicated forest service anymore - forest management has become one of many responsibilities of environemental protection-type agencies, whose staff are usually remote from the forest and untrained in forestry. Thus the personal interest, the passion and the professional dedication of those who single-mindedly looked after our forests has disappeared, and has not been replaced. Thanks to greenies motivated by a "love the forests", those who truly loved the forests, to the extent that they devoted their lives and their careers to forest protection and sustention, no longer exist, other than as outsider-critics or rueful observers, like me.

Yorkie

A very good point, Yorkie.

I have not shared a christmas dinner with my elder sister for 27 years because she married a man who was married to a forest, and so, would never dream of taking a holiday in the Bushfire season. And none of us ever questioned the fact that this duty over-rode every other consideration, even in the year we knew it would be the old fella's last one.

Her eldest is now in his thirties but none of her kids have ever swum in the family swimming hole, having only ever visited in winter.

But we know not to expect any sympathy from all the greens and the urban left, they're all at the beach where the only backburn is from falling asleep in the sun.

My earlyer post was wrong it said the national parks was the biggest problem, not true this Labor voter knows radical greens are the real danger.
Service? not every one haveing fought fires from 11 years of age,yes a long while before the brown book if women and kids did not no one did .
My last day in the service a true storey sitting in a hot tin shed next to our fighter waiting for the call on the radio.
My captian after six hours said I am bored, lets light a fire! he did I went.
He was untill last year fire control officer for a shire!
Fight fires ,in winter light them to fight summer fires but live for them? a sick person may.

Good article Mark however I need to blunder in with this question; where does “sustention” fit in? Yorkie had me wondering what I’d missed so I googled and found this lot -

http://www.ces.vic.gov.au/CA256F310024B628/0/FE9C3A0DE353A819CA2571E6001BFA30/$File/A+Perspective+on+Environmental+Sustainability.pdf

Must be getting on too hey.

Perhaps Persues can help on its origin re some of the definitions above.