Bourbon shots all round for the first poster to blame it all on "deniers"!

Mark,

I read your article with great interest. It is quite obvious that you have created a story that all environmental organizations and their supporters are opposed to Fuel Reduction Burning. Who are these organizations? You do not name them or quote them voicing their opposition. As far as I know in following the debate, peak environmental organizations, such as ACF and VNPA, are calling for Fuel Reduction Burns to be based on good science, and integrated into an overall well planned fire prevention strategy. Immediately after the terrible fires of February 7, environment groups were made the targets of an intense 'blame' campaign, waged by the sections of the media (where they had vigilante violence encouraged against them - refer to Miranda Devine's appalling SMH 'hate mongering' opinion piece dated 12 Feb), logging lobbyists, some politicians, and a particular member of the Stretton Group. I have not seen a shred of evidence to suggest that environment groups have campaigned or have been successful in preventing Fuel Reductions Burns.

Mark, are you sure you have your facts right? It would be great to see some evidence to back up your accusations against environmental groups. If not, maybe your next article should be titled:

Environment Groups - misunderstood and intentionally maligned

Mark J, the following is a response from Senator Bob Brown to calls for more appropriate levels of prescribed burning to help protect the environment after the Canberra fires:

Sent: Tuesday, 5 August 2003 9:20
Subject: Brown says back burning not the answer
ABC Online
[This is the print version of story
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s917833.htm] [Link no longer functional]
AEST
Brown says back burning not the answer Greens leader Bob Brown is rejecting calls for more controlled burning of bushland in the wake of the Canberra bushfires.
Four people died and hundreds of homes were destroyed when the firestorm swept through parts of the ACT last summer.
Among 61 recommendations in the McLeod report into the fires is a call for more controlled burns to reduce risk of intense fires.
Senator Brown believes that is not appropriate.
"There are those who want to burn the tripe out of national parks, send more species to extinction, destroy great and ancient forests and woodlands," he said.
"We've got to remember that there are trees in this country that are many centuries and even thousands of years-old which survived great periods of Aboriginal burning, but they will not survive some of the excesses of burn-off that's being promoted."

Thanks Max

But it doesn't fully answer my question. Firstly, Bob Brown is the leader of the Green Political Party, and the Greens Political Party is not an environmental group. In recent media, mainstream environment groups have stated: "Conservation groups support the use of science-based prescribed burns to help protect people, properties and the environment. We need to be strategic about fire management and ensure planned burns are done at the right time and in the right place".

Secondly, Brown is not opposing FRB's in the ABC press release. It appears to me that he is questioning the appropriateness of an 'increase' in fuel reduction burning - that's not opposing. He expresses concern on the environmental impacts of increased FRB's in national parks, which leads me to another problem - why is there so much focus on national parks for FRB's. The Black Saturday fires also burned through farms, state forests and plantations. In a recent Royal Commission hearing, the DSE Beechworth district supervisor was cross examined about the high fuel loads in pine plantations, which burned aggressively on Black Saturday. He said that these plantations are managed as an economic asset as opposed to the characteristics they exhibit when they burn. Does this mean that FRB's in plantations are not considered? If that is so, then plantations pose a significant risk to communities in and around them as fuel loads are being allowed to accumulate. If the FRB debate is to possess any balance or meaningfulness, then it will cover all land types, not just areas for conservation

To Mark J
Excuse my cynicism, but your point that environmental groups and their supporters are in fact supportive of fuel reduction burning is a tad disingenous given that they have put so much time and effort into telling the community that it does nothing to help. By any reasonable measure the implication from that is that they don't support it.

To name a few who have strongly pushed this line - Jill Redwood (Environment East Gippsland), Simon Birrell (Melbourne Catchment Action Network, Otway Ranges Environment Network), and more recently the ACF, TWS, and VNPA in the press release accompanying their just released report.

Your other point that environmental groups support "FRB based on good science and integrated into an overall well planned fire strategy" encapsulates why I wrote the article because it is indicative of the misunderstanding that surrounds the practice. By that I mean, what makes them think that FRB isn't already based on science and isn't carefully planned? Of course it already is, and any increase in the practice to restore it back to previous levels would fit within this framework.

As I said in the article, too many people (particularly environmental activists) don't understand FRB and seem to think it is uncontrolled and will have the same result as Black Saturday. VNPA boss Phil Ingamells in a recent article referred to FRB as "taking revenge on the bush". Enough said.

Mark,

From my readings of the media, envrio groups are claiming that FRB's did not slow the fire on 7 February, as the Fire Danger Rating was castastrophic. It is on mostly on those days that fires kill people - and it only takes one 'rare' day of catastrophic fire to impact on so many lives. As for the comments of Ingamells, my reading his article, which contains the phrase 'revenge on the bush', is not in opposition to practice FRB's, but to situations in where they could be inappropriate applied. The debate is not black and white, instead a variety of shades of grey. The same is with the logging debate - not all environmental groups oppose logging in native forests, yet many logging lobbyists constantly claim that all environmental groups are opposed.