Fuel reduction regime; scientifically evaluated intervention or politically motivated mismanagement?

“The torching of the State is proceeding under the delusionary supervision of DSE.”

It is little wonder that to many people in Victoria, DSE is known as Department of Smoke and Embers.

Last Saturday was the beginning of the Labour Day long weekend. Around lunchtime, the Department of Sustainability and Environment ignited 1,000 hectares of Herb Rich Woodland and Lowland Forest in Southwest Victoria, including Dunmore Forest and part of Mt Eccles National Park.

The smoke pall spread from the Grampians in the north to many miles offshore, at least 150kms in total. Two huge billowing columns were visible from 60kms away. Cumulonimbus anvils thousands of meters high were generated above the smoke by the intense heat. It's an all too familiar and scary sight to anyone who's experienced wildfires.

Is this a responsible way to manage native forests
and reduce atmospheric carbon?

The photographs were taken about 19:15. By 21:00 these fires were listed as controlled on the DSE website. This is highly unlikely, as the fires could be seen burning on the horizon for another three days. When I flew into Hamilton following day, the smoke was so dense that from 1,000 feet we were barely able to see the mighty Grampians mountain ranges only 30kms to the northeast.

Thousands of native animals were killed, maimed or displaced. There is evidence of a rare population of bandicoots at nearby St Helens Flora Reserve [see older post St Helens - a landscape for woodland birds]. What is the likelihood of other populations of bandicoots surviving in surrounding pockets of native forest? Not much chance now!

Again in this age of marketing and double-speak, a Government Agency sports a name that implies something it is not. The burning of our forests and reserves for fuel reduction to mitigate bushfire risk is neither sustainable nor informed by environmental science. The latest official mumbo jumbo for this kind of destructive mismanagement is community risk reduction.

In a recent conversation with a Ranger [environmental management professional], I was told that many DSE staff object to the current regime of fuel reduction burns. But they have no choice and are bound to instigate policies set by their ministerial master in response to findings of the Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission.

As a concerned environmental activist observed; “It’s been a disaster for years, since we had a reasonable Forests Department and a Soil Conservation Department. Governments certainly know how to stuff up our country in order to win Melbourne seats.”

Our lingering fear of the Australian bush
manifested in mismanagement by fire

It is clear to me that a high proportion of Australians are profoundly fearful and ignorant of The Bush. We have disconnected ourselves from the Australian wilderness by a process I suspect is part of the retched cultural cringe. And as food production, a process that ought to link us intimately with the land, becomes ever more industrialised and unnatural, and our predominantly urbanised culture evolves, we are increasingly alienated from the natural world. But if we care to listen, there is wisdom and guidance available from Indigenous peoples and others intimately connected to the environment, like naturalists and Wildlife Carers.

A friend suggested an intriguing reference: The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia by Bill Gammage. “I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It highlights the tragedy we see here, the tragedy of ineptitude and gross mismanagement through bureaucracy."

Fuel reduction burns have no basis in science and are politically motivated. Surely we must protest against this delusionary policy that amounts to just another excuse to destroy precious native flora and fauna.

If you talk to animals, they will talk with you
and you will know each other.
If you do not talk to them you will not know them,
and what you do not know you will fear.
What one fears one destroys.
Chief Dan George, Tsleil-Waututh Nation