Page 3838 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 19 October 2005
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in the so-called bush capital of Australia. All levels of government have undertaken measures to try to reduce the ambient particle levels in Australia. These measures include encouraging better coordination between responsible authorities to limit air pollution from essential hazard reduction burns. It is not the time to turn this around.
Secondly, the Greens question the approach to fire management that Mrs Dunne’s legislation entrenches. Most of the fire management work by government authorities is focused on fuel reduction. However, fire experts agree that there are three preconditions involved in starting fire: the trigger for ignition, fuel loads, and fire weather conditions, composed of wind, humidity and temperature. It is interesting to note that the fires of January 2003 crossed the Murrumbidgee River in areas where there was almost nothing to burn. The soil and the air itself provided the fuel load in this situation, and that is because the other preconditions for wildfire were there.
Hazard reduction work may assist in preventing catastrophic bushfires, but burning is only one of the ways of reducing hazards. According to the strategic bushfire management plan for the ACT—this is from the draft, because the final is not yet available—bushfire fuel hazard may be reduced, removed or converted to a less flammable vegetation type.
Fire management research has found that fuel reduction burning far away has little impact on residential areas. In fact, keeping the land within one kilometre of residential areas low in fuel is far more important, and the closest 300 metres even more so. This area is most likely best managed by local residents, including park care groups, in conjunction with ACT Parks and Conservation. Fuel reduction burns may be just one of their management regimes and often can be avoided altogether. This is indicated by studies brought into light through Michael Organ’s dissenting report to the House of Representatives select committee into the recent Australian bushfires of 2003. A study of prescribed burns in the Blue Mountains from 1993 to 1997 showed that hazard reduction burns are of limited effectiveness. Hazard reduction other than by fire, for example by slashing, mowing and thinning of vegetation, near the assets being protected—and this is something that has to be done as a consistent and regular regime—will provide better protection for those assets than will burning in remote areas. Chris Cunningham, a professor from the University of New England, submitted to the House of Representatives committee:
Hazard reduction burning is far from a precise science. It is rare for a fire to exactly match a desired prescription. Too little intensity and virtually no fuel will be removed, too much intensity and the scorched canopy will soon rain down litter to replace the fuel removed. If the vegetation is moist and green all that may be achieved is a partial desiccation and an increase in available fuel in subsequent wildfires.
Where I come from, the forested mountains of far east Gippsland, many wildfires had their origins in burn-offs gone wrong. This is also true on the South Coast and elsewhere. I think we should avoid that in the ACT.
The Greens believe that biodiversity is an asset, ecological values are important in the ACT and complex land management and fire suppression techniques allow these values to be protected while simultaneously protecting public and private property.
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