Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Management of fire risk doesn’t only concern public land managers. That’s why last Sunday’s Connecting Country Living with fire and wildlife workshop for property holders was a welcome addition to community knowledge.

The purpose of the day was
• to use a local property as an example
• to improve participants’ general understanding of managing vegetation to maximise biodiversity and minimise fire risk AND
• to enhance their ability to interpret the landscape with the aim of balancing ecological asset and fire risk at the property and landscape level.
A big ask – but judging by the evaluations made at the end of the workshop there was a feeling that people would be able to return to their properties and use the skills and ideas gained to re-assess how they would manage in the future.
The speakers were refreshingly candid and very knowledgeable – Field Ecologist Julie Whitfield and Fire Ecologist David Cheal (both ex-DEPI) and Owen Goodings, CFAs Statewide Team Leader Vegetation Management. Added to this mix was the excellent facilitation by Chris Johnson, the organisation of Janet Barker and her team and the generous Taradale hosts Christine and Team Henderson.

The over arching message of the day was: know your property and its values, and the landscape it’s sitting in: there are no simple solutions to this problem.

A further report and resource information will be posted on www.connectingcountry.org.au

Along with other interested parties, FOBIF has been invited by DEPI to express its ‘fire management priorities, issues or concerns as they relate to DEPI’s strategic fire management priorities, and also about fire prevention works’ in our area.
This is a standard annual consultation about the Fire Operations Plan and its implementation. It’s both a sensible method of consultation and an intensely frustrating merry go round: the important features of the burning program have already been set by

Highly flammable weeds, mainly gorse, on the northern edge of Chewton: FOBIF believes that public safety is best served by careful management of fuel close to settlements, not indiscriminate burning of large areas of remote bushland.

the State Government, and any submissions will necessarily be picking at details of  the Plan. Nevertheless, FOBIF believes that fire managers are generally prepared to listen to community input, and for that reason we will be making a submission to the process. Our emphases will be essentially consistent with past submissions: we believe that dangerous areas close to settlement should be DEPI’s priority, and that where these include high quality bushland, especial care should be taken to protect biodiversity in any operation. Our most recent detailed submission on the Fire Protection Plan can be found here, and DEPI’s response to that submission here. Member suggestions about any aspect of the local fire plan are welcomed.

The photo below shows a barely noticeable mound of dirt, covered with grass, next to the Limestone Track near the Tarilta Creek crossing. Passers by might not give it a glance: a pity, because this mound of dirt should be a provocative reminder of DSE’s 2012 ‘ecological’ burn, and of the dangers of large scale burning operations

You could pass by and not notice it: but this mound of dirt is a relic of DSE’s disastrous 2011 ‘ecological’ burn.

The mound of dirt is part of the huge quantity of soil washed off the slopes of the Tarilta valley after the burn off. Tarilta Creek was choked with silt, and some of it ended up choking the Limestone Track bridge underpass:

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At the risk of beating the same old drum on the five per cent burning target practised by the Victorian Government,  we reprint here reports from Tasmania on the island government’s parallel policy. The report is from the Weekly Times of June 14:

‘TASMANIA’S top fire chief has warned the state government its fuel-reduction target has no benefit” for public safety, cannot be delivered with current staff levels and will cause substantial” smoke pollution.

‘Chief fire officer Mike Brown’s confidential advice to the new Hodgman Liberal government reveals serious misgivings at the highest levels about the plan.

‘As promised at the March election, the government is committed to a target burning of 60,000ha each year — at a cost to taxpayers of $28.5 million over four years.

‘However, Mr Brown warns the policy can only easily be achieved by burning remote public land, while the real need is to reduce fuel loads on private land near towns and cities.

‘“Burning only public land will not protect Tasmanian communities (because only) approximately 20 per cent of the urban interface is with public land, the remainder is with private,” Mr Brown advises.

‘“A 60,000 ha target can be achieved easily (by) undertaking remote-area burning, with no benefit to community safety … (We) need to look at policy and/or regulatory instruments around permissions to undertake fuel management on private land.”

‘Mr Brown’s briefing note — Election Commitments Briefing For Incoming Government — advises there are not enough personnel to conduct the scale of burning envisaged.

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