Fire monitoring abandoned before it’s begun

As we have previously reported, funding for the very worthy Box Ironbark mosaic burning project has been ceased. But we had been led to believe that this all too brief project would be continued in some reduced way by DELWP staff who could monitor a restricted range of post fire effects.

This hope is now gone. We’ve been informed that no further monitoring is planned–DELWP doesn’t have the staff to do it.

This well designed project lasted only two unusually wet years, and obviously needed further work to give its findings solid credibility. A depressingly familiar pattern is being repeated. There isn’t enough money to run land management properly: so DELWP fire operations will continue to be run without serious, detailed knowledge of their ecological effects.