Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

The following is FOBIF’s draft submission on the Fire Operations Plan [see above]. Member feedback is invited:

GENERAL COMMENTS

1. We believe that as far as possible, burn areas be small: less than 100 ha. In zones 1 and 2, they should be smaller than 50 ha. In our opinion, this would make it easier for managers to pay close attention to ecological values, something hard or impossible with large hectare burns.

2. DSE should where possible integrate weed and fire management in the burn plans. We note that integration of weed management and bushfire control is part of the Mount Alexander municipal fire plan.

Middleton Creek, Castlemaine Diggings NHP: Common sense dictates that steep slopes should not be burned, and that important old trees not be destroyed.

3. In Zone 3 burns, unless it is possible to guarantee that burn cover will not exceed 20% [that is, unless it is possible to guarantee a genuine mosaic burn], and that vulnerable areas [eg, steep areas, or areas of particular interest, like large trees, creeksides etc] can be protected, we believe that managers should aim to burn precisely defined areas within the treatment zone. We would like to have access to the Zone 3 burn plans for our area.

4. Spring burns should be avoided.

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DSE’s 2012 Code of Practice for Bushfire Management on Public Land is now out. It can be found here. Readers will remember our discussion of the draft  of this document last year. This version is significantly changed from that draft.

For a start, the name is different: the change from Code of Practice for Fire Management to Code of Practice for Bushfire Management  may indicate a shift in emphasis: the focus now seems less on seeing how fire works in the environment, and how its beneficial effects can be maximised and its destructive effects limited. Now the focus seems to be primarily on bushfire prevention and moderation. This may simply clarify what has been the case in practice, or it may indicate that there has been a definite shift away from environmental concerns towards straight out safety matters. We’ll have to wait and see on that: on the one hand, sections in the draft Code requiring DSE to develop a fire ecology strategy, and support research, have been removed; on the other, the Code still commits the Department to act on the basis of scientific research, along the lines recommended by the Royal Commission. How this research is to be conducted and applied is, as always, an interesting question.

'‘The Department will seek to protect soil by measures which minimise damage to its physical and chemical properties or which promote stabilisation of bare earth following disturbance…The Department will seek to protect water quantity and quality by measures that minimize the impact of bushfire management activities...' Tarilta creek after DSE burn, March 2012.

The Code repeats the dual aims of its predecessors:

‘There are two primary objectives for bushfire management on public land:

‘• To minimise the impact of major bushfires on human life, communities, essential and community infrastructure, industries, the economy and the environment. Human life will be afforded priority over all other considerations.

‘• To maintain or improve the resilience of natural ecosystems and their ability to     deliver services such as biodiversity, water, carbon storage and forest products.’ [p. 1]

The second aim is expanded as follows on page 5:

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Conservation groups [including FOBIF], apiarists and concerned individuals met with DSE representatives in Bendigo last Thursday to discuss the upcoming Fire Operations Program [FOP]. The meeting was organised by DSE and the North Central Victorian Combined Environment Groups.

DSE fire management officer Simon Brown outlined the process by which the FOP is developed, and he and other DSE officials fielded questions from the community members, who came from an area encompassing Echuca, Graytown, Taradale, Castlemaine, Muckleford and Bendigo.

All discussion was limited by the acknowledgement that the policy of burning five per cent of public bushland every year is non-negotiable at this level: the policy is determined not by DSE but by the State Government, and appears to have wide public support. Any changes in that policy will have to come via community debate and subsequent political change. [It’s hard if not impossible, however, to find anyone directly involved with the policy who likes it or feels that it’s doing any good in this region]. Discussions therefore concentrated on how the policy can be implemented with minimum environmental and economic damage while achieving public safety objectives.

Sailors Gully, in the Quartz Hill burn, 2011: destruction of large trees under the present system seems inevitable, although all agree that it amounts to serious environmental and economic damage.

Here are some of the points which emerged from the four hour session:

• DSE’s target this year is to burn 12,000 ha, and in following years 13, 668 ha per year. In addition 1,000 ha will be treated by slashing and other fuel reduction methods. These ‘alternative’ methods are not included in the five per cent target.
• Apiarists believe that the policy of burning Zone One areas every five years will destroy nectar production in those areas within 20 years. Beekeepers would like to see less intense burns, and DSE acknowledges that ‘we’d like to fuel reduce areas without intense burns.’ Efforts to achieve this have involved experimenting with night time burns, but it seems clear that pressure to achieve targets is going to compromise efforts to improve the quality of what is done.
• Environmentalists object to spring burns on the grounds that they affect seed setting and breeding patterns—but winemakers insist on them, because autumn burns cause smoke taint in grapes. DSE has to find a compromise between these opposing views.

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