Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Following the release of ANU research showing that current fuel reduction practices are not improving public safety [see our post below], the press has reported that DSE has been burning widely in remote bushland, but has neglected to effectively reduce fuel loads close to settlements identified by the CFA as being at risk from major fire.

The Age reported on January 23 that ‘both Labor and the Coalition adopted the royal commission’s recommendation to burn 5 per cent of public land, or 415,412 hectares annually, by 2013-2014, tripling planned burning across Victoria. But one of Australia’s leading fire experts has told The Age the target has little to do with protecting human life and assets and he would like to see it ”disappear in due course”.

Tarilta Creek, in the Upper Loddon State Forest. DSE is preparing to burn this remote area as part of its current fire operations plan. FOBIF believes that the Department should concentrate its resources on using a variety of methods to reduce fire risk closer to settlements.

‘Melbourne University’s Kevin Tolhurst, one of the commission’s expert panelists, told The Age that while the government’s planned burning program factored in the most fire-prone parts of the state, the target itself was not directly linked to protecting communities.

“The unintended consequences of [the target] will be that prescribed burning is done with minimal benefit to the protection of human life and property. It may reduce the extent and severity of major wildfires, but it may not directly reduce the impact on human life and property,” Dr Tolhurst said.’

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About 70 people crowded into the small Chewton Town Hall on January 16 for the launch of Ken McKimmie’s Chewton Then and Now, a collection of articles written over a number of years for the Chewton Chat.

These articles are remembered with great affection and interest by readers of the Chat, and the publication of the collection is welcome. It’s a series of photos, paintings and drawings showing selected sites around Chewton, usually about 100 years apart. As such, it is a set of snapshots in time, and is a poignant and instructive illustration of how things have changed in our district since white settlement. Though of course centred on the Chewton area, it will be of interest to anyone keen to look at how things have been happening in the whole goldfields area over the last hundred plus years.

Although most of the interest in the book is in the areas of work, and social observation, there are some remarkable images of the natural environment, the most striking of which is the photo of the Expedition Pass reservoir taken in 1878. The stripped hills around the reservoir are a reminder of the reckless exploitation of timber in that era, and show just how dramatic the recovery has been.

Expedition Pass reservoir, 1878: the stripped hillside provides a striking contrast to the regrowth vegetation we can see today. Illustration from Chewton then and now.

The State Government has released its response to the Victorian Environment Assessment Council’s  Remnant Native Vegetation report [see our May 24 Post on this].

VEAC made 13 recommendations, all designed to improve ecological connectivity between small parcels of land, encourage community involvement in management, maximise knowledge of biodiversity values and protect waterway frontages. The Government has supported twelve of the recommendations ‘in principle’, the exception being recommendation 12, to investigate the creation of new protected area systems in the North Western Victoria, Gippsland and the Central Victorian Uplands. What the in principle support means in practice remains to be seen.

VEAC’s recommendations and the Government’s responses can be found here. All are of interest. Among other things, the Council recommended that within 10 years ‘at least 75 per cent of public stream frontages abutting private land be managed, under grazing licence or other arrangements, primarily for biodiversity and water quality’ via measures like fencing out of stock, revegetation, and management incentives.

The Government also accepted recommendation 6, that ‘Managers, contractors and on-ground workers are made aware of their responsibilities and appropriate work

Lichen--probably Xanthoria sp--on a Cassinia stem in the Guildford Bushland Reserve. Such small parcels of public land are often unknown or hard to find, and their values unrecorded. VEAC has recommended that their ecological value be identified, mapped and made public. Photo:Bernard Slattery, December 2011

protocols whilst working around native vegetation, and that mandatory formal education and training be incorporated into all accredited training courses.’  Such training programs already exist, though they are patchy in their effectiveness, if we are to believe the evidence of road works and other activities in our local bushlands: but we can hope that the State Government’s ‘in principle’ acceptance of VEAC’s recommendations will bring about some improvement in the culture of land management.