Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

In line with changes to its Code of Practice, and with recommendations of the Bushfire Royal Commission, DSE has reduced the number of fire management zones to four:

1. Asset Protection
2. Strategic wildfire moderation
3. Ecological management
4. Prescribed burning exclusion

Asset Protection zones are those which on the whole are treated most severely, ecologically speaking, because they are designed to protect human settlement. Nevertheless, all zones are supposed to be treated in a way which respects the environment: obviously there is no point in reducing the bush to a desert, or a dried out scrub even more fire prone than it was before.

DSE burned a section of the Diggings Park in Autumn 2010. FOBIF believes the burn was so severe in parts that it killed large trees, and caused massive regeneration of stringybark seedlings. The net result is probably an increase in fuel load in the zone. The picture was taken in November 2010

We persist in the belief that with sensible policies over a range of issues [including controls on building in fire prone areas] safety and ecological health can be achieved. It’s not yet clear how the new zoning system will affect practice on the ground.

The Victorian Environment Assessment Council pointed out in its recent report that DSE possesses ‘vast’ amounts of information about forest ecology, but suggested that DSE workers are not necessarily in possession of this knowldge when it recommended the implementation of training schemes for those working in the bush [see item below].

This is one problem with DSE and Parks Victoria land management practices. The other one is intense political pressure to conduct large fuel reduction burns without particular regard to local conditions.

In this context, DSE has begun to plan the next stage of its fuel reduction strategy by inviting interested groups, including FOBIF, to participate in this planning process.

FOBIF’s position on fire has been consistent for many years: use of fire as a management tool should be no different from any other management activity. That is, it should be guided by the best available knowledge; and each exercise should be conducted with the lessons of the previous one in mind, in the effort to improve results, both for safety and for the bush environment.

This is, in fact, DSE’s own policy of adaptive management. Readers of our statements on fire [see https://www.fobif.org.au/documents/ and recent posts under Fire Management at https://www.fobif.org.au/category/fire-management/ ] will know of our dissatisfaction with the way it has been implemented. We will participate in the consultation process, however, in the belief that DSE and Parks officers want to do the best job possible with the resources available. Our submission is printed above.

Mount Alexander Council budget papers show that $23,000 has been set aside for community education in relation to land management and, we assume, to help with the implementation of the recently adopted Environment Strategy. It seems that the money is to be used to employ a project officer for six months to promote the Shire’s recently released Environment Strategy.

FOBIF supports this initiative, but we believe that it doesn’t go far enough, given the challenges such an officer will face. It seems that it is envisaged that the officer will be involved in producing an information kit, running workshops, promoting community gardens, and possibly being involved in the proposed Roadside Management  Plan review.

The success of the Environment Strategy is dependent on Council being able to employ someone who can communicate sensibly and practically with landholders and other ratepayers about Council’s environment objectives.

Roadside management, with its double objective of preserving biodiversity and keeping consideration of fire safety, is an especially complicated matter which has caused some anxiety in the past. It seems to us that only a properly qualified Council officer with good ability to see all sides of this challenge and communicate in a down to earth matter with residents can bring a proper management program to success.

Such an officer would need more than six months to make any headway with these questions. In addition, it is harder to attract good candidates for jobs which are perceived to have only short term viability.

An additional consideration: if Council community education initiatives only reduce the number of people chucking their rubbish into the bush, the taxpayer would be saved a bit of money.

The plague of rubbish dumping which can be seen all over our bushland has reached the Castlemaine town boundary with the dumping of a pile of junk in Kalimna Park, only a hundred metres from Kalimna Point [and a few metres from the rather sad Bicentennial plaque].

Rubbish near Kalimna Point: time needed to remove such junk is another imposition on Parks Victoria's limited resources.

It’s hard to fathom the mentality of people who apparently don’t notice that they are desecrating valued public space, but one of the factors presumably is the perceived expense of taking rubbish to the tip.

FOBIF raised this question with Council Environment Officer Amy McDonald a couple of weeks ago, and her response was simple: Council can’t afford to give out free tip vouchers because of budgetary problems.

Here’s an interesting question: who is responsible for the removal of ‘hard’ rubbish from our lives?

Council can’t afford it. There appears to be a significant number of citizens who don’t want to take the responsibility of getting rid of it responsibly. So inevitably, Parks Victoria is left with the job of removing it from the bush–which inevitably cuts down the time Parks staff can put into more productive things. In the end, the taxpayer foots the bill, one way or the other.

It’s clear that public education has to have a large role if this unpleasant and unhealthy behaviour is to be reduced. It will be interesting to see if the Council’s Environment Strategy deals with such a mundane but important matter [see above].

Local environment groups will mark World Environment Day this year with an ‘expo’ in the Castlemaine Market building on Sunday June 5 between 10 am  and noon. This is the same day as the Castlemaine Farmers market.

The theme of the displays will be ‘Forests: nature at your service’–the idea that biodiversity is, so to speak, not just a pretty face: it is what underpins our lives. The point is made by Edward O Wilson like this:

‘Recent experimental studies on whole ecosystems support what ecologists have long suspected: The more species that live in an ecosystem, the higher is the productivity and the greater its ability to withstand drought and other kinds of environmental stress.’

FOBIF will be running a display on the day. Members interested in putting in a short time on a table should contact us at the usual addresses.

The Mayor, Cr Janet Cropley, will launch the Shire’s Environment Strategy in the course of the morning.