Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

The DEPI submission is an eloquent statement of something which has been informally acknowledged for years: that fuel management in Asset Protection Zones necessarily involves destruction of important ecological values. DEPI also provides us with another interesting insight into fire management problems by offering an estimate of the money cost of these operations:

‘Costs associated with the specific small-scale land management measures are more expensive relative to broader landscape management measures. The requirement to manage at the smaller scale also limits future broader landscape-level risk management activities, as DEPI would be obliged to prioritise the management of the specific sites. The current approximate cost for the type of burning required to implement APZ is about $116 per hectare, imposing a cost to government (at current rates) of $31,320 every five years.’

The DEPI submission comments tersely that it is not the business of the public land manager to have to fix problems created by new developments: ‘Minister Smith and DEPI consider that it is not appropriate to manage risk created on private land using Crown land for defendable space.’

It remains to be seen how strongly the Department, and Parks Victoria, maintain these positions at the panel hearing. In the past they have made some very nice statements in their submissions, but have failed to defend them vigorously when it really counted.

The panel hearing will be held in Castlemaine on May 7.

The Friends of Kalimna Park have been informed that the DEPI burn planned for this autumn has been deferred to next year, to allow for more detailed planning of this exercise close to Castlemaine. The fuel reduction exercise will involve some mechanical removal of vegetation around Eltham Copper Butterfly colonies in the zone.

This management burn was originally planned as two exercises: one [in the Kalimna Point area] of 23 ha, the other, [adjoining the golf course] of145 ha. These two have now been combined into a single zone of 170 ha.

Conservationists have argued to DEPI that this sensitive exercise on the edge of town should best be handled in stages, in very small lots: the advantage of this being that the desired fuel reduction could be obtained in a mosaic manner, minimising ecological damage and reduction of amenity in a heavily used area. We suspect, however, that DEPI is under political pressure to increase the size of its burn blocks: big burns, it seems, are cheaper. Our suspicions have been strengthened by remarks made by DEPI deputy head Paul Smith in March [see our report].

The Kalimna burn [coded CAS 003] is zoned 2, Bushfire Management. In this zone managers aim for an 80% burn cover.

Conservationists from the Bendigo and Otways regions met with DEPI senior staff in March to discuss matters to do with the Fire Operations Plan. Excellent detailed notes on this meeting can be found on the Living with Ecology and Fire website. Among other things, DEPI Deputy Director Paul Smith made the observation to the meeting that smaller burns are more surgical and more costly, being closer to assets (e.g. townships). The worrying thing about this common sense observation is that it tends to confirm our suspicion that DEPI is under pressure to avoid small burns because they cost too much.