Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

DELWP completed its management burn at Kemp’s Track in the Fryers Nature Conservation reserve in the last week of March. It was one of four significant department fires in this region.

We had a look at the site on April 11. It’s hard to get an overall sense of a 260 hectare site, in which the impact of fire varied from very severe to very mild, with some areas untouched.

We have two distinct impressions of the fire zone, however:

First, that, as is common in these cases, large trees have been felled as a result of the fire. This is not supposed to happen.

Unusually large habitat trees felled as a result of the Kemps Track burn. One of these is a Swamp Gum, unusual in this region.

Large trees victims of the burn. The very big Yellow Box in the centre may survive.

Second, areas which we supposed to be low fuel zones—for example, grassy riparian zones—were burned. We don’t see the point of this.

Mossy creekline burned in the fire. We were curious about its fate–see our March 28 post. This area did not need ‘fuel reduction’.

What is the Department’s view of these two questions? According to the Code, it should be publicly available.

So: what was the exact fire coverage at Kemp’s track? And what ecological positives and negatives were achieved in the exercise?

The Code of Practice requires that

‘Monitoring programs will also focus on:

• mapping the extent and severity of bushfires and planned burns‘ [paragraph 212] [FOBIF emphasis]

It also requires that

‘The Department will make publicly accessible information about:

• the performance of its bushfire management actions, and the status of achievements of strategies and objectives
• information gained from monitoring and evaluation activities’ [Paragraph 222]

Therefore it should be possible to get an exact idea of how the exercise fulfilled one of the two major aims of fire management exercises:

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

Unfortunately the Code doesn’t specify precisely what ‘publicly accessible’ means—and, in practice, it doesn’t seem to mean much at all. It should mean: the ‘information should be published on DELWP websites.’

FOBIF will make enquiries to the Department, and report on the results.

Does fuel reduction burning work to reduce fire risk? For fire managers there is no debate. Their practice is governed by assessments of fuel load, and computer modelling of fire behaviour.

Managers concede one thing: that some burns are too hot, and may cause undue vegetation growth—that is, to increase fuel loads. They attribute these malfunctions to the difficulty of getting the right conditions for burning: and things do have to be right: temperature, wind, soil moisture… Factor in political pressure, especially from those who fervently believe that the only way we can be safe is to burn the bush black as often as possible, and the managers are in a challenging situation.

In the Fryers Nature Conservation Reserve: this area is slated for a fuel reduction burn. How will it look in a couple of years?

How can we make an informed judgment on the managers’ success? It’s hard, if not impossible, to get the managers’ internal post burn assessments—ie, their judgments on how much fuel had been reduced. Instead, we have assertions as to how this or that bushfire was brought under control after it had been impeded by a fuel reduced area. There were a lot of these at the Black Saturday Royal Commission.

But what about systematic assessments of the effects of fuel reduction? A rare example appeared on The Conversation website last week. Among other things, its authors claimed that in the NSW Black Summer fires, ‘Where prescribed burns had very recently been carried out, the bushfires were marginally less severe, about half of the time’. This is despite the fact that in the previous ten years the amount of forest ‘fuel reduced’ was the largest in the state’s history.

Further, the authors examine fire history in WA, and conclude that ‘Bushfires were three times less likely in old (ie, unburned) forests than they were in recent prescribed burns’. They argue that this is because forests left to themselves tend to thin out the flammable shrub layer; burning actually promotes growth of this layer.

So there are broadly two sides to the fire argument:

1. Left to themselves, forests build up fuel to a dangerous extent.
2. Left to themselves, forests tend to reduce dangerous fuels.

This is the nightmare world of ‘alternative facts.’ Only one side of the argument can be substantially true. But how do we sort out which one?

The problem is that these two sides of the argument never seem to communicate. We offer an example below.

Tarilta resident Rob Simons sent The Conversation article to local fire managers asking they consider it before undertaking the upcoming Helge Track burn. The reply he got is remarkable, in that it completely ignores the argument of the article:

‘Thanks for sending the below link to the article.

‘While there are differing views on planned burning, fire is a natural part of Victoria’s environment.

‘Victorian government legislation requires the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) to reduce the risk of damaging bushfires and to protect human life.

‘As described in the Forest Act 1958, The Chief Fire Officer, on behalf of the Secretary to DELWP, is required to carry out proper and sufficient work in State forests, national parks and on protected public land for the immediate prevention and suppression of fire and the planned prevention of fire.

‘Bushfire risk is linked to the distribution and accumulation of fuels if left untreated. DELWP, the Country Fire Authority (CFA) and stakeholders have developed strategic bushfire management plans using science, simulation tools, and local knowledge to manage this risk. These plans inform bushfire risk reduction targets and locations in the landscape where planned burns are conducted. (Bushfire Management Strategies for each region can be found on the DELWP website)

‘Through the Loddon Mallee Region Strategic Bushfire Management Plan, the Helge Track planned burn unit has been identified as an important location for burning to be applied to reduce the impact of bushfire on the community.

‘To meet its statutory requirements, DELWP intends to complete this planned burn when weather and fuel conditions are suitable.

‘While DELWP planned burns do not totally eliminate the risk and potential impacts of bushfires, they are a key part of an integrated bushfire risk management strategy to protect life, property and the environment including community education and awareness, ensuring access for firefighters and equipment and fast response to bushfires.

‘I hope the information is of assistance.’

No, the information is not of assistance. Everything in it is already well known to anyone who’s taken an interest in fire management. Worse, the letter makes no effort to deal with the matters in the Conversation article.

For the purposes of this discussion, FOBIF is not interested in taking sides in the argument. Up to now we have concentrated on trying to ensure that DELWP does what it says it will: observe the controls in its protocols, keep fires cool, look after old growth trees.

But what we’d like to see is a genuine engagement of the fire managers with the other side of that argument. That argument has been carefully put together by reputable scientists on the basis of detailed research.

Doesn’t it deserve a consideration?

The two arguments above have a rough parallel in ecology:

1. Leaf litter is dangerous fuel which builds up and needs to be destroyed by burning.
2. Leaf litter is important insect habitat, which reduces itself via invertebrate activity and natural decomposition. Burning destroys invertebrates and inhibits the process whereby litter turns into soil.

Which one of these is true? That’s a discussion we’d like to see.

Notification of the Glenluce-Helge Track burn, due any day now. The fuel reduction aim of the exercise is open to debate. In our view, the objective ‘to maintain or improve the resilience of natural ecosystems’ is no more than a gesture.

In the mean time, one thing we can be sure of is that ecological concerns are not central to the practice of fuel reduction. Although managers have tried to be consultative on ecological effects in their burns, the fact that they are obliged to burn large areas prevents them from really engaging with ecological values. The Conversation article makes a point made many times before:

‘Early Australian colonists recorded many Australian forests as park-like with open understoreys.

‘This reflected First Nations’ care for country. In southwest Australia, as in many parts of the continent, Indigenous fire use was precise and focused. Unlike prescribed burns, Indigenous practitioners did not attempt to burn vast areas at once.’ (Fobif emphasis)

The upcoming Helge Track fire is 344 hectares. The adjacent Wewak Track block, due for burning next year, is 470 hectares. Together, that is a vast area of land in our region, probably the biggest area ever burnt in this way. We believe it’s impossible to look after ecological values in such an area.

Given the spate of gold exploration licences being sought, and granted, in this region, we’d like to remind readers of a fun document which appeared as the pandemic was gathering pace, and may not have gotten the attention it deserved.

It’s the Victorian Auditor General’s report on mine and quarry rehabilitation, tabled in August 2020. You can find it here. Like all such reports, it’s not easy reading, but it’s worth a crack, and the one page summary at the start won’t stretch your brain.

All prospective miners are required to pay the state upfront an amount of money adequate for restoring the land after the mine or quarry has been exhausted.

A common sight in our region. The Castlemaine Diggings Heritage Action Plan (2005) put it nicely: this landscape ‘demonstrates the severe environmental impact that can result from inadequate environmental constraint.’ Are we facing a repeat performance?

Are they doing this? The report’s conclusions are succinct:

‘The Department of Jobs Precincts and Regions (DJPR) is not effectively regulating operators’ compliance with their rehabilitation responsibilities. This exposes the state to significant financial risk because some sites have been poorly rehabilitated or not treated at all. If not addressed, these sites also present risks to Victorians and the environment.[FOBIF emphasis]

‘Systemic regulatory failures encompass:

• using outdated cost estimates
• not periodically reviewing bonds for their sufficiency—including a four-year bond review ‘moratorium’ for which there is no documentary evidence that it was duly authorised
• failure to assure that site rehabilitation had actually occurred before returning bonds
• approving inadequately specified rehabilitation plans
• lack of enforcement activities.

‘Further, while some changes to address conflicts of interest were made following Parliament’s Independent Inquiry into the EPA in 2016, Earth Resources Regulation (ERR)—the primary mining regulator—still resides within DJPR, which seeks to foster and develop the mining industry.’ (FOBIF emphases).

The disturbing part of this is the revelation that the regulator and the promoter of mining are in the same department. This kind of compromise, where the regulator is too close to the industry it’s regulating, is all too common. Does the casino industry come to mind?

The upshot of this is that extensive areas of Victoria are being degraded by mining with little prospect of rehabilitation—unless the tax payer stumps up millions for the work ($361 million and counting, so far).

The DJPR, in its acknowledgement of the Auditor General’s report, accepted that change is necessary, recognising that

‘transformational improvement in site rehabilitation is required to protect public safety, land, infrastructure and the environment, in order to avoid any repeat of past problems associated with abandoned and legacy sites.’

We’re not sure how the transformational improvement is going. Watch this space.