Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Our first walk will take place on Sunday 19 March. The 6 km route is based on the Walk 15  in the FOBIF book, Twenty Bushwalks in the Mount Alexander Region. More detail can be found on the Walks page. We will meet as usual at the Community House in Templeton Street at 9.30 am and then travel by convoy to the the beginning of the walk on Fryers Ridge Road. For people who want to go to the beginning of the walk via Taradale follow the directions in the walks book on page 67 and meet us at the intersection of Fryers Ridge Road and Irishtown Track at 10 am. Ring Jan Hall 0407 338 490 for more information. 

Representatives of local enviro groups convened by Friends of Maldon Railway met on site with fire officers last Monday to discuss the Department’s proposed fuel management exercise south of the railway line.

The proposed burn is scheduled for autumn next year. Its purpose is ‘To develop fuel reduced areas of sufficient width and continuity to reduce the speed and intensity of bushfires’.

Fire discussions in the Maldon Historic Reserve: alternative approaches to fuel management were raised. The results will be seen when the exercise is conducted next year.

The zone is shown on the map in the Post below. It’s bounded by Railway Track, Tatt Town Track, Spur Track and Donkey Farm Track, and is about 310 hectares. Though it doesn’t cover the land immediately adjacent to the rail track, it’s pretty close, which adds some element of concern over the exercise: this strip is of outstanding biodiversity interest.

The brute political reality is that such exercises take place. Questions directed at DEECA staff focused on whether the overriding purpose of fuel reduction necessarily makes them environmentally destructive. A case in point is a very hot ‘reduction burn’ in the area a decade ago, which seriously depleted a population of locally rare Flame Heath, and also provoked rampant regrowth of Cassinia and Golden Wattle. Fire officers acknowledge that some too hot management burns can have the perverse effect of creating fuel through dense regrowth.

Questions raised at the meeting included: the possibility of rezoning part of the proposed area; the possibility of isolating patches known to contain particularly important species; and the possibility of using alternative methods to fire (for example, slashing) in defined areas.

DEECA staff at the Maldon meeting listened sympathetically to the concerns expressed there.  The actual outcome of the meeting, however, will be seen in the conduct of the exercise.

Environmentalists at the Maldon Railway meeting expressed interest in Indigenous approaches to fire in the landscape, and a possible briefing by Indigenous fire officers was canvassed.

This is from the Joint Management Plan for Dja Dja Wurrung parks (2018):

‘For Dja Dja Wurrung People, Wi is a practice with some equivalent aspects to contemporary fire management undertaken by Parks Victoria, DELWP and other agencies. Wi
helps deliver a disturbance regime that supports or hinders particular plant species and manipulates animal distributions. Among other impacts, Wi can open the forest floor to light, release the seedbank to support greater biodiversity, help convert old wood into available nutrients and stimulate the cycle of birth, death and re-birth. However, Wi is far more than an environmental management tool—it is an expression of cultural obligation, of Dja Dja Wurrung People’s connections to land, each other, and Creation time. Fire regimes that lack DDW involvement threaten cultural obligations, aspirations and knowledge systems, as well as the healing of the landscape. Wi is as much about who applies Wi as how Wi is applied.

‘Since colonisation the application of Wi has dramatically changed. Consistent intensity and timing of Wi is lacking in the landscape, and intense wildfires occur periodically, with
ongoing damage to cultural and natural heritage. Planned burning is largely centred on fuel reduction—the cultural outcomes, impacts on DDW food and fibre plants and
animals, cultural connections and obligations have been little considered. While controlled burning is beginning to integrate DDW cultural practices, fire regimes continue to damage
Country. Cultural heritage in the Parks can also be damaged by the use of fire retardants, mineral earth fire breaks, control lines and in some cases the intensity of controlled burns.
Finally, ongoing climate change will affect how fire behaves in DDW Country and how it can be used as a management tool.’ (page 33)

According to the Joint Fuel Management Plan, Dja Dja Wurrung rangers are set to conduct 17 burns in 2022-3, 30 in 2023-4 and 13 in 2024-5.

One peculiarity of the proposed Maldon Historic Reserve fire is that it is partly designed to protect the railway and private property on the north side of the railway line. Yet the briefest look at the map below will show something very strange: namely, that the north side of the line is bordered by a significant area of private bushland—for which no fuel reduction program is planned.

Here’s a question: if the bush on the south side of the line needs to be fuel reduced, why doesn’t the bush on the north side?

Or: if the bush on the north side doesn’t need to be fuel reduced, why does the south side?

Logically you’d burn both sides of the line…or neither.

Would a fire approach a fence and say to itself, ‘Oh. Private land. I can’t go there.’ ?

The questions relate to a longstanding but very inconsistently implemented policy: Tenure blind fire management.

The Auditor General’s 2020 report on Reducing Bushfire Risk had this to say:

‘While agency roles and responsibilities are well defined for public land, they are not for private land. Consequently, tenure-blind burning has exposed some uncertainty that did not previously exist. DELWP and CFA have worked together to resolve initial concerns about liability regarding tenure-blind burns. Following a project to identify policy and legislative enablers to support tenure blind burning, the agencies updated their cooperative arrangement and communicated outcomes to staff.

‘However, they are yet to resolve issues about how tenure-blind burns are funded. DELWP and CFA advised us that while tenure blind burns are crucial for risk reduction, they cost more because they:

• are generally close to assets
• involve high levels of community engagement
• require more staff resources due to the increased risk to human life
• include paid DELWP staff, not just CFA volunteers.

‘This issue requires resolution to support more of this work to occur.’