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OVER the course of this summer, much of the Victorian high country's environmental, historical and cultural
heritage has been destroyed.
In December Jim
Craig's Hut, the movie home of The Man From
Snowy River, was burned to the ground.
Two weeks ago, it was joined by Weston's Hut at the head of Lake Spur on the western side of the
Bogong High Plains.
This week it was the turn of
the Bluff Hut, mustering refuge of the Stoney family and an icon for cattlemen, bushwalkers, horse riders and four-wheel drivers.
Along the Yarra Track, between
Matlock and Cumberland
Junction, much of what remained of the area's pioneering past has been bulldozed in desperate attempts to contain the fire threatening the Thomson and Upper Yarra catchments.
Not much is left grow-ing on the Victorian Alps after the megafires of 2003 and 2006-07.
The Victorian Government is making good on its promise of a new start for the Alpine National
Park.
But it is born in the ashes of an avoidable tragedy and the environment that emerges from it will be substantially different to that which Victorians have known and loved for generations.
Much of high country Victoria is a charred and blackened landscape of scorched and dead forests.
The trees are witness to the destruction brought about by ill-informed and negligent green management practices.
It will never be as it was.
Over the past four years, more than two million hectares of the high country has experienced bushfires.
So-called passive management has had a black outcome. There are some small pockets of the high country that have escaped the ravages of these fires, but that has been because of alpine grazing.
In 2003, the grazed areas of the Victorian Alps were largely spared the destruction experienced in areas where cattle were evicted.
I challenge green scientists, Victoria's Emergency
Services Commissioner Bruce Esplin and Environment Minister John Thwaites and Premier Steve Bracks to dispute this.
The evidence is there for the eye to see. I have seen it for myself.
The fires faltered and went out when they reached the grazed areas. The grazed plains survived while isolated patches of snowgum and heath set alight by embers burned.
Grazing enhances the fire retardant capacity of snowgrass by trimming its dry tips and preventing flames from crowning across it and setting fire to other areas.
It also helps prevent a build-up of dry waste grass that smothers new growth and provides fuel for flames.
I am a mountain cattleman and my cattle are back on the
Bogong High Plains, where they have been every summer since 1851 when this country was a part of the original Cobungra Station run.
It is a life and a
heritage that I love, in an environment I cherish.
Mountain cattlemen have always been proud to share the high country with all Australians, and I am no exception.
It is an environment I am prepared to fight for and I am fighting for it.
My wife, Louise, and our partner Ken Connley and I drove cattle back to my old licence areas last week.
I did so for a number of reasons, mainly because the high plains must be grazed to protect them from wildfires that rage in surrounding valleys to the south and west.
Also, we have a legal and moral right to graze this summer, in spite of claims to the contrary by the State Government and the Department of Sustainability and Environment.
The Victorian Government passed legislation banning alpine grazing in June 2005.
At the end of the day the issue of our licence is of small importance compared with the tragedy that has unfolded in the high country since January 2003.
Water catchments have been obliterated, timber resources have been decimated and endangered species placed under threat.
The mountain pygmy possum, the long-footed potoroo and the spotted tree frog are some of the species endangered, and the environmental consequences of the fires will be felt for more than a century.
Ken Connley and I will do what we can to prevent wildfire on the 20,000ha of the southern Bogongs covered by our licences.
We are motivated by love of the land, by our love of the life and by our love of Australia's
heritage and culture.
We would be ashamed to call ourselves Australian if we did anything less.
We are out to rouse country Victorians to join us.
We will not stand by while our environment, history,
heritage, culture and traditions are destroyed.