Bushfire Management

Hi HowdyDoody

Not particularly impressed with an article that says we should
avoid the "blame game" over the fires and goes on to put a view about
effect of cattle grazing"

This sort of logic is designed to set up anyone who has a different opinion
as being in the "blame game".

Personanly I would be happy to take on anyone over the following statement.

Since publication of , "The alps at the Cross Roads" in early 70's which began
a slow lock out of civilization from the high country, there has been an
overall increase in the fuel load, and its consequences".

Robin Miller

"This capacity has been hardened over millions of years of evolution on a flammable continent. However, the ability of Australian ecosystems to cope with occasional major fires has been compromised by clearing, ferals, fragmentation, logging and grazing."

I assume by ferals, they mean animals?

Hi HD, there are as you say many issues here and I'd be a bit wary of the fairly obvious bias behind the article. That said there is no doubt man is having an influence on nature and has done forever, the rate may be a bit quicker though these days ! But what is there to do ? Go back to living in the trees ?
One of the big issues missed in all of the fire and grazing debate is not how much the cattle actually ate, as far as I know cattle have never eaten the trees! It is the change to the management of land grazing over the last 25-30 years that had had the impact. There has been a determined effort from land managers in both Vic & NSW to suppress fires. Part of this strategy was to stop cattlemen conducting their regular burn-offs to get rid of scrub and encourage new grass. Another was the great reduction in management burnoffs due to lack of staff and sadly expertise. The result - a massive fuel build up. Not just since cattle were excluded, this was only recently, but for nearly 3 decades. The resulting fires are now catastrophic, they are not able to be stopped by the traditional methods of fire breaks and as seen recently burn for very long periods. The massive breaks that can and are constructed with modern earthmoving plant are themselves a form of destruction and have considerable impact of the ecosystems.
The "playing histrionic blame games is pointless" comment may well be the writer's view or equally an attempt to shift the focus from what must be seen as a failed strategy for the reduction of fire impact.
My question is what have the land managers learned from all the destruction ? With the 2006/7 fires burning larger and longer than the 2003 fires I'd say not much.
Lightning will always set fires and sometimes man's stupidity too, so the bush will always burn. How damaging the fires will be will depend largely on the fuel and weather. There is only one of these elements we can control and I think the dreamy, naive approach of locking up huge land areas and then leaving them to nature will only go on producing the results we are seeing.
Ken