Victorian bushfires

Note: This introduction has been edited for a number of small but important inaccuracies. Candobetter.net editor 29/12/2014.] Fuel reduction and ecological burning etc. are based on the assumption that all Aboriginal people undertook fire-stick farming. Joel Wright, traditional owner in southwest Victoria, is an indigenous language, culture and history researcher. He finds no evidence of wide-scale burning in Aboriginal language and culture, but does find other explanations for the history of aboriginal fires observed by Europeans. These were often smoke-signals exchanged between clans, for general communication and warning of approaching Europeans etc. There was also defensive burning to hinder explorers by burning feed their stock might otherwise eat. Other fires were to 'cover their tracks' when they were being pursued, etc.. Many of these fires were mistaken for landscape burning. Joel also found one record of burning small portions of dry grass around marshes to expose an area to attract birds to scratch for food there, making the birds potential meals for the indigenous hunters. Nowhere did he find anything to justify the destructive and dangerous annual incineration of the landscapes of the Gunditjamara by the Victorian Government. He was concerned that burning the bush as we do now kills the birds and animals so important to vegetation stories, removes scar and burial trees and 'burns micro particles from axes and spears that holds the clues as to what they were used for.The video was recorded from Wright's presentation at Australian Wildlife Protection Council Fire and Wildlife Conference, "Pause and Review Victoria's Fire Management." November 2014

Candobetter.net Editor's comment: The long delay in publishing this remarkable report from researcher, Joel Wright, has nothing to do with its excellence. The delay was the result of fire policy politics associated with the recent change of government, which encouraged candobetter.net and others to suppress discussion until the passing of the Napthine Government. I will try to write about these politics in another article.

I am also waiting on a transcript of the contents of the filmed lecture. - Sheila Newman

#F3F781;line-height:120%;"> Video and transcript inside This film, made for the conference exposes the lived experience of corrupt, stupid and lethal Victorian forest and fire management, despite and because of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission. The name of the film, "Firebug Economy," comes from Jill Redwood's description of a desperate way of making money out of fires by people in the declining logging business. In the film Jill also talks about the low flammability of old growth forests and the horrible synergy of forest removal, wildlife loss, and global warming, greatly accelerated under Victoria's 'planned burns policy'. Government policy has been stealthily converting old growth forests into plantations. Is the final aim is to sell them for farmland and urban development as Victoria burns? Please come to the Pause and Review conference in Melbourne 9th Nov 2014 at Kindness House, 288 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy Melbourne. Starts 10am. Contact: Maryland Wilson 0417 148 501. Jill Redwood of Environment East Gippsland is famous for leading the first ever successful case by an environmental organisation against a government logging firm. In this film we find that the trees granted protection in the famous EEG court case against VicForests have since been vengefully felled.

Speakers include:
Philip Ingamells Victorian National Parks Association
Speaker Bob Mc Donald Naturalist
Joel Wright - Indigenous speaker on traditional Aboriginal fire management.
Michelle Thomas - well-known wildlife rescuer and carer from Animalia shelter
Maryland Wilson (President of AWPC) will lead a discussion and Action Plan from 3-4pm

How does forest-logging increase fire-risk and climate change?

Jill Redwood: Well, we've always thought this, but a study that's just come out from the ANU and Melbourne Uni [Lindenmayer, McCarthy, Taylor, "Non-linear effects of stand age on fire severity," see also "Code of destruction Lindenmayer deplores Victoria's future forest policy][1] shows that where the logging regrowth grows back after total clearfell (which is the only method used around here, even though they might give it a different name of 'seed tree', is pretty well clearfell back to bare-earth burn. And then what comes up is like ... It's converted to a pulpwood farm, basically. You don't get your forest back. What you get back is a tree-crop, and it's perfectly suited for the woodchip industry because they like the nice young white straight uniform predictable trees.

So, where we used to have age-diversity, species diversity, ferns - you know, the different stratas in the forest - you just get the one species coming back, thick as hairs on a cat's back.

As well as very thick regrowth, that's very thick and very flammable, they compete with each other for light, nutrient and water, so you also get a lot of them die off, which are then - it's just like creating a tinderbox. One, of the dead wood to carry the fire and to burn really well, and then, all this young, oil-filled eucalypt foliage. And it's just like a funeral pyre - especially when it's around towns and communities. It really goes up like a bomb. Whereas you get your natural forest and you get your different strata in the forest. You get your canopy from the old growth - really high - very hard for that to carry a crown fire, as in the young forests that carry crown fires. You get the mid-story, you get the tree-fern understory that creates this microclimate, where there's always dampness, there's moss on logs - and it's just very fire-proof. Natural forest is fire-proof and there are a lot of lightening strikes actually hitting those areas and they never go anywhere. But you get a lightening strike on a ridge-top, or a regrowth forest, and it just goes like a bomb! The whole landscape, the hillside, wherever they log, it's drying it out and creating a different forest that's far more flammable.

The government's 'planned burns' policy

[Following the 2009 Victorian bushfires, an inquiry came up with a policy for mandatory burning of 5% of Victoria's forests per annum - that's 100% in 20 years. See under "Land and fuel management", http://www.royalcommission.vic.gov.au/Assets/VBRC-Final-Report-Recommendations.pdf Recommendation 56: "The State fund and commit to implementing a long-term program of prescribed burning based on an annual rolling target of 5 per cent minimum of public land"]

The way I see what's happening with the government planned burns is it gives the community a false sense of security. They have to do something to look after people from big bad fires. It's actually climate change that's creating it, and the logging. Both of those together are a deadly combination.

Sheila Newman, Interviewer: According to some theories the logging is creating the climate change, certainly in the hinterlands. [Text insert reference in film after the interview to Gorshkov and Makarieva's Biotic Pump theory].

Jill RedwoodIt's a feedback loop that's just not going to end unless the government does something to say, 'Right, this is enough. Let's try to get it back to what it was. '

But what they're doing, as a 'solution', is saying, 'we need to burn to stop the burning'. What they're doing is taking out the natural fire-proofing of a forest. And that is all the little hoppers and scratchers and diggers, like the potoroos, the bandicoots, that turn over leaf litter. Lyrebirds. They can cover - turn over - about two and a half tons a year. Each lyrebird. So they're constantly making this compost out of the leaf-litter and twigs on the forest floor. The mosses, the funghi, the termites - all the insects! The moth-larvae that are actually evolved to eat dry gum leaves - not much else is. These are the things that, when they put a fire through, and say, 'Alright, we're safe now, it's all burnt!' They are destroying the very thing that can fire-proof a forest that's been working for millions of years.

[Leaf litter shown in film. It holds a lot of water, as well as nutrients and funghi, so is not flammable, but, as Jill quips, 'It's not flammable, but it's what the public are taught to fear'. If we leave the little animals in there, they will get rid of it; they'll turn it over and digest it and the funghi will eat through it. ]

So they're killing of the little animals, they're exposing them to predation by foxes. They're taking that layer out that shades the forest floor, that keeps the damp ness going. And, if anybody's ever made compost, they know you've got to keep moisture in it and you've got to have your little creepies and bacteria and everything working together to break down that leaf-litter and the twigs. And that's why the old growth forests won't burn. And up here, during the 2014 fires, we saw it roar through a lot of fairly dry open forest that's been logged. Soon as it hit Brown Mountain, it went out. They tried to burn it with - DEPI would try to burn [dog interrupts, barking] ... DEPI being the Department of Enviroment and Primary Industry. And, what they were doing is, not just - they weren't fighting the fire - they were just lighting more fire - and that's a whole other story. The way they managed these fires in [summer].

Sheila Newman, Interviewer: And their intention was to light a fire they could manage, which would mean that, by the time the wildfire got to it, it would run out of fuel? That's their theory?

Overtime and bonuses created through burning off

Jill Redwood: It also created a lot of reall good overtime and bonuses. But... anyway...

Sheila Newman, Interviewer:Well, that's a valid thing to comment on.

Jill Redwood: Oh God, it is!

Sheila Newman, Interviewer:Because it's not like ....

Jill Redwood: And we dare not because, oh my God, you're questioning these brave fire-fighters? Well, I didn't see any fire-fighters actually front a fire with some water. They were just lighting fires, all the time, so the boundary was getting bigger and bigger. And that... You know, the bushfire, probably would have been 'this big' but the way DEPI were managing it, the government fire-fighters, they just kept lighting fires to try and burn back into it, and then they'd escape and jump [indicates fire jumping over boundary] and they'd have to bulldoze and light another fire. And I'm sure about half the size of this fire was due to government initiated bushfires, in the hottest period, in the dry summer.

We had the big one up in Deddick. They didn't jump on that. That was one they could have jumped on immediately. That's the one that got out of control. And they were sort of waiting for it to come out, which, in the mean time it got bigger and bigger, until February the 9th, when it was so big they couldn't do anything about it and it just sort of took out half of Tubbit, Bonang, Goongarah... We were surrounded by fires and that February the 9th, it just burned out the top end of Goongarah and took out so much forest. It just - it was so intense, there wasn't a green thing, a living thing left after it went through. And this is just for miles and miles. To that extent. Somebody said, that they could have got in there, the rappelle crews could have got in, there was actually a way to get in there with four wheel drives. They could have done something about that, but they didn't!

Cienwen Hickey (local wildlife activist): They don't use a strike team anymore, do they, as they used to.

Jill Redwood: No. It's all too dangerous, but - so they just wait for it to come out and make the fires bigger and bigger and bigger. And we, our volunteer fire-brigade here, had to go out at night and put out fires that DEPI had lit the night before, and went back home. You know, they've got bank hours, like nine to five.

Cienwen Hickey (local wildlife activist): Well, they knock off at five o'clock.

Jill Redwood: They're not patrolling at night. They're not doing work on fires at night when they could, when it's cooler, when it's damp and the air's got moisture in it...

Sheila Newman, Interviewer: Is this in the middle of a bushfire they go home at night?

Jill Redwood: They go home at night, and they leave it up to us volunteers - our CFA (Country Fire Authority) to go and patrol at night, at two in the morning, putting their fires out that got away. And then they come back in the morning at nine o'clock and light them all up again for the heat of the day.

(Jill wanted it on record that SOME staff did good and that SOME very strategic and small-scale burning might have been useful to reduce the fire impact on private land before the main blow-up day, but the rest is rightful criticism.)

Sheila Newman, Interviewer: So you're saying that old growth forest ultimately went up? What about the argument though, that old growth forest doesn't usually burn easily and, as we remove it, we're increasing climate change? It seems to me that it would be better to have more old growth forest, less logging, to reduce the speed of climate change, even - and the risk of any forest fires.

Jill Redwood: That's logical! And that's what all the science is saying. But the government would prefer to keep the logging industry making that money, a few jobs - I think there's forty jobs involved in East Gippsland - but we're still destroying what has the ability to moderate our climate and that is forest. They're carbon capture and storage units - you know - the best in the world that we've got is our forests. They're knockign them down and creating these - you know - smoke, just ... ash landscapes with nothing there.

So the more that they log, the more that the climate is actually heating up, the less carbon there is stored in the forest, the less temperature moderation [2] there is over the landscape - and of course our bushfires are going to get much worse.

In the past, there has been - you know, lightening strikes - yes, South East Australia does get a lot of lightening strikes. Historically that's always been the case. Pre-European, pre-Aboriginal.

Sheila Newman, Interviewer: Yet there were very big forests.

Jill Redwood: They were very big forests and they had that structure where, you know, there are all these fire-breaks in the landscape. All the wet gullies, the south-facing slopes. The forest that had a lot of thick undergrowth. Where it wasn't thick undergrowth that stopped that stopped that heat and wind driving fires through, in some areas, just naturally it would open out and become dry sort of grassy understory forest. And that's what a lot of the early settlers described. But it wasn't due to burning. It was due to lack of burning. And that's what a lot of the science is now picking up. And we're [Sarcastically] just saying, 'Oh, no, the Aborigines used to burn so we've got to do the same to be safe!'

DEPI's 'Dangerous trees' policy

Sheila Newman, Interviewer: Coming up this way we've observed in the areas that have been really badly burned piles of fallen logs and tree-litter piled up - obviously by bulldozers and things.

Jill Redwood: What they are - and I've actually questioned this, and I've formally tried to get an answer - What they're doing now they have this 'dangerous trees' policy because all of these trees that are left standing along tracks are 'dangerous'. They might just fall on cars at any moment. So they have to go right along the tracks and cut down every tree that might possibly fall. And I've got photos of ones that are solid as a rock, not any rot in them, not leaning, and they've cut them down. And when they cut them down, of course, where you would have had a tree with a green leafy head and a trunk, you now have this pile of ... It's a tinder-box, waiting to burn, you know. And along the side of the roads. Like, hang on, weren't you trying to make the roads safer? And all they've done is bulldoze all of these trees and tree-heads up along the side of the road. So now, if there's another fire that comes through, they're just going to be this massive big bonfires.

Sheila Newman, Interviewer: How long has that been going on for, this business of cutting them down because they're 'dangerous'?

Jill Redwood: We just had that down here the year before ... yeah, 2013 they started doing that - down along Martin's Creek. In that area. So all of these habitat trees - the ones that are really important for habitat - feed trees for gliders, you know, the nectar producing trees, they're the best - the oldest ones are the best - cut them all down because they're 'dangerous'.

What are governments aiming for here?

Sheila Newman, Interviewer: Is there any idea - does anyone have any idea of what the governments - the successive governments - think they're doing with this area? Are they going to turn it into some plantation forest or, are they going to turn it into farmland? Or are they going to build appartments?

Jill Redwood: They're trying to turn it into plantations. That's what's been happening for the last forty years, it's conversion to plantations. But now the woodchip industry is starting to say, "Naw, we don't want those chips from South East Australia. Too far away. We'll get our woodchips from - you know - Vietnam - or somewhere else that's got the eucalypt plantations growing.

Fire[bug] Economy

So now, DEPI, who's had this agenda to create this wonderful woodchip farm for the Asian woodchip market for forty years, it's starting to fall in a heap. So: 'God, we've got to keep ourselves relevant, somehow - I know! Fire economy! Yes!'

And they call it 'Red gold' now, and the people at Glenaladale ...

Sheila Newman, Interviewer: Fire economy?

Jill Redwood: Fire economy! You know, keep DEPI relevant?

Sheila Newman, Interviewer: So, how are they doing this? What does 'fire economy' mean?

Jill Redwood: Well, it keeps the people employed burning, cutting down trees, bulldozing tracks ...

Sheila Newman, Interviewer: Oh, to 'prevent' bushfires and trees falling on people?

Jill Redwood: And if there is a bushfire - 'You beauty! We've got a lot of, you know, extra income for this, and we could employ our mates on bulldozers at $3000 a day to push tracks and push trees over and - oh, I don't know - you know, it might not be any good, but we've got to keep 'em employed and -

Sheila Newman, Interviewer: You'd think they could employ a few of them as forest rangers, wouldn't you?

Jill Redwood: Oh! Putting in picnic tables and walking tracks maybe might be a better thing but, you know, a lot of these boys do love their matches. And, you know, you look at the profile of a pyromaniac and, my God, I reckon that a lot of them would be perfect for those boys in green overalls and driving around in [?] vehicles.

Rare huge trees protected in EEG court case since felled for revenge

Jill Redwood: (Filmed standing by a huge fallen tree among several lining a fire track) All the way along here to our Brown Mountain forests - which was the test case in this court case - they have cut down every big tree along the way! There is no reason for it, other than -.

Sheila Newman, Interviewer: So these were the trees your court case [which was successful] was defending largely?

Jill Redwood: Yes!

Sheila Newman, Interviewer: They've all been cut down?

Jill Redwood: Yes! It's retribution. That's all it is. It's just absolute senseless destruction of giant big old trees.

Scale of destruction

Jill Redwood: (Back in home). I actually did a comparison between what's happening in the Amazon and what's happening in East Gippsland. And, relative to the area that we've got, and how much is being taken out each year, as clear-fell logs - clear-fell areas - it's pretty much on a par with the Amazon. It's just like ... East Gippsland is no better and here we are saying, 'World's best practice! It all grows back. All renewable!' It's not. It's bullshit! They are destroying what is irreplacable. Irreplacable! We have six hundred year old trees. We radiocarbon dated the wood from near the center of the tree. Six hundred year old trees! And it's just turned into this smokey, ashen landscape, and it goes of to - you know - Asian woodchip factories. If it was anywhere else in the world, they would be valuing these forests as something so rare. It would be the antiques of the natural world. And people would have to be paying big money to come and experience and stand amongst these giants and just be awestruck. But no - paper cups - throwaway paper!

[End transcript from short version of Firebug Economy film ("Pause and review wildlife and fire conf").]

NOTES

[1]

"Code of Destruction - A look at Victoria's future forest policy":
This film Recommends the creation of a "Great Forest National Park", where there would be no logging.
Prof. David Lindenmayer is one of Australia's foremost environmental experts. Over 30 years David has undertaken one of the most comprehensive scientific studies of a forest landscape anywhere in the world. With over 35 scientists and 2,500 volunteers they have painstakingly measured and tracked the Victorian central highlands. Now the state government who manages that forest refuses to reference their study as it presents a conclusion they are unwilling to hear. Without intention - all Victorians putting at risk their water security, biodiversity and the extinction of their fauna emblem - the endangered Leadbeaters Possum.

[2] Regarding the expression 'temperature moderation', this is a reference to more discussion in the longer version of this interview, covering the heat island effect and the cooling effect of forests, (particularly mature ones with big trees) which is noticable to anyone entering them. So, it is not just carbon storage, but the transpirational effects of forests (getting rid of heat and water, but also storing water - keeping the balance) and their shade that is important.

#FF9999;line-height:120%;">Video inside. This article is about the effects of 390,000 ha of native vegetation targeted to be burned every year in Victoria, Australia's most cleared state. The video inside this article documents how vast numbers of Australian wildlife are burned alive in scientifically dubious prescribed burns, mandated by the Victorian Government. It asks whether the cruel and avoidable fate of many wildlife in prescribed burns is really protecting human lives and assets or merely a way of meeting an arbitrary target. Others would be much harsher and say that this may be a calculated strategy to rid the state of wildlife in addition to an apparently deliberate failure to cooperate with wildlife activists in making easily protected wildlife corridors to connect viable habitat.[1]

The Labor Government in Victoria created these machinally destructive laws after the 2009 bushfires, but the Liberal Government has not questioned them. Those currently heading the Victorian animal holocaust are Dennis Napthine, Premier of Victoria (denis.napthine [ AT ] parliament.vic.gov.au),
Ryan Smith, Environment Victoria Minister (ryan.smith [ AT ] parliament.vic.gov.au) and
#10; [email protected]">Peter Walsh Minister for Agriculture (peter.walsh [ AT ] parliament.vic.gov.au).

Government burning off decisions arising from the bushfire commission seem mostly based on spin. They do not acknowledge in their methods to avert bushfires the predominant role of humans in starting them. Nature accounts for only about 6% of fires, mostly in the form of lightening. Ninety point nine per cent (90.9%) of vegetation fires are caused by humans through arson (35.2), through 'accidents' (36.2%), by 'incendiary' (? explosions etc) (13.3%), and through prescribed burns reigniting (5.4%). (3.9% are described as 'other'.)

"Bushfire, arson, what do we know now?" (the source of the above graph and figures) is a Productivity Commission report on the role of arson in creating fires. As we might expect of the economic technocracy, one of their recommendations is prescribed burn-offs to limit the arsonist's bang for his/her buck! In other words, do the job for them? Absolutely no regard or even a thought for the living creatures that suffer. The authors note that it is hard to stop arson in large vegetated areas. We note, however, that there has been a huge reduction in parks and forest staff on the ground, like rangers, since the Kennett government 1992-1999, with Labor governments continuing this folly.

Shooters encouraged in parks, but not wildlife carers

Whilst governments are gung-ho to allow shooters into national parks to 'control pests', what about compensating wildlife activists and carers who are willing to roster themselves in forests during the fire-season and to monitor animal welfare and visitor activity, day and night if necessary? People who care for injured wildlife and love the bush are very unlikely to set fire to habitat.

Faulty bushfire management compounds faulty climate change management

The values of the Liberal Government avoid the issue of climate change. Their population growth and development policies (like the Labor government's before them, despite the rhetoric) actively increase high carbon-emission producing activities and drying and warming of land. Much of Australia's carbon emissions come from land-clearing, but in Victoria (and Australia) the government is encouraging more new development, and consequently more land-clearing. As well, intensification of development means that people are confined to small airless and eaveless appartments which can only be cooled by air-conditioners, which put heat into the air outside and demand more coal-fired electricity to run. Victoria's grotesque 'planning policies' increase local heat island effect and the overall risk of the climate heating and drying. We note that Victoria is soon to subject VCAT to committee regulation that will see even less control over the 'planning' that is overrunning our democracy and heating our environment.[3]

The mass media and government have avoided acknowledging the demonstrable fact that old growth forests burn much less than new or 'managed' forests. New forests and plantations dry through thinning or through repeated burnoffs which then favour combustible vegetation that survives fires, thus creating a man-made fire-vulnerable landscape and reduction to inland rainfall. The prescribed annual burn-off target greatly increases the drying of vegetated land and vegetation kinds. Trees not only create local 'heat islands' but vast old-growth forests cool vast portions of the environment as well as efficiently regulating below-ground and above ground hydration through transpiration.

For those who were in Victoria during the 2009 fires, and remember the heat leading up to the fires, the active promotion through legislation of these drying factors (although in guise of fire-precautions) is insane. At best it appears like gross incoordination of knowledge and policy; at worst it seems quasi-homicidal.

Government by the ethically bereft in Victoria and Australia

It is as if we are governed by a self-appointed moneyed caste which has lost all respect for nature, other species and the citizens of Victoria themselves. The environmental laws are flouted [2]and then, when attention is drawn to this, our corrupt parliaments simply change the laws.

For those of us who grew up in a social environment that enjoyed the outdoors and strongly valued passive interaction with native wildlife, with a culture of wildlife protection and respect, this is shocking. We realise that we are ruled by a planning technocracy that has no higher human values, makes empty promises, speaks in cliches, and makes laws to advantage its members.

It has taken many of us decades to accept that this is really what is happening. At best we are witnesses to great callousness, at worst we are witness to the construction by elites of a kind of civilisation that is only concerned with enriching a small elite at the expense of their fellows and the total destruction of the natural world.

The people responsible are obviously not able to work out the ultimate consequences of their policies, which will see a so-degraded Austrlaia that survival for most, if not all, will become doubtful. They are also not scientists, except in the technologies that further their immediate wealth. They have no humane philosophies. If they are religious, it is with dogmas that blind them to consequences and help them to further their own immediate interests. They are like Steven King's Tommyknockers, whom education has equipped with "a limited form of genius which makes them very inventive, but does not provide any philosophical or ethical insight. Instead, it provokes psychotic violence."[4]

This class is also ruling all states of Australia.

Inquiry into 2009 bushfires

The article below is a report on the inquiry into the 2009 Victorian bushfires, which were among the most frightening ever, occurring in deadly temperatures in the mid-forties. It shows the typical approach of the mainstream media, which always backs the status quo and attributes science and foresight to the establishment in its conditioning comments about how 'scientific evaluations have always been part of intelligent fuel reduction strategy' and its illogical conclusion that 'an effective wildfire control strategy must attempt to control fires throughout the forests. The paragraphs quoted below, however, also contain telling comments from environmentalists, but these paragraphs were right at the end of the full article, where most people never read. To consign these important observations to the end of the article, naturally diminishes their value in the readers' eyes. Also, note the use of 'experts' in the Royal Commission. Experts are usually part of the establishment. If you are not part of the establishment or disagree with it, then newspapers are unlikely to call you an 'expert'.

"Environmentalists, who for years have opposed fuel-reduction burns on the grounds that they damage the environment, have taken a new tack. The Greens, for example, now claim that they never opposed prescribed burning, but wanted a scientific evaluation of each burn conducted before it was approved, to ensure the survival of fauna and flora.

While this sounds reasonable, the fact is that these considerations have always been part of an intelligent fuel-reduction strategy, which must recognise that fires have been a natural feature of the bush, and it can be assumed that fauna and flora are adapted to survive low-to-moderate intensity fires.

[Candobetter comment: The huge arbitrary annual target promotes a regularity of holocaust that was never present in the environment where Australian animals evolved. Furthermore, this pyromaniacal target occurs in the most cleared state and where wildlife are threatened by many other intensifying and expanding processes. To cite evolutionary theory under these conditions is inappropriate and has grave consequences, as we see in the film above.]

Another line of attack, put forward by some environmental groups in central Victoria, is that the DSE should be setting fire to grass and weeds in close proximity to housing, rather than burning forests.

A spokesman for the groups said, "We cannot understand why DES fuel-reduction teams keep burning public forest blocks, when the dangerous areas closer to settlements are neglected." (Bendigo Advertiser, March 24, 2010).

Another member claimed that the DSE had produced no research analysing the effect of fuel-reduction burns on central Victoria's box-ironbark forests. The groups had adopted the motto, "Hazards not Hectares", to emphasise the need for burns in high-risk areas, rather than large areas of bush.

However, an effective wildfire control strategy must attempt to control fires throughout the forests, without neglecting high-risk areas close to human habitation. " (Source: "BUSHFIRES: Victoria changes tack on fuel-reduction burns," by Peter Westmore, News Weekly, April 17, 2010

NOTES

[1] Such as those of Maryland Wilson, Malcolm Legg and Hans Brunner http://candobetter.net/?q=node/1012 and http://candobetter.net/?q=taxonomy/term/73over years on the Mornington Peninsula, attempting to link Greensbush National Park with Devilbend Reservoir, sundry then extant green paces and Frankston Reservoir. All eroded by development and then all prospects of a corridor completely destroyed - some would say gratuitously - by Peninsula Link - which could have provided many underpasses and overpasses but only provided one, in the Pines Flora and Fauna reserve, where the local Frankston Council then failed to use money allocated by government to install a predator proof fence to protect the local bandicoot population, which then became extinct. Now our only hope is a southern brown bandicoot program in the Werribee Zoo. Imagine! Needing a zoo to preserve this once common animal. Everything, from kangaroos to platypuses is now stuck in the remaining isolated and dwindling patches of habitat on Mornington Peninsula, which has been targeted for growth since Jeff Kennet made it part of Greater Melbourne. Instead of a green peninsula biosphere once touted, the Victorian government intends to build new roads and railway down to Hastings Port, of which 400 ha it then means for intensive industrial development.

[2]Victorian Fauna and Flora Guarantee Act
Auditor General's reports

[3] "GENERAL BUSINESS
7 JULY 2014

10. CHANGES TO THE VICTORIAN AND CIVIL ADMINISTRATIVE (VCAT) ACT
Planning Appeals Coordinator: Gareth Gale
General Manager Planning & Development: Stuart Draffin

PURPOSE
The purpose of this report is to brief Councillors on changes made by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) Amendment Bill 2014.

BACKGROUND
On 1 April 2014, the VCAT Amendment Bill 2014 received Royal Assent, and became effective on 2 June 2014. No community consultation occurred as part of this Amendment.

DISCUSSION
The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Amendment Bill 2014 contains substantial reforms relevant to the planning jurisdiction.

Most significantly, the reforms would enable the Tribunal to:
1. Invite a responsible authority to reconsider its decision at any time in a review proceeding
2. Make an order in relation to fees (including application and hearing fees), separate from its power to award costs
3. More actively manage the use and giving of expert evidence in proceedings
4. Make an order removing a person as a party to a proceeding if it considers that:
•??the person's interests are not affected by the proceeding; or
•??the person is not a proper or necessary party to the proceeding
5. Delegate certain functions of the Tribunal (such as making procedural orders or consent orders) to its registrars.

It is the first two reforms that are likely to be of most significance to Council. Below is a summary of those two proposed reforms.

New section 51A - Tribunal May Invite Decision-Maker to Reconsider Decision

In the context of the planning jurisdiction, this new provision would enable the Tribunal to invite a responsible authority (usually Council) to reconsider its decision at any time in the proceeding. The new section provides that on receiving the invitation to reconsider, the responsible authority may:
•??Affirm the decision
•??Vary the decision
•??Set aside the decision and substitute a new decision for it.

The new provision requires the Tribunal to ensure that, as far as possible, a proceeding's priority is not affected by inviting the responsible authority to reconsider its decision (unless the parties consent). As a consequence, the Tribunal may specify a timeframe within which a responsible authority may reconsider its decision.

One possible opportunity for Council to reconsider its decision might be following mediation and/or the amendment of plans. However, this process only seems warranted in order to avoid a hearing extending across multiple days – cases which are generally contained within the Major Cases List. Given there is clear intent in the new provisions to ensure a proceeding is not delayed further, coupled with the fact that all Major Cases List applications have hearings listed only six weeks after any mediation, it is difficult to contemplate under what circumstance this process will be useful.

It is further noted that Council already has the opportunity to reconsider its position during a VCAT process. As such, this change to the VCAT Act might not offer any new real change other than introducing a more formal mechanism to do so. This new process raises a number of procedural questions which are yet to be understood.

New Section 115 – New Power to Make Orders in Relation to Fees

This section provides that the Tribunal may, at any time, make an order that a party to
the proceeding:
•??Reimburse another party the whole or any part of any fee paid by that other party in the proceeding;
•??Pay, on behalf of another party, the whole or any part of any fee that may be required to be paid in the future by that other party in the proceeding;
•??Reimburse another party the whole or any part of any fee that may be paid in the future by that other party in the proceeding; and
•??Require a party to pay the whole or any part of a fee in future in the proceeding.

The key area that this could be useful for Council is in Enforcement Order Applications (EAO’s). Given EAO’s are generally only made in the situation where Council is forced to do so, the Tribunal could award the reimbursement of the $802 fee to Council.

SUMMARY
The new changes to the VCAT have been introduced with little forewarning or consultation.

The implications of the changes, and particularly those at the new section 51A, are unclear amongst those working within the planning profession. At this stage, there appears little opportunity to enact this new provision, particularly given there is clear intent in the new provisions to ensure a proceeding is not delayed further.

The new changes will be monitored to better inform our understanding of how they will affect Council and other stakeholders.

HUMAN RIGHTS CONSIDERATION
The recommendation complies with the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and
Responsibilities Act 2006.

RECOMMENDATION
That Council note this report."

[4] Quote from Wikipedia summary of the plot of Steven King's The Tommyknockers, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tommyknockers

Photo by Jill Quirk

In Victoria in 2010

Why is it that bushfires, regeneration burns, ecological burns, asset protection burns etc., are not considered fuel-reducing?

Why is Victoria logging in water supply catchments when we are short of water - especially after they have burned?

Why has not the impact of continually losing hollow trees as a result of increased deliberately lit fires and logging and the threat of extinction this poses to possums, parrots and other species being referred for consideration under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act?

What are the projected carbon emissions from all deliberately lit fires such as fuel reduction burns, asset protection burns, regeneration burns, etc.?

Why aren't the fuel loads before and after these deliberately lit fires and bushfires measured? If you believe they are, where and when?

The author suggests that readers
Email these questions to the Bushfires Royal Commission enquiries[AT]royalcommission.vic.gov.au your local Federal and State Members of Parliament Victorian State Members in the Upper House http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/mlcs.html and the Lower House http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/mps.html; Victorian Federal House of Representatives http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/mi-alpha.asp and Victorian Senators http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/senators/homepages/index.asp email

Please send all and any replies to jim_w304[AT]hotmail.com

Source of this article was an email.

On February 12, Sheila Newman wrote a blog about Wildhaven which burnt to the ground in the horrific Black Saturday Victorian bushfires last year (see http://candobetter.org/node/1064 ).

Stella and Boof,
before the fires of Black Saturday

Both lost tragically in the fires last year.
Gone forever now.

Those of us who were privileged to have come to know her magical animals through her photos were devastated. It's heartbreaking to think of kangaroos like the following are now gone forever ... and even more heartbreaking to consider the terror they must have experienced while running for their lives and being burned to death.

And worst of all is the pain of Stella and Alan Reid from Wildhaven who must bear the grief for the rest of their lives. It is a tribute to their shining spirits that they chose to pick up and start over, from the ground up. From all around the world, people started sending them donations of money, food and clothing so that they could begin again. For most of the last year they have lived in one big tin shed with a few of the animals who miraculously did survive the fires.

Cooper and Merlot,
an inseparable couple

Kangaroos such as precious Merlot and Cooper who hold each other affectionately most of the time.

Hope, the baby wombat, 12K
Making sure she sort of doesn't share the food

Then there is Hope, the baby wombat, Hope, is around 12k, and sort of shares her food with the Wallabies, Kangaroos, maybe not. You can see from the photo on the right below that she has her feet in one bowl while eating from the next. This is one way of not sharing.

Hope steals the kangaroos' pouches
who have left giving him space!

Hope, the wombat, yep, eating again
Cooper, Merlot, Nigel and Patch along the back

This is outside in the enclosures we have built, it is fenced by four and a half acres of 8 foot fencing. They can run free or stay in the small enclosure in their pouches.

Patch in a perfect pose
One day he will be a big boy

Patch is so beautiful and is going to be a big Kangaroo tall and elegant. He is still only a baby and like to stay in his pouch but does spend time on the grass.

Nigel, when not in our bed,
smiles when he is in Patches' bed

They have 9 little ones on bottles, 3 - 4 times a day. The last bottle is 10pm and first at 6 am.

Says Stella: "It is nearly one year on since Black Saturday, this Sunday is a year. We are at peace here in our world again. For the rest of our lives we will care for the little ones, each year at this time the memories of one year ago will be so strong it breaks our hears as if it was yesterday. This we cannot change, It will be with us forever. To cry and remember is what humans do, it is ok to do this.

Nigel in our bed
When not in Patches' bed

Alice having a bottle, talking and drinking simultaneously
She loves hugs and kisses and gives them back

The Bunker
A safety net for the future

Hope chases Alice
They are good friends

The land is still so barren
But we have hope for the future when things will be lush and green again

Spoiled rotten on the couch.
One happy family

This is our new kangaroo enclosure
Merlot and Cooper fussing as usual

"We look in to the eyes and faces of the little ones in our care and we smile again. Wildhaven will be free and safe again for the little ones. This time many more people are watching, caring and loving we are not doing it alone, this is a good thing. Welcome to Wildhaven where our family and friends are the little creatures of the earth. I hope the years to come you too will enjoy our world as much as we feel privileged to be part of. It is an honor to be part of their world."

We built a fire bunker for our wildlife, and they have taken to the concert tank very easily, it will always be open to them. They come and go in the bunker as they wish. It is inside the enclosure for them. In making our world safe the little ones in our care will always come first. They will not be afraid to go in, when the next fires come.

Hope, the baby wombat, chasing Alice, they are good friends. Hope is a very fast runner, Alice has better eye sight.

Love from
Alan Stella and All at Wildhaven.

And it is an honour to know you too, Stella. Thank you for giving us a glimpse into the beauty and sweetness of Australia's native animals.

They still need help. Any contributions gratefully received at:-

Direct Bank Deposit to:
Stella & Alan Reid
BSB: 063 222
Account: 10262617

Or mail a cheque to:
Stella and Alan Reid, C/- St Andrews Post Office, 10 Caledonia Street, St Andrews Vic 3761, or PO Box 195, St Andrews Vic 3761

Overseas contributions can be paypalled to [email protected] with subject line 'For Wildhaven'.

BLACK SATURDAY POEM
HELL ON EARTH - by Christopher Levinson
(http://cjwriter.com/2009/02/14/hell-on-earth/)

Red sunrise burning
Wind howling amongst the trees:
Nature is unleashed

The beauty of fire:
An unstoppable fury
Dancing in the wind

Eucalypt forest:
Ancient trees of memory
Scorched by angry flames

Smoke clouding the sky:
Embers falling like raindrops
In the darkest light

Twenty years of life
Reduced to rubble and ash:
We have each other

A fallen tree trunk:
Cars abandoned by the road
Toys scattered inside

Amidst the burnt grass
A single flower remains:
A lone miracle

The sadness of night:
Survivors gather to pray
Tears fall down your face

A city of tents:
Shelter and home to many
Memories survive

Red sunset fading
Raindrops falling to the ground:
A young country mourns