Ecologists effectively advocating destruction of Australian forests

This recommendation was inspired by the example of Western Australia's southern forests which had, until then, avoided large, damaging forest fires for around 50-years by fuel reducing at least 6% of their area per annum. Unfortunately for Victoria, the newly elected Andrews Labor Government quietly dropped its commitment to more fuel reduction burning in 2014, and the annual rate has hovered for the last decade at just 1.5% of public forest per annum – as it had done prior to 'Black Saturday'. The result of this backflip are evident in more common large campaign fires.

Perhaps of greater relevance to those advocating a 'no-burning' fire management approach, is the American experience where, after a fierce political debate, the US Forest Service adopted the so-called 'Smoky Bear' policy in the mid-1920s. Under this policy, no 'light burning' (ie. fuel reduction) was permitted in the forests, and any wildfires were to be immediately extinguished. This is essentially what Australia's anti-burning ecologists and like-minded eco-activists are campaigning for.

However, as the years passed, it become abundantly clear that the consequences of the 'Smoky Bear' policy were disastrous as wildfires ignited in the heavy fuels of long-unburnt forests soon grew into large, high-intensity conflagrations that are exceedingly damaging and virtually impossible to control without the intervention of significant rain. This remains the case despite the high-tech fire-fighting methods now available. These days there is little formal support for the policy of total fire exclusion, and efforts are being made through-out the USA to reintroduce fuel reduction burning to mimic the former light burning culture of the Native Americans.

While Australia's anti-burning ecologists seem to be in denial about the past history of our fire-adapted forests and are clearly determined to ignore the expertise of a century of public land forest and fire management; they could learn much from the abject failure of the 'no-burn' fire exclusion proposal that was previously introduced in the USA. If they remain unmoved in their support for a 'no-burning' fire management approach, they are effectively, albeit inadvertently, advocating ecological destruction of Australian forests.