Lessons not yet learned: a bushfire tragedy

Another aspect to this debate is the tragedies that are potentially yet to unfold.

The tiny township of Barmah in the red gum forests along the Murray River has been fighting to get meaningful fire prevention work undertaken by the Department of Sustainability and Environment [DSE] in the 29,000 hectare Barmah forest that comes right to the edge of town.

After being told that local landholders would not be able to undertake controlled grazing in the forest for eight weeks to reduce the chest high weeds and grasses, as has been the practice for 150 years, they wrote to DSE seeking fire prevention works by them as required under the Forests Act.

The whole township gathered in the main street of Barmah on the morning of November 17, 2008 to protest the state of the forest and the lack of fuel reduction work by DSE.

Without any response by the start of summer, the community collectively purchased 35 cattle and illegally drove them into the forest to reduce the fuel load. After the threat by the community to seek a court order under Section 62 of the Forests Act, requiring the department to carry out fire prevention works departmental work teams descended on the forest within 24 hours.

After a fortnight of grading tracks and a two-metre wide firebreak and mulching vegetation alongside the access tracks, they left without reducing any of the chest high grasses and weeds growing in the camping areas along the river that had been the primary concern of the community. This is an example of the disgraceful way a rural community has been - and still is - put in danger by the failure of the land managers to carry out their duty as required under legislation.

Barmah is only one of many communities along the edge of the Barmah forest in this predicament. Most are on the south side of the forest so if a fire starts in the forest they will be in the direct path of a firestorm racing out of the forest.

To add insult to the injury of poor public land management suffered by communities along the Murray River, the Brumby government declared on December 30, 2008 that 95,000 hectares in four new national parks will be gazetted in the red gum forests along the Murray River later this year.

Rural communities, recreational four-wheel drivers, fishermen, hunters, graziers, campers, bird watchers, horse riders and many others who live, work and visit public land are tired of learning the lessons that come with more public land being consigned to a regime of minimal management and, in many cases, a decline in environmental values.

National parks, state parks and conservation reserves now account for 55 per cent of all public land in Victoria, yet most environment groups, ministers and the media confidently state that biodiversity in Victoria is in decline. How does this work? If we have had a ten-fold increase in parks and reserves over the last 30 years and their primary purpose is to protect biodiversity the model of management surely must be flawed.

It is time for a new paradigm in land management for Victoria that embraces active management of public land and embraces the wisdom of Judge Stretton, “Fire management must be the paramount consideration of the forest manager”.

No more rhetoric, no more ideology, no more lessons paid for with innocent lives.