Perth Hills Bushfires at Roleystone, Feb 2011

(Photo credit: AP)

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In our technologically advanced society, many people now wrongly presume that Humanity has elevated itself above Nature and so no longer needs to respect it. This misguided attitude extends to government.

In Australia, people continue to build homes in flood prone river plains, and governments continue to approve them.  People continue to build homes in bushfire prone areas that are indefensible from bushfire, yet governments continue to approve their construction.

Almost every year now, a natural disaster hits a community somewhere in Australia.

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The Once in a Hundred Year Event is a Vernacular Myth

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So is it community ignorance, memory loss, denial or primeval fatalism?  Perhaps it is just plain old foolhardiness – she’ll be right, it won’t happen to me, our technologically advanced society has insulated us from the forces of Nature.

Lives, property and what’s left of native Australia (its flora and fauna) suffer or are devastatingly lost to natural disasters, and also disturbingly to Man-made ones.  Unprepared communities suffer, go into shock, and experience trauma.  They question and with the self-serving interests of commercial media seek answers, get angry, seek blame, and call on government to explain and learn from its failure to protect them  from Nature’s fury.   In the case of bushfire disasters, as Australia’s encouraged expanding human population encroaches further into the Australian bush, people have become inherently more susceptible to bushfire risk. So when bushfire tragedy occurs, these people blame government and call for the inevitable ‘enquiry’.  Governments react by delivering enquiries.

Since the 1939 Black Friday bushfire catastrophe, Australia has a library full of these post-disaster government enquiries.   But are we learning from all these enquiries?  Are we better prepared and able to cope with Nature’s fury?

Governments may be getting better at emergency management but the pace appears incremental.  At each disaster, government’s emergency management  comes under criticism in the ensuing enquiry, which sends a message that government emergency management is always falling well short of community expectations.   Then after each enquiry and its report into what, why, how and why not in readiness and response to the natural disasters, what lessons are put into action?  History shows repeatedly that short-term memory prevails, government finds a scapegoat,  increases the emergency management budget, then getrs distracted on other political priorities of the day; but otherwise reverts to business-as-usual laissez faire.  The same policy, systems, people and infrastructrure are left in place, which is most convenient to government, but which most sets the scene for future failure all over again.

Government across Australia, at all its duplicated levels, has a fundamental civic duty to do their utmost to protect citizens from disasters – invasion, storms, floods, bushfires.  Given the increasing trend in the scale, severity and frequency of natural disasters and the increased exposure of more people in harms way, governments’ business-as-usual convenience is not good enough..

‘A Geneva based research centre has described 2010 as the deadliest year from natural disasters in two decades – and Australia ranks in the top ten countries affected.  The 12th January 2010 earthquake in Haiti devastated the island nation and killed over 222,000 people.   Some 373 natural disasters killed over 296,800 people in 2010, affecting nearly 208 million others and costing nearly US$110 billion, according to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED).’

[Source:  ^http://www.probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2011/01/deadliest-year-natural-disasters-2010]

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Now that these risks are well know and more probable, it is not only not good enough, it is clear that governments have become grossly negligent in its civic duty to properly invest in emergency management. Yet risk is not matched with resourcing. Or is it that Australians are content with taking a fatalistic approach to Nature’s fury?  Are Australians content for our governments to continue with their ‘business-as-usual’ political priorities and conveniences, ignoring emergency management?

But Australian values have evolved.  Australian society expects emergency management to more than to protect ‘life and property’.  Many in our society now place a high value also on livestock, arable land, native forests and native animals. As Australia’s population has increased considerably, these once taken for granted assets of Australia have become scarcer and so more valuable.  Whilst human life and property remains of course the highest priority, to ignore these and to lose these in bushfire has become increasingly unacceptable to many Australians.  But if these evolved values have not been adopted by government emergency management then there has become a serious disconnect between government priorities and the communities it represents. Public debate on this disconnect is long overdue.

In Australia and in our region it’s now become ‘another season, another natural disaster’.  Tragically, in just the past four years, Australians have witnessed Nature’s fury and government failure in emergency management to protect and mitigate the loss of what we value:

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• 2009  SE Australia 3-week heatwave
• 2009  Victoria’s Black Saturday bushfires
• 2009  Perth bushfires at Badgingarra and Toodyay
• 2009  Boorabin NP bushfire (WA)
• 2009  Samoa earthquake and tsunami
• 2009  Severe hails storms across NSW & ACT
• 2010  Severe storm hits Perth
• 2010  Severe storm hits Melbourne
• 2010  Cyclone Yasi in Far North Queensland
• 2010 Queensland Floods
• 2011  Christchurch Earthquakes
• 2011  Perth Hills bushfires
• 2011  Japanese earthquake and tsunami
• 2011  Ash cloud grounds many Australian flights
• 2011  Floods in northern NSW and Wollongong
• 2011  Severe storm hits Perth
• 2011  Floods in central Victoria
• 2011  Queensland Floods -Lockyer Valley, Brisbane River, Rockhampton, etc
• 2012  Queensland Floods
• 2012  Cyclone Lua in WA Pilbara
• 2012  Cyclone Iggy along WA coast
• 2012  Cyclone Heidi in WA Pilbara
• 2012  Port Lincoln Bushfire in South Australia
• 2012  Bushfire in the Gascoyne, WA
• 2012  Storms across SE Queensland
• 2013  Tasmanian Bushfires
• 2013  NSW Bushfires
• 2013  Victorian Bushfires
• 2013  Western Australia Bushfires
• 2013  Eastern Australia Floods

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This list is not exhaustive and we are not yet through 2013.

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Crushed between two large trucks on the Great Western Highway

  Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia

[Photo by Top Notch Video, Blue Mountains Gazette, 20130213, p.9]

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The Great Western Highway over the Blue Mountains west of Sydney is becoming an increasingly dangerous thoroughfare as the New South Wales Government steadily transforms it into a faster expressway designed for larger trucks and increasing the B-Double menace.

This highway is a regional route to towns like Bathurst and Orange and passes through many small towns and villages.  Yet the trucking lobby and State Government don’t care about local safety or amenity.  The wider and faster expressway is just carved through each town and village in turn, preventing safe crossing, dividing communities and prioritising the commercial imperatives of express road freight over human lives.

Hardly a week goes by without the local newspaper, the Blue Mountains Gazette, reporting a serious collision along our Great Western Highway.

All too frequently such collisions occur on the already widened expressway sections that are sold to the community as ‘safety upgrades’.   All too frequently across the State and the country, we read about collisions on these expressways that have involved trucks – trucks speeding, trucks tailgating, trucks exceeding weight limits, drunk or drugged up truck drivers under the pressure of unrealistic delivery deadlines all hours of the day and night.

Local people who use these regional roads are now forced to confront larger and faster trucks, and B-doubles with trailers, hurtling along nudging above increased speed limits brought in by government planners.   Ordinary road users are now risking the lives of themselves and their passengers as they are forced to increasingly share regional roads with the B-Double Menace.

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Get out of my way! 

I’m on an unrealistic deadline!

(The B-Double Menace)

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Just over a week ago, on the Great Western Highway at Blackheath, a Sydney woman driving in her car mid Wednesday morning toward the town of Orange braked behind a large truck that suddenly stopped on the highway in front of her.   She glanced in the rear vision mirror only in horror to see a second large truck bearing down on her at speed.   It slammed in to the back of her car, pushing her car compressed up against the large truck in front of her.

The woman, 34 year-old Sarina Heta was sandwiched in contorted metal that was her car, unable to escape and lucky to be alive.  Her wrecked car, a Kia Rio sedan, is shown in the top photo.

Ms Heta was trapped in her car in a state of shock for 45 minutes until rescued by and the Fire Brigade and paramedics.

<<Blue Mountains emergency services were called to the scene about 10.50am where they found the woman trapped in her car. She was treated by ambulance officers while other emergency services workers spent an anxious 45 minutes working to safely remove her from the vehicle.  Ms Heta was flown by helicopter to Westmead Hospital where she was in a stable condition and already reflecting on her miraculous survival.>>

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“I remember just taking a big breath and taking the steering wheel and actually thinking it was over for me.  I was a lucky girl that day with a group of angels looking over me.  I just keep thinking, I must have done something good, or I have to do something amazing now I have another chance.”  said Ms Heta.

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Ed:  This poor woman. It is plainly unjust that ordinary road users should have to experience life-threatening encounters with dangerous trucks.

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• So why did the first truck stop on the highway?
• More importantly, why didn’t the second truck stop safely?
• Was the truck driver distracted talking on his mobile phone as many of these drivers frequently are observed, without being caught?
• Is the bastard still driving?

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There are few if any police patrolling the highway.  There is only one speed camera on the Great Western Highway and that is at Warrimoo over 30km away. These truck drivers are cowboys racing through the Blue Mountains as if they’re on a raceway and they couldn’t care less about any other road users.  Other road users just get in their way.

Ordinary Blue Mountains road users have constantly complained about truck driver behaviour along the Great Western Highway; yet the State Government, local politicians and the police do nothing.

One resident wrote on social media:  “The trucks very rarely travel at 60km through the town. . . There is no point trying to out run them as they are more powerful and you end up exceeding the speed limit,” wrote Alex Michie.  “The road is fine . . . it’s the halfwits driving on it that is the problem,” wrote Josh Steel.

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[Source:  Lucky escape at Blackheath reignites highway safety debate’, 20130213, Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper, page 9, ^http://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/1298298/lucky-escape-at-blackheath-reignites-highway-safety-debate/]

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A Trucking Expressway Government Mindset

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Many of these large B-Double trucks cart sand, soil or rock into Sydney from quarry sites located in the Central West region of New South Wales.  But when they are empty travelling out of Sydney, they rip along speeding over 90kph and tail-gating at all hours, menacing other road users.

A root cause of the truck speeding problem is that the truck drivers themselves are not paid by the hour.  The transport industry remuneration structure has long surrendered Award-based pay for individual pay contracts.  Truck drivers get paid not an hourly rate, but by the trip rate. The more trips a driver does, the more the driver gets paid, so speed has become a motivator for more pay.

This may make the job costing easier for the company accountants of the trucking companies or the corporate clients of the trucking companies, but it encourages unreasonably fast driving incentives which has dangerous implications for all road users, and the government allowing this must be held largely responsible and culpable.

Past local politician for the Blue Mountains, Bob Debus, approved hundreds of millions be spent transforming the regional highway into a trucking expressway a decade ago.  This remains the State Government’s agenda.

Yet the Great Western Highway passes through twenty-one local communities over the Blue Mountains between the end of the M4 Motorway in outer Sydney and Lithgow, a road distance of 87km.

1. Lapstone
2. Glenbrook
3. Blaxland
4. Warrimoo
5. Valley Heights
6. Springwood
7. Faulconbridge
8. Linden
9. Woodford
10. Hazelbrook
11. Lawson
12. Bullaburra
13. Wentworth Falls
14. Leura
15. Katoomba
16. Medlow Bath
17. Blackheath
18. Mount Victoria
19. Hartley
20. Little Hartley
21. Old Bowenfels

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Many of these communities also have families and in many cases local schools.  Many of these communities have their own 60kph maximum speed zones to allow for local street access, local traffic and indeed pedestrians of all ages.    Many school crossings and school 40kph speed zones exist along the Great Western Highway.   The encouragement of a 80kph trucking expressway transformation of the Great Western Highway is incongruent with its local use.

In some cases the government’s trucking expressway transformation of the highway has completely divided communities to the extent that there is no sign that a community even exists.  When it was their turn, the communities of Lapstone and Linden succumbed entirely to the expressway imperative.  Other communities are denied local vehicle access or access that is so contorted as to have made the local communities second rate citizens, like Warrimoo and now parts of Wentworth Falls.

When the expressway juggernaut came through town in Leura, Medlow Bath and Katoomba eight years or so ago, local properties were inundated by flash flooding caused directly by redirected highway stormwater design.

Recently Lawson and Hazelbrook have been witness to the bulldozing of heritage and amenity as the four lanes lobotomised their villages into a 80kph Blaxland byway.

As the expressway juggernaut arrives it carves through more native vegetation and habitat.

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Destruction in progress at Boddington Hill in early 2012, east of Wentworth Falls

Great Western Highway, Blue Mountains, NSW

(Photo by Editor 20120201, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)

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Bullaburra residents sensibly got involved in the expressway process early, drafted their own re-design for their community and thought that had a special deal with the RTA-come-RMS.  But although the clever Government consultants have listened, the RTA has got its way.   The trucks will be able to set their cruise control to nudge 85kph through this bucolic Bullaburra..

The trucking companies would like to minimise their transit times across the Blue Mountains, simply because in transport, time is money.

A recent trucking strategy has been to introduce bigger trucks so that more can be carted by each driver.    This is why the Blue Mountains has seen a steady increase in B-Doubles – rigid trucks with a bogie trailer.  On designated motorways in New South Wales, these B-Doubles are 26 metres long.  In western Victoria and South Australia, B-Triples have been allowed, basically equating to the Road Trains of Outback Australia.

Also, most of these newer trucks have more powerful turbo diesel engines so that they can travel faster with the increased gross weights.

The 87km Blue Mountains section of the Great Western Highway lies between the end of the M4 Motorway at Emu Plains where trucks can sit on 110kph and Lithgow, where the highway opens up to 100kph passing by very few communities.

It is this populated variable speed 87km section that is the bane of the trucking companies and so their lobbying target to government to transform it into a trucking expressway to serve them.  If the designated average travel time over the 87km Blue Mountains section is say 1 hour and 20 minutes, the cumulative billions being spent to transform the Great Western Highway into a trucking expressway could at the absolute best expect to save just 20 minutes truck transit time.   This is even if all traffic lights and pedestrian crossings were removed so that the trucks could cruise on 90kph, through this Blue Mountains section.

Cost benefit analysis?  Has it been done by anybody?

The proposed Mount Victoria bypass is set to cost over a billion dollars alone, to save perhaps just 2 minutes truck transit time.

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The crazy planning Elephant in the Room that has been ignored in the wake of all these billions, is that once the trucks arrive in metropolitan Sydney, their transit times blow out in the congestion.

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Our Editor wrote the following article which was published in the local Blue Mountains Gazette 7th January 2009.  It is pertinent, because within a 100 metres or so of the truck collision that impacted Sarina Heta this month, another woman, Blackheath resident Betty Dowdell, was not so lucky.

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Faster trucks Bob?

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<<Blackheath resident Betty Dowdell was hit and run by a semi last month less than a truck length from Blackheath’s main intersection [SMH 16/12/08].  On 18^th November a B-double caused a pile up on Richmond Road.  Drug utensils were allegedly found in the driver’s compartment [SMH 19/11/08].

On 24 July around 3pm between Lawson and Bullaburra a Volvo B-double driver “lost control of the vehicle and collided head-on with a white light goods van heading west.” The 56-year-old Leura man driving the van was killed. [BMG 30/7/08].

On 3 October at 9.15am, a motorcyclist collided head-on with a semi-trailer on the wrong side of the Bells Line of Road at Mt Tomah [AAP 4/10/08].  On 29 March last year, a semi driver over-turned at Mt Vic.  In 2004, on 25 February at 11pm a semi laden with mixed chemicals failed to negotiate a sharp bend at the bottom of Mt Vic pass.  The truck rolled, killing the driver and spilling a load of hydrochloric acid and herbicide.

I recall driving back from Mt Tomah a few years ago with my family. An oncoming truck was well over the double lines and I was forced onto the gravel shoulder to avoid a head-on.

Speeding traffic is making our two highways more dangerous.  Highway patrols and speed cameras are almost non-existent in the Mountains.  Many collisions occur on sections of the highway that are already four lanes.  Government policies are encouraging more, and bigger trucks to drive faster while rail options remain ignored.

Why is our federal member Bob Debus MP encouraging faster trucks through the Mountains?>>

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Just because highways are transformed into expressways, doesn’t make them safer.

This is the six-laned M4 motorway at Emu Plains. 

A truck driver not concentrating, wiped out and killed cyclists out for a ride in the cycle lane.

10th April 2010. 

May they rest in peace.

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Footnote

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On the other side of the M4 motorway from the above cyclist collision at Emu Plains, but this time heading east, a cyclist in the cycle lane was hit and killed by a car.

Blue Mountains resident, Marc Simone, 43, was cycling in the cycle lane at 7:30am Saturday 16th February 2013, when an incompetent P-plater veered and hit and killed Marc.

Marc had been training to cycle over 3,900 km to Darwin to raise money for Mission Australia.

[Source:  ‘Marathon Mission Ends in Tragedy’, 20130220, journalist B.C. Lewis, Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper, p.1]

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[Ed:  Any highway, motorway or road that has ‘cycle lanes’ are death traps unless there is a concrete barrier keeping reckless and incompetent vehicle drivers killing cyclists.]

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Dead native forest rotting for weeks/months on Burnie Wharf, Tasmania

13th February 2013

[Source: Tasmanian Times, 20130213,

^http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/appalling-waste-of-eucalypt-and-speciality-timbers-at-burnie/]

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The Tasmanian Greens (yesterday) condemned Forestry Tasmania’s appalling waste of valuable specialty timber species, which rots and splits on the Burnie wharf as sawmillers cry out for access to such a valuable resource.

Greens Forestry spokesperson Kim Booth MP today took a group of Tasmanian country sawmillers and timber merchants to inspect the growing mountain of logs on the Burnie wharf, which was delivered to the mill as valuable timber and now awaits export to China as virtually worthless split and cracking logs.

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“There’s enough high value logs stacked up on the Burnie wharf right now to keep a generation of small family owned sawmills in business, but instead they are being sold into China as downgraded and virtually worthless whole logs,” said Mr Booth.

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“We saw thousands of tonnes of Eucalypt, Blackwood, Myrtle, and black heart Sassafras all splitting up in the sun and going to waste.”

“Many of the logs were of the highest quality, with a dense grain and a rich colour and could have been turned into superb furniture, musical instruments, wooden boats and other high value sawn boards and building timber.”

Swift Parrot (Lathamus discolor)

Listed as endangered under the Tasmanian Threatened Species Protection Act 1995 and the Federal Act.

Its favoured feed trees include winter flowering species such as Swamp Mahogany (Eucalyptus robusta), Spotted Gum (Corymbia maculata), Red Bloodwood (Corymbia gummifera), Mugga Ironbark (Eucalyptus sideroxylon), and White Box (Eucalyptus albens);

species targeted in Tasmania for logging.

[Source:  Photo by 0ystercatcher on Flickr,

^http://www.birdlife.org/community/2010/11/hope-for-tasmania%E2%80%99s-forests/]

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“The sawmillers were rightly upset and dismayed that they have been unable to get hold of these logs because Forestry Tasmania simply will not sell them to them.”

“This puts the lie to the claim that there is a shortage of specialty timber logs in Tasmania.”

“The only specialty timber trees that are locked up at the moment in Tasmania are the ones lying horizontal and splitting in the sun behind a cyclone fence on the Burnie wharf and locked up for export by Forestry Tasmania.”

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[Source:  ‘Appalling waste of eucalypt and speciality timbers at Burnie’, by Kim Booth. MP Greens Forestry Spokesperson, 20130213, Tasmanian Times, ^http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/appalling-waste-of-eucalypt-and-speciality-timbers-at-burnie/]

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Comment by Posted by R. Langfield 20130213:

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“Shut Forestry Tasmania down.

It’s nothing but a fully publicly subsidised, completely incompetently run, spitefully driven, mendicant not-for-profit club operated for the benefit of a select few overfed underworked bludgers of little or no intellect.

Forestry Tasmania and the Tasmanian Government are deliberately creating unemployment in the private forestry sector.“

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State Forest on Forestier Peninsula,  south eastern Tasmania

Incinerated last month in the Forcett Fire

[Photo by Editor, 20110926, free in public domain]

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Minke Whale mother and her calf

Japanese ICR Whale Blood Sport

Japanese Men Only

[Source: Sea Shepherd]

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Feb  2008:

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<<(Then Australian)  Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has vowed to do whatever it takes to end Japan’s whale hunt as the bloody slaughter continued yesterday.

Mr Rudd’s declaration came as Japanese companies scurried to try to minimise a consumer backlash over whaling.

A people-power campaign has begun against the Japanese whalers, spearheaded by The Daily Telegraph, with 100,000 people signing a petition of outrage.

Yesterday Mr Rudd joined the Australian people in demanding Japan cease its so-called “scientific whaling program”.

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Mr Rudd: 

“I want to see an end to whaling.  I don’t have a magic wand, but the Australian Government will do everything within our power to put pressure on the Japanese whalers to bring this slaughter to an end.   Australia and Japan have a strong relationship, but that strength demands that we leave the Japanese in no doubt that Australia will continue to campaign to bring an end to whaling once and for all.”

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Mr Rudd said he had instructed Foreign Minister Stephen Smith to “exert real pressure” on the Japanese to end the program.  However, talks this week between Mr Smith and his Japanese counterpart Masahiko Koumoura have been deadlocked.   As the Japanese continued to harpoon and slice up minke whales throughout the day, Mr Smith emerged from talks saying the two men had “agreed to disagree“.

[Ed: What is Japanese for ‘up yours‘ ?]

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Consumers have now called for boycotts of all Japanese products, sending some of Japan’s biggest companies into a panic.   Hayley Wilson, 21, of Surry Hills said she thought boycotts were the only solution: “Nothing else seems to be working.”

Big name Japanese companies immediately went into overdrive.  Electronics giant Sanyo has written to the Japanese Consulate in Sydney voicing its concern about a consumer backlash.   Sony Australia called on Australians to reconsider the approach and Mazda also begged Australians not to target its products.>>

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[Source:  ‘I’ll stop the whale killings, vows Kevin Rudd’, 20080202, by Joe Hildebrand and Lauren Williams, The Daily Telegraph, ^http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/indepth/ill-stop-the-whale-killings/story-e6frev90-1111115455345]

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Jun 2008:

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Australian PM Kevin Rudd :   ‘Whatever. You win’

to a stronger willed Japanese PM Yasuo Fukuda.

(Photo: Glen McCurtayne)

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<<Kevin Rudd has “agreed to disagree” with Tokyo on the issue.    Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has effectively conceded defeat on his plan to stop Japanese whaling, declaring after talks in Tokyo that Australia and Japan have agreed to disagree on the issue..

Ed:   ‘Whatever happened to the days way back, when the world was safe

And it seemed worth saving,

We search for leaders on our hands and knees..’

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[Source:  Richard Clapton, Song: ‘Best Years of Our Lives’, 1989, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist from Sydney; off his album: ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’, on WEA Label 256582, ^http://www.richardclapton.com/?page_id=629 ]

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<<The long-awaited talks between Mr Rudd and his Japanese counterpart, Yasuo Fukuda, concluded yesterday with both leaders saying the Japan-Australia relationship was too important to be disrupted by their disagreement over whaling.

Mr Rudd later insisted that Labor’s policy had not changed from last year, when he demanded that the Howard government take Japan to the International Court and pledged that Labor would do so.

But he made it clear yesterday that Labor now had no plans to take Japan to court and would instead pursue its complaints through normal diplomatic channels and through its campaign to reform the International Whaling Commission.

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Mr Rudd:

“Prime Minister Fukuda and I have agreed that you can have disagreements between friends” (with Mr Fukuda at Rudd’s side, who understands English). “This disagreement should not undermine in any way the strong relations between our two countries … we will be working diplomatically for the period ahead.”

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This means, in effect, that after Labor’s election campaign pledge to haul Japan before the International Court, and after the Government spent $1 million sending a Customs vessel to follow the Japanese whaling fleet last summer to collect video evidence, Australia’s policy on whaling is now back where it started.

Mr Rudd immediately came under attack from anti-whaling groups and the Opposition, which said it was not good enough to “agree to disagree” and called on the Government to announce its long-delayed special envoy on whaling.

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Last summer the Japanese killed 551 minke whales, the most abundant whale species. This was well short of its target of 850 minkes and 100 larger whales.

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Japanese Sport Whale Meat

… blood sport as usual.

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Ecologist and former Australian of the Year Tim Flannery has argued that Australia should not oppose the Minke kill, saying it frees up food in the oceans for the larger, endangered whales.

Darkside Ecology:  when ecological knowledge is applied to kill wildlife

..selling skills, selective statistics, academic theories and even convincing hand movements..and all.

…meanwhile, Japanese whale blood sport as usual…

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Mr Fukuda was keen to talk about the whaling issue, raising it in private discussions over lunch as well as in formal talks. But the Australian side saw no shift in his stance, and in his public statement he emphasised that diplomacy had triumphed.

“We agreed to engage in further discussion, so that differences on this issue will not underline good bilateral relations,” he said.

The talks took place amid political turmoil in Japan, after Mr Fukuda was censured by the Opposition-controlled Upper House for making people over 75 meet more of their medical costs. But Mr Fukuda took two hours off his domestic troubles for an hour of official talks followed by lunch with Mr Rudd.

Importantly, he gave support to Mr Rudd’s initiative to try to tighten the nuclear non-proliferation treaty by setting up an international commission co-chaired by former foreign minister Gareth Evans and holding an international conference to discuss how the treaty can be made more effective.

In a communique, the two leaders did not mention whaling.  But they emphasised the strengths of the bilateral relationship, which has been questioned after the sharp dispute over whaling and after the Rudd Government’s decision to pull out of talks between the US, Japan, India and Australia – which China saw as aimed against it. Instead, the leaders agreed to strengthen bilateral and trilateral defence co-operation.

Responding to Mr Rudd’s retreat on whaling, Greenpeace Australia Pacific chief executive Steve Shallhorn said it was time to move on the appointment of a whaling envoy “because regular diplomatic channels are clearly not working”.

Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt said the failure to announce the appointment sent a message to Japan that Labor was only interested in the whaling issue for domestic purposes.   He also said the Government’s election promise to take Japan to the International Court “was always a fraud“.>>

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[Source:  ‘Rudd lets Japan off hook’, 20080613, by Tim Colebatch, Tokyo correspondent, Fairfax, with Andrew Darby and Brendan Nicholson, The Age newspaper (Melbourne), ^http://www.theage.com.au/national/rudd-lets-japan-off-hook-20080612-2pnx.html]

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Peace in Our Time

During his trip to Japan, Kevin Rudd emphasised the need for a diplomatic solution to the disagreement

[Source:  ‘smith-defends-labors-whaling-strategy’, 20080615, Alan Moir cartoon, Sydney Morning Herald,

^http://www.smh.com.au/news/whale-watch/smith-defends-labors-whaling-strategy/2008/06/15/1213468229545.html]

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Dec 2009:

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<<The Rudd Government has reneged on a promise to send an Australian ship to monitor Japan’s annual slaughter of 1000 minke, humpback and fin whales.

The Opposition said an Australian ship must be sent to gather evidence for use in a promised international courts case to stop the whaling.

The annual Japanese whale kill is in full swing despite a promise by the Rudd Government in May 2007 to take Japan to the international courts to stop the slaughter.

Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt wrote to Environment Minister Peter Garrett and demanded he honour the Government’s promises to monitor – and ultimately bring an end – to the whale slaughter.

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Mr Hunt:

“We are now facing the third whaling season since this promise was made and I ask that you agree now to dispatch a non-military observation vessel to the Southern Ocean by January 5, (2010).”

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The Humane Society International (HSI) said Japan’s own figures, revealed in secret documents discovered at the International Whaling Commission meeting being held this week, showed the “true, disgusting nature” of the country’s whale hunting.

“The purpose of this would be both to chronicle the tragic slaughter of these majestic creatures and to act as an intermediary in the case of conflict between the Japanese whaling fleet and non-government organisations.”

A spokesman for Mr Garrett said the Rudd Government had honoured its promise to monitor the cull in 2008 when it spent $1 million sending the customs ship the Oceanic Viking to observe the cull.  That mission captured damning pictures of Japanese whalers killing a mother whale and its calf but the evidence was never used to take Japan to court, although it did reduce the Japanese whale cull that year.     [Ed:   See image at the start of this article.]

Japan’s whalers blamed “relentless interference” from environmentalists and the Australian surveillance ship for the fact they only took 551 minke whales out of a maximum quota of 935 in early 2008.>>

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[Source: ‘Prime Minister Kevin Rudd soft on Japanese whales slaughter’, 20091228, by Sue Dunlevy, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney newspaper), ^http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/indepth/prime-minister-kevin-rudd-soft-on-japanese-whales-slaughter/story-e6frev90-1225813992329]

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Research has become an internationally interpreted Japanese word for

‘Whale Blood Sport’

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Jan 2010:

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A criminally violent blood sport

No-one wants the whale meat.

It is all about Japanese Men Only cultural barbarism 

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<<Japan has risked an open breach with the Rudd government by hitting back hard at Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s handling of last week’s whaling confrontation in the Southern Ocean.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials have accused Ms Gillard of aggravating the whaling controversy between Tokyo and Canberra, and called for Australian action to prevent further illegal activities by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

The officials warned a senior Australian diplomat on Friday that Ms Gillard’s statements immediately before and after the collision between Sea Shepherd’s speedboat and a Japanese whaling ship were inflaming public opinion in Japan and making diplomatic resolution of the underlying dispute harder to realise.

This is the toughest public stance a Japanese government has taken towards Australia on Antarctic whaling — or any other issue — in recent times and is also highly unusual in singling out for criticism a senior member of a friendly government.

The move betrays Japanese frustration with the Australians’ political management of the issue, including Kevin Rudd’s repeated threats of international legal action against so-called scientific whaling, while not obviously helping to curb hazardous protest activities, including Sea Shepherd’s efforts to disable whaling ships.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs senior officials told acting japanambassador Allan McKinnon it was “not appropriate” for Ms Gillard to urge Japanese whalers and the activists in equal terms to show restraint, “notwithstanding the Sea Shepherd itself was conducting the unlawful rampage”.

Sea Shepherd accuses the Shonan Maru 2 crew of deliberately running over Ady Gil during a day of confrontation in which the activists’ speedboat ran across the Japanese factory ship’s bow and allegedly tried to entangle its propellers.

Ms Gillard yesterday stood by her call for calm on both sides and for Japanese and Sea Shepherd skippers to ensure crews’ safety as their first duty.

“These are extremely dangerous conditions and it is likely Australia would be called upon to deploy a search and rescue mission if things were to go horribly wrong,” Ms Gillard said. “It is not therefore inappropriate for Australia to call for calm from both sides in these circumstances.”

Japanese officials questioned the jurisdiction of Australia’s Maritime Safety Authority to investigate last week’s collision.  Without access to the crew of Shonan Maru 2, any finding by an Australian inquiry into the collision is likely to be meaningless.

The Japanese have agreed to co-operate with a New Zealand investigation (Ady Gil was New Zealand-registered) and they are expected to vigorously contest a piracy complaint lodged in a Dutch court by Sea Shepherd on Friday.

Sea Shepherd leader Paul Watson said yesterday the group was aiming to secure a charge of attempted murder against the Japanese crew.

“That’s what the crew of the Shonan Maru tried to do, the video makes that clear,” Mr Watson said from the Steve Irwin, which continues to pursue the whaling fleet.

“If I rammed and sank a Japanese vessel in Australian territory, the Australian navy would be on its way down here right now to arrest me.”

Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials, in answer to questions from The Australian, have called for the Australian Federal Police to investigate Sea Shepherd’s actions the next time its vessels put into an Australian port.

Japanese officials were already annoyed that the Steve Irwin, which uses Australian ports for its annual Southern Ocean campaigns, was allowed to put into Hobart without question late last month after initiating the first clashes of the season.

They told Mr McKinnon that Ms Gillard’s call for the Institute of Cetacean Research to suspend charter flights monitoring the Sea Shepherd vessels that have been harrying the whaling fleet since mid-December “has already unnecessarily provoked the Japanese public opinion”.

“This has invited the Japanese public (to) call for a strong protest and it might impair both governments’ will to lead the whaling issue to a resolution through diplomatic efforts,” said a Foreign Ministry spokesman.

Japan aims to slaughter nearly 1000 minke whales this summer for “scientific research”, as well as 20 rare fin whales and 50 humpbacks. It has urged Canberra to distinguish between official Australian opposition to Antarctic whaling and illegal acts in international waters that put at risk Japanese crewmen and ships.

A culture that has long celebrated brutal killing

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On Wednesday, before news of the collision and in response to a newspaper report about the charter flights, Ms Gillard said: “We do not condone this action by the Japanese government at all and we are certainly urgently seeking legal advice about this conduct.” On Friday, she said: “Ending whaling will happen through diplomacy or legal action; it’s not going to happen on the high seas. And because we are pursuing diplomacy, I am in a position to advise that our embassy in Tokyo has made high-level representations to the Japanese government.”

Ms Gillard said Australia’s diplomats in Tokyo had made clear to the Japanese the government’s strong view that Japanese whaling had to cease: “We are pursuing diplomacy with all of our force. We have made it absolutely clear we are not ruling out taking international legal action.”

At that stage, Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials would not confirm Thursday’s discussion with Mr McKinnon but The Australian understands that later on Friday they asked him for another meeting, at which they delivered the toughened message.

Ms Gillard yesterday maintained that the Australian government was “pursuing its anti-whaling position through the appropriate diplomatic and legal channels very strongly”.

“The government also respects the right of those who also oppose whaling to protest, and to do so peacefully,” she said.

Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop said yesterday the government’s handling of whaling was damaging Australia’s relationship with Japan.

She said Mr Rudd should either fulfil his pre-election promise to pursue international legal sanctions against Japan or withdraw the threat.>>

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[Source:  ‘Japan pins whale row on Gillard’, 20100111, by Peter Alford, Tokyo correspondent, The Australian (newspaper) with additional reporting by Samantha Maiden and Debbie Guest, ^http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/japan-pins-whale-row-on-gillard/story-e6frg6nf-1225817884055]

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Feb 2010:

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<<Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says Japan must stop Southern Ocean whaling by November 2010 or face an international legal challenge.

The diplomatic heat between Australia and Japan appears not to have deterred whalers in the Antarctic cold.

As Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada met Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Sydney yesterday, the whaling factory ship Nisshin Maru was steaming through the heart of an Australian Antarctic whale sanctuary, anti-whaling activists aboard the Sea Shepherd vessel the Steve Irwin claim.

The pursuers took this image of the Nisshin Maru behind a GPS locator that showed its position as 65 degrees 11 minutes south, and 78 degrees 8 minutes east. That is only about 100 nautical miles from Australia’s Davis Station in eastern Antarctica, well inside the 200-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
Sea Shepherd pursuers.

In protected waters … a GPS locator aboard the Steve Irwin shows the Japanese whaler is just 100 nautical miles from Davis Station and well inside the Australian Exclusive Economic Zone.

GPS confirms Japanese whaler illegally trespassing inside the Australia Exclusive Economic Zone

PM Kevin Rudd at the time did nothing about it.

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”It’s almost like a slap in the face,” Sea Shepherd leader Paul Watson said from the Steve Irwin. ”They were skirting the EEZ by about a mile until Friday and then they dove down into it.”
Advertisement

Mr Rudd has strongly objected to the ”slaughter of whales” in the sanctuary declared throughout the EEZ. Whaling is banned in all Australian waters and the hunt’s illegality in this polar sanctuary was upheld in a 2008 Federal Court case brought by Humane Society International.   In response to Mr Rudd’s warning on Friday that whaling must be brought to an end or Australia will go to an international court by November, Mr Okada reiterated Japan’s view that it was legal.

Mr Okada met Mr Rudd at Admiralty House in Kirribilli yesterday. His spokesman, Hidenobu Sobashima, said:

”In light of the importance of Australia-Japan relations … we hope that the two countries will confirm it is imperative to reach a diplomatic solution.”

Mr Okada will meet Foreign Minister Stephen Smith in Perth today before returning to Tokyo.>>

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[Ed:  Came to nothing: …how’s your father, tasty food…Whatever. You win!]

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[Source:  ‘Gotcha! Activists cry foul as whaling ship breaches sanctuary’, 20100221, by Andrew Darby, Brisbane Times, ^http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/whale-watch/gotcha-activists-cry-foul-as-whaling-ship-breaches-sanctuary-20100220-ompe.html]

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Jan 2011:

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<<The former prime minister Kevin Rudd launched legal action against Japan’s whaling program despite opposition from senior ministers and officials who warned it was likely to fail and strengthen the hand of the Japanese.

Leaked United States diplomatic cables also indicate that the decision to take Japan to the International Court of Justice was designed to divert public pressure on Labor over whaling.

The Department of Foreign Affairs warned that the case against Japan’s ”scientific” whaling would ”either fail completely or, at best, set up the Japanese to simply make changes to their program to improve the science”.

And a senior Australian diplomat told the Americans that both the then foreign minister Stephen Smith and the trade minister Simon Crean had made clear their opposition to an international legal challenge.

According to the cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and provided exclusively to the Herald, officials told US diplomats that even if successful, legal action against Japan would be ”unlikely to stop the whale hunt entirely”.

They added that ”equally importantly, such action would probably take a long time, removing some of the pressure on the government for the next few years”.

The government yesterday attempted to play down earlier revelations that Australia had been prepared to secretly negotiate a compromise to allow continued Japanese whaling.

The acting Attorney-General, Brendan O’Connor, said that the ICJ case demonstrated that the government was not soft on whaling. ”I think that underlines the seriousness of the matter and the fact that this government … opposes whaling and will continue to fight through the courts,” he said.

But the new embassy cables show that the government’s advisers were deeply pessimistic about the prospects of success in any legal action.

In October 2008, as officials were working to develop their case, the US embassy reported to Washington that domestic political considerations were high in Mr Rudd’s thinking. It said he was likely to eventually see legal action ”as the least damaging politically of his limited choices in dealing with public anger over whaling”.

However, the embassy also reported the Foreign Affairs Department’s environmental strategies director, David Dutton, had admitted that his department and the Attorney-General’s Department ”had long shared the view that international legal action against Japan’s whaling program has a limited chance of success”.

Mr Dutton told US diplomats that the Attorney-General’s Department had ”recently done an about face” to argue that the prospects for success at the ICJ were ”high enough to justify taking action”.

Mr Dutton said the Foreign Affairs analysis was that the only basis for effective action was that Japan’s whaling violated the International Whaling Convention because it did not achieve substantive scientific outcomes.

”[Foreign Affairs] continues to believe that such a challenge will either fail completely or, at best, set up the Japanese to simply make changes to their program to improve the science,” the US embassy reported to Washington.

The cables also reveal that the Rudd cabinet was ”very divided” over how to deal with whaling, with the prime minister reported to have been ”increasingly worried that the Japanese will forge ahead despite Australian concerns”.

The embassy reported that Mr Dutton had said that Mr Smith and Mr Crean ”had made clear their opposition to an international legal challenge, but opined that … DFAT and by extension [Mr] Smith had ceased to have much relevance in influencing the PM’s office on this issue”.

When they announced the legal challenge in May last year, Mr Smith and the then environment minister Peter Garrett said the government had ”not taken this decision lightly”.

However, the cables also reveal that domestic politics featured prominently from the start of the government’s consideration of possible legal action against Japan.

Soon after the election of the Labor government, the embassy reported Australian government contacts were saying that referring Japan’s whaling program to the ICJ ”would be unlikely to stop the whale hunt entirely, but could well force modifications that would make it more difficult for the Japanese”.

The embassy’s contacts also suggested that ”equally importantly, such action would probably take a long time, removing some of the pressure on the government for the next few years”. Australia is not required to file its detailed arguments with the court until May and Japan is not obliged to respond until March next year. A hearing may not take place until 2013.

The leaked cables also reveal Japanese confidence that Australia’s legal challenge would fail and vindicate Japan’s position.

In February last year the US embassy reported that the Japanese deputy head of mission in Canberra had observed that the then foreign minister Katsuya Okada had ”made clear his growing annoyance with Australian complaints about whaling”.

”Okada is very confident that Tokyo will win a legal challenge and has suggested internally that it would be good for Japan to show that its whaling program is on firm legal ground,” the embassy reported.

The Greens and the opposition yesterday attacked the proposed Australian government compromise with Japan.

The opposition environment spokesman, Greg Hunt, said Labor had damaged Australia’s case against Japanese whaling.

”It’s absolutely clear that the Australian government was saying one thing publicly and then another thing privately about whaling so as to allow the continued hunting and slaughter of whales, all of the while this was being denied by the government.”

The Greens leader, Bob Brown, also said the proposed compromise was ”very troubling”.

”Hopefully this may help the current government take a stronger line,” he said.

He urged the government to use all available legal and diplomatic means, as well as naval surveillance, to increase the pressure on Japan to end the slaughter of whales.>>

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[Source:  ‘Doomed’ whaling fight aimed at saving Labor vote’, 20110105, by Philip Dorling, Sydney Morning Herald, ^http://www.smh.com.au/environment/whale-watch/doomed-whaling-fight-aimed-at-saving-labor-vote-20110104-19f52.html]

 

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Oct 2011:

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<<The Australian Government condemns Japan’s decision to continue whaling in the Southern Ocean this year under the guise of science.  Australia remains resolute in its opposition to all commercial whaling, including Japan’s so-called ‘scientific whaling’.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said the Government was particularly disappointed that this whaling will take place in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary established by the International Whaling Commission.

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Mr Rudd:

“There is widespread concern in the international community at Japan’s whaling program and widespread calls for it to cease.  The Government has always been firm in our resolve that if we could not find a diplomatic resolution to our differences over this issue, we would pursue legal action. This is the proper way to settle legal differences between friends.”

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Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the decision to commence proceedings in May 2010 was not taken lightly.

“Australia believes Japan’s whaling is contrary to international law and should stop,” said Mr McClelland.  “That is why Australia is taking our case in the International Court of Justice to bring to an end Southern Ocean whaling permanently.”

Environment Minister Tony Burke said the decision to take legal action demonstrated the strength of Australia’s commitment.

“The Australian Government remains opposed to all commercial whaling, including so-called ‘scientific whaling,” Mr Burke said.  “We will keep working to achieve a permanent end to all commercial whaling.”>>

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[Source:  ‘Japanese Decision to Continue Whaling’, 20111004, media release by The Hon. Kevin Rudd MP, Australian (then) Minister for Foreign Affairs, ^http://foreignminister.gov.au/releases/2011/kr_mr_111004a.html]

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Japan uses grenade tipped harpoons

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Dec 2011:

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<<Japan’s whaling authorities are suing militant environmentalists Sea Shepherd for ‘harassing’ whale hunters.

It is the first time that Japan has attempted legal action abroad against anti-whaling campaigners, who have sometimes used extreme methods against ships involved in the hunt, carried out under rules that allow research whaling.

“Today, Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha and the Institute of Cetacean Research along with research vessels’ masters filed a lawsuit against the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) and Paul Watson,” they said in a statement.  “The Institute of Cetacean Research and Kyodo Senpaku are seeking a court order in the US District Court in Seattle, Washington that prevents SSCS and its founder Paul Watson from engaging in activities at sea that could cause injuries to the crews and damage to the vessels.”

Kyodo Senpaku owns ships, while the cetacean institute operates the whaling programme under the authority of the Japanese government.

Sea Shepherd, based in Washington state in the US, regularly sends vessels to harass the whalers. In previous years it has thrown stink bombs onto the decks of the Japanese fleet, while vessels from both sides have repeatedly clashed.

The Japanese statement said the whaling programme was “greatly contributing to the advancement of scientific knowledge of whale resources in the Antarctic”.

Commercial whaling was banned under a 1986 International Whaling Commission agreement. “Lethal research” is allowed, but other nations and environmental groups like Sea Shepherd condemn it as disguised commercial whaling.

Tokyo says the whale hunts are needed to substantiate its view that there is a robust whale population in the world. However, it makes no secret of the fact that whale meat from this research ends up on dinner tables and in restaurants.

The statement condemned Sea Shepherd’s actions as “life-threatening”.

“Sabotage activities against the research fleet by SSCS and Paul Watson have been escalating over several years,” it said.  “The activities perpetrated by SSCS and Paul Watson not only put at risk the safety of the research vessels at sea but are also affecting the scientific achievement” of the program, it said.

In February, Japan cut short its hunt for the 2010-2011 season by one month after bagging only one fifth of its planned catch, blaming interference from Sea Shepherd.

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Mr Watson (Sea Shepherd founder): 

“We are not down there protesting whaling, we are down there intervening against criminal activities. We defend ourselves from being rammed, hit with water cannons, shot at, have concussion grenades and bamboo spears thrown at us, so yes, we defend ourselves.  The United States government and courts have no authority over these ships so I don’t know what they are hoping to achieve.”

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Mr Watson – who travels to Australia each year to lead activists in their efforts against the whale hunt – said that the ships his organisation used were not owned by Sea Shepherd USA, nor were they US-flagged vessels.

The Japanese legal action came after the whaling fleet left port on Tuesday for this season’s annual hunt.

The coast guard has deployed an unspecified number of guards to protect the ships from anti-whaling activists, and the Japanese government has confirmed it will use some of the public funds earmarked for reconstruction after the massive March earthquake and tsunami to boost security for the hunt.

Three ships from the Sea Shepherd fleet are due to set sail over the coming days to once again confront the Japanese whalers, the organisation said.  The Steve Irwin and the MV Brigitte Bardot will leave from Albany in Western Australia and the MV Bob Barker will depart from Hobart.>>

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MV Brigitte Bardot – whale defender

Named after the famous French actress,

who remains most supportive of Sea Shepherd’s cause to stop whaling

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[Source:  Sea Shepherd hit by legal harpoon’, 20111209, by AFP, Herald Sun newspaper, ^http://www.heraldsun.com.au/ipad/sea-shepherd-hit-by-legal-harpoon/story-fn6s850w-1226218642187]

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Criminal Whaling

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Jan 2012:

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<<Japan’s whaling fleet has left its home port for another turbulent season in the Southern Ocean, this year courtesy of extra money from the nation’s earthquake recovery fund.

Three vessels have set sail from the port of Ishinomaki, in western Japan, with a mission to catch 900 whales over the next three months.

The Japanese fleet will have beefed-up security this year after its last season was cut short by the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling group.

The fleet did not get anywhere near its target last season and Sea Shepherd is hoping for a repeat performance.

But there is anger in Japan and elsewhere this year about the source of new funds for the trip.

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The Japan Fisheries Agency says the trip’s use of $28 million from the earthquake recovery fund is legitimate, because it is taken from the government’s own quake recovery fund.

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Once again, the male dominated Japanese Government turns its back on its own

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Greenpeace Japan executive director Junichi Sato says it is a massive stretch to link whaling to the earthquake.

“It’s not related to the recovery at all,” he said.  “It is used to cover the debts of the Whaling Programme because the Whaling Programme itself has been suffering from big financial problems.”>>

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[Source:  Japanese whalers get $28m in earthquake cash’, 20120131, by Adam Harvey, AM Programme, ABC News, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-07/japan-whaling-fleet-embarks/3716546]

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Jan 2013:

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Former Greens leader Bob Brown says fear of a diplomatic fallout is preventing Australia from standing up to Japan on whaling.

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Watch Video:

Click image to play video

[Source:  ABC News, 20130102, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-02/bob-brown-speaks-about-sea-shepherd/4450224]

 

Dr Brown, who is now a member of the Sea Shepherd board, also stood behind Sea Shepherd skipper Paul Watson, who jumped bail in July in Germany while being detained over an incident off the coast of Costa Rica in 2002.

The former senator says he wants the Australian Government to seek an international court injunction to stop Japan’s annual whale hunt in the Southern Ocean.

“They’re worried. They want a free-trade agreement, they’re worried that this is going to, in some way or other, annoy politicians in Tokyo,” he said.

“There’s a lot of Australians who are annoyed that the Australian Government, and indeed the Opposition when it was in government, haven’t stood up to the Japanese. And it’s time they did.”

Dr Brown said he has nothing but praise for Watson.

Interpol has issued an arrest alert for Watson, who is wanted in Costa Rica over charges relating to a confrontation over shark finning.

Watson has since said he is back on board an activist vessel and ready to confront whalers.

“I’ve admired Paul Watson and Sea Shepherd for 30 years,” Dr Brown said.

“They have done a fantastic job. It’s been non-violent, they have never harmed anybody in that process.”

The former senator also wants the Government to ensure the safety of the Sea Shepherd’s four ships and crew.

“This time they (the Japanese) have armed coastguard people – this is men with guns on their ships coming into the demilitarised zone in Antarctica – while our Government and governments elsewhere sit on their hands and allow this international law-breaking,” he said.

“It’s Sea Shepherd that’s upholding the law here.”

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Paul Watson and his Sea Shepherd Crew

in search of Japanese Whale Killing Ships

Voluntarily undertaking the job of the Australian Government.

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[Source:  ‘Brown calls on Government to protect Sea Shepherd’, 20130102, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-02/bob-brown-speaks-about-sea-shepherd/4450224]

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30 Jan 2013:

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<<Anti-whaling activists Sea Shepherd say they have made their first contact with Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean this season.

The group says its vessel the MV Brigitte Bardot intercepted harpoon ship the Yushin Maru 3 yesterday.

In a statement, Brigitte Bardot captain Jean Yves Terlain said the position of the whaling boat indicates it has not yet killed any of the mammals.

“The Yushin Maru 3 was on a westerly course, indicating that the fleet has been in bad weather for the past several days,” he said.

“The latitude at which they were found was rather far north and given that the large concentrations of whales are found further south, closer to the Antarctic Continent where there are high concentrations of krill, this would indicate that they have not yet begun whaling.”

Sea Shepherd says this year’s mission is its largest to date, involving four ships and more than 120 crew.

Mission chief and former Greens leader Bob Brown say it is also shaping up to be the most successful.

“We’re one day short of the end of January, the prime killing month for these whaling fleets, and they haven’t yet been able to kill a whale,” he said.  “Sea Shepherd is very, very happy.”>>

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[Source:  Sea Shepherd intercepts Japanese whaling fleet’, 20130130, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-30/sea-shepherd-intercepts-japanese-whaling-fleet/4491686]

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Feb 2013:

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<<Japan has begun injecting new tax-payer-funded subsidies into its whaling program in a bid to keep the fleet afloat, the ABC has learned.

It is believed the “profitable fisheries program” is helping to keep the so-called scientific research program’s ongoing debts at bay and to help refit the whaling fleet’s flagship.

With the Japanese fleet now entering Antarctic waters, the annual whale wars are again expected to flare any day.

Militant Sea Shepherd activists have been able to all but scupper the fleet’s catch over the past few years.

This, plus lower demand for whale meat, means the government has been forced to prop up the whaling program.

Some of the money has come from funds set aside for the rebuilding of communities shattered by the 2011 tsunami.

And now it appears more cash has come from the new taxpayer-funded subsidy.

“This subsidy is supposed to help fishermen in financial trouble,” investigative journalist Junko Sakuma said.

“Now it’s propping up the unprofitable whaling fleet, and if they keep running a loss, they won’t even have to pay it back.”

Documents seen by the ABC suggest the subsidy has already been used to partly refit the whaling fleet’s mother ship, the Nisshin Maru, with a smoking room and internet connections.

Patrick Ramage is the whale program director at the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Tomorrow he will release a report into just how the Japanese whaling industry is propped up financially.

“The most important finding of this new report is really three things: first, that whaling is an economic loser in the 21st century, second, that the Japanese people have lost their appetite for whale meat, and third that whale watching rather than whale killing is the economically beneficial whale industry for the 21st century,” he said.

Even the strongest supporters of whaling in Japan are pessimistic about the future of the hunt, especially with the government forced to pump in more subsidies into the fleet to keep it afloat.

Masayuki Komatsu is a former Japanese delegate to the International Whaling Commission and one of the architects of the country’s scientific research program.

He warns that the injection of this new subsidy is a sign that program is in big trouble.

“It’s not sustainable, right. How long can you get such money from the government? Everybody likes money, particularly other people’s money,” he said.>>

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[Source:  ‘Taxpayers bailing out Japanese whalers’, 20130204, by North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy, AM (radio programme), ABC News, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-04/taxpayers-bailing-out-japanese-whalers/4498602]

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1 Feb 2013:

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<<The Federal Government has ordered a Japanese whaling vessel to get out of Australia’s exclusive economic zone.

The Shonan Maru Number 2 – a Customs vessel which travels with the whaling fleet – entered the zone off Macquarie Island in the Southern Ocean yesterday afternoon.

Environment Minister Tony Burke said he had made it clear to Japan that vessels associated with the whaling program “are not welcome in in Australia’s exclusive economic zone or territorial sea”.

“Our embassy in Tokyo has conveyed these sentiments directly to the Japanese government,” Mr Burke said in a statement.

Former Greens leader Bob Brown, now the mission leader of the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling group, says he believes the vessel has armed Japanese personnel aboard.

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Mr Brown:

“It is accompanying the whaling ships into the killing fields off Antarctica.  When the Sea Shepherd ship Bob Barker made contact with the factory ship, this ship tailed Bob Barker and has been doing so for a couple of days. The Bob Barker has lost the [factory ship] Nisshin Maru but that was after it was hunted out of the whaling area and this Customs vessel, this government vessel, has kept with the Bob Barker through to Macquarie Island and into Australia’s economic zone waters.”

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Mr Brown says the Shonan Maru stopped this morning just outside Australia’s territorial waters.  He says there may be legal arguments about who has control over exclusive economic zones.

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Mr Brown:

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“Tokyo has ignored the call from the Federal Government for this part of the whaling fleet not to enter our exclusive economic zone.  It’s stayed outside the direct territorial waters but it has not obliged that request and protest from Australia that it should not enter our exclusive economic zone.  That is a matter of some affront to Australia and one that I’ve no doubt the Federal Government will be looking to deal with during today.” >>

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[Source:  Japanese whalers ordered out of Australian waters’, 20130201, by Samantha Donovan and staff, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-01/government-orders-japanese-whalers-out/4495166]

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[The following article was initially written by Tigerquoll and published on CanDoBetter.net, 20100116, ^http://candobetter.net/node/1778, entitled ‘Ban whaling vessels from using our ports’].

Japanese Whale Blood Sport

…at it again, trespassing and poaching in Australian waters!

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One would assume that an organisation entitled the ‘Australia Strategic Policy Institute‘ would be a government body or a body at least having Australia’s strategic interests at heart.

But its director, Dr Anthony Bergin, with a title one would assume would be capable of research, has written an article for Fairfax media supporting Japan’s strategic interests.

Bergin’s article: ‘Ban Protest Vessels from using our Ports‘ dated 16th January 2010 in The Age newspaper sides with the Japanese whalers and calls on the Australian Government to support Japan in denying protesters access to Australian ports.

Perhaps Dr Bergin should take up residency in Taiji and become an employee of  their Institute of Cetacean Research.

If Dr Bergin were respectful of the democratic rights to protest we have in Australia and recognised the Japanese incursion in Australia’s whale sanctuary in the Southern Ocean, and respected the existence rights of whales, then perhaps his article for Fairfax would have instead read like this…

The Australian Government has been far too even-handed in its statements about the reckless actions of the Japanese whalers trespassing in the Southern Ocean in breach of commercial whaling prohibitions.

By not condemning this annual intrusion by Japanese ships undertaking commercial whaling, Australia is in effect acquiescing in illegal poaching of whales, while Sea Shepherd does Australia’s naval monitoring of illegitimate Japanese whale poachers.  Harassment will not change Japan’s position on whaling. And not condemning these Japans actions is counterproductive for Australia trying to secure its protection of endangered whales with the International Whaling Commission.

Whale Watching: 

A Minke Whale is harpooned by the Japanese whaling vessel Yushin Maru 2

in Australia’s Southern Ocean

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Australia could legitimately take Japan to court and hold Japan in breach of the Antarctic Treaty at the next meeting of the commission in Morocco in June 2010.  Australia could legitimately and formally demand Japan to cease its whaling actions immediately.

Given the public interest in these matters, the Australian Government has sensibly asked the Australian Maritime Safety Authority to examine the recent events in the Southern Ocean.  Yet it is hard to see how, on any reading of the Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, that the ramming of the Sea Shepherd vessel, the ‘Ady Gil‘, by the Japanese whaling vessel, could argue his actions were in compliance with it.

On January 6, 2010, the New Zealand flagged tri hull wave piercer, Ady Gill, was stationary in the water at the time of the ramming and no action was taken by the Japanese whaling vessel to avoid a collision.  In fact the ship’s master the Japanese whaling ship, the ‘Shōnan Maru 2‘ deliberately turned away from its course toward starboard to deliberately ram and sink the Ady Gil.

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Japanese Attack Formation – caught on video by Sea Shepherd’s MV Bob Barker

On 6th January 2010, in Australia’s Southern Ocean, the traspassing ‘Shōnan Maru 2′ deliberately rams the stationary Ady Gil

Australia lets the ship’s master and company Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha off  ‘Scott’ free!

(click image to enlarge)

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“The crew of the Ady Gil claimed that, at the last moment, the ‘Shōnan Maru 2′ turned to starboard, changing its heading to 30 degT6 and colliding with the port sponson and then smashing off a 3 metre section of the bow of the Ady Gil.”  

At the time the Shōnan Maru 2 was believed to be under command of Master Toshiyuki Miura, an employee of Japanese company Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha.

[Source:  ‘AMSA Report on Ady Gil Collision’, ^http://www.amsa.gov.au/shipping_safety/incident_reporting/documents/amsa-report-on-ady-gil-collision.pdf]

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Watch Video:

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Piracy and criminality at sea deserve more than a token ‘fact finding report‘ that concludes nothing:

<<On the basis of the available evidence, AMSA has been unable to determine whether either vessel took any action intended to cause a collision. In the absence of face-to-face interviews with all the parties involved, the value of the publicly posted video footage was limited. The lack of confirmation of the validity of the source of this footage and therefore its limited evidentiary value prevented definitive conclusions being drawn.”>>

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Read Report:  >AMSA Report on Ady Gil Collision (2010).pdf  (22 pages, 1.1MB)

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It’s called a diplomatic whitewash.  Australia and New Zealand didn’t even receive an apology from the Japanese Government.

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To demonstrate that Australia does not support the activities of the Japanese whalers, the Australian Government should ban the entry of its vessels into Australian ports.

In deciding whether to grant consent to vessels to enter its ports, a state is free to impose conditions as it wishes – access to a port of a state is a privilege, not a right.

Australia banned port access to Japanese fishing vessels in 1998 when Japan would not agree on a total allowable catch for Southern Bluefin Tuna in the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna. The port access ban was lifted in mid-2001. Why? It is an offence under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act for a whaling vessel to call at an Australian port unless the master has written permission from the environment minister to bring it into the port.

If the Federal Government is serious about ending whaling and shifting the Japanese Government’s position – one that has hardened in response – it should directly monitor all whaling activities in the Southern Ocean, follow through on its promise to take legal action against Japan, ban all whaling vessels from Australian ports and ban all use of aircraft from Australian airports for use by Japanese whalers.

Dr Anthony Bergin needs to continue his research and then get back to us with what he has learnt.

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To Japanese Whale Sportsmen, it’s just big game fishing

It’s the thrill of the harpooning!

The whale meat doesn’t matter

The ‘research’ label is to keep Greenies distracted in courts

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Comment by Anonymous 20100117:

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<<We urgently need leadership.

How is it that whaling authorities, or ‘spies’, were allowed to hire Australian planes to spy on anti-whaling protest ships!

Where are our border controls, our security forces? Australia is a sovereign nation, one to be proud of and patriotic towards. However, we have leaders cowering to Japan’s superior powers, and all their rhetoric about “legal options” and “diplomatic pressure” are just forms of procrastination, a smoke-screen for the public.

It is becoming clear that some agreement has been made between Japan and Australia to prevent any “interference” to their whale slaughter.

Head of the Australian whaling envoy, Sandy Holloway, is set to receive up to $200,000 for 100 days work. Costs could escalate to one million dollars as bureaucrats travel the globe in a futile effort to stop Japan killing whales.

Mr Holloway’s ‘formal representations’ to Japan, on a $1,800 a day retainer, were designed to fail and are really an expensive smokescreen to fool the Australian public.

Such was the ambiguity of diplomatic pressure that Japan even asked Australia for help against the “eco-terrorists” upholding the laws in the Antarctic!

Public money is being wasted. Australia’s Antarctic Territory, a $300 million whale-watching industry, domestic and international laws and Treaties are being abandoned in an effort to secure economic agreements with Japan.

Our government’s “anti-whaling” stance, despite pre-election pledges, is a charade.  It is time we see some leadership from our Federal government and have Japan’s illegal whaling fleet permanently removed from the Antarctic.  We urgently need leadership at this time, but clearly we won’t be getting it from our present government!>>

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Comment by Peter Bright   (20100117):

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The Prime Minister has to overview the whole picture in the national interest, long term as well as short term. Although a Green, I believe that he and his government are being unfairly criticised and insultingly abused with insufficient cause.

A better understanding of any problem may sometimes be gleaned by putting oneself in the position of one’s despised target and considering matters from his point of view.
To protect the welfare of this nation Mr Rudd has to very carefully consider the reciprocal benefits of trade between Australia and Japan, as well as a whole lot of other factors and subterranean international innuendos the likes of which we could only guess at. Mr Rudd surely realises this, and so do his advisors.

In Mr Rudd’s position, with his huge and numerous responsibilities, I would not expect to last even a minute. Personally, I’m grateful he’s there.

Because of trade matters, and in the interests of keeping the peace, I suspect that the Japanese whalers down south could ram half the Australian navy without provoking Mr Rudd into showing retaliatory muscle.

Of course if I was the commander of an Australian naval ship that had just been rammed down there, I would, um, deal with the problem there and then.

It’s likely that my response would be something less than one fully loaded with diplomatic tact and courtesy.

[Ed:  Like seizing and impounding the Japanese vessels, arresting the crews, and summoning the Japanese ambassador to the Australian Prime Minister’s office.]

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If Australia’s Prime Minister sides with Japan against Australia, what right does Rudd have to represent Australia as Prime Minister.

Rudd already sides with China and speaks fluent Chinese. Does he have similar allegiances to Japan?

Australia must escort Japanese vessels (which have a home territory 5000 or more kilometres north) out of Australian waters.  Rudd has become a treacherous Prime Minister, favouring the rights of foreign powers over Australian sovereign rights. In doing so, Rudd has breached the Australian Constitution and must be sacked immediately.

1. Australian Antarctic Territory breached

2. Whale Protection Act, 1980 breached ‘Part I – Preliminary 6. Application of Act

(1)   This Act extends to every external Territory and, except so far as the contrary intention appears, to acts, omissions, matters and things outside Australia, whether or not in a foreign country.

(2)   Subject to subsection (3):

(a)    to the extent that a provision of this Act has effect in and in relation to any waters or place beyond the outer limits of the exclusive economic zone, that provision applies only in relation to Australian citizens domiciled in Australia, Australian aircraft and Australian vessels and the members of the crew (including persons in charge) of Australian aircraft and Australian vessels; and

(b)   to the extent that a provision of this Act has effect in and in relation to Australia or any waters other than waters referred to in paragraph (a), that provision applies in relation to all persons, aircraft and vessels, including foreign persons, foreign aircraft and foreign vessels.

(3)    This Act has effect subject to the obligations of Australia under international law, including obligations under any agreement between Australia and another country or countries.

 

Part II – Preservation, conservation and protection of whales

9. Killing, taking etc. of whales prohibited

(1) A person shall not:

(a)  in waters to which this Act applies, kill, injure, take or interfere with any whale; or

(b)  treat any whale that has been killed or taken in contravention of this Act or has been unlawfully imported. ‘

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Japanese whalers keep poaching whales in Australian territorial waters contravention of Australia’s Whales Protection Act.  Kevin Rudd, as Australia’s Prime Minister is dutifully bound to protect Australia’s sovereignty and enforce Australian legislation. But he is not.
3. Prime Minister’s failure to enforce Australian territorial legislation constitutes a breach of the Australian Constitution The COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA CONSTITUTION ACT – SECT 122 ‘ Government of territories’ states:

“The Parliament may make laws for the government of any territory surrendered by any State to and accepted by the Commonwealth, or of any territory placed by the Queen under the authority of and accepted by the Commonwealth, or otherwise acquired by the Commonwealth, and may allow the representation of such territory in either House of the Parliament to the extent and on the terms which it thinks fit.”

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Under the COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA CONSTITUTION ACT – SECT 120 ‘Custody of offenders against laws of the Commonwealth’

‘Every State shall make provision for the detention in its prisons of persons accused or convicted of offences against the laws of the Commonwealth, and for the punishment of persons convicted of such offences, and the Parliament of the Commonwealth may make laws to give effect to this provision.’

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Australia’s federal parliament has enacted the above legislation. The Japanese whalers have breached those laws, yet our Prime Minister fails to enforce these laws. But Rudd lets them go unpunished.

Indeed, Rudd is so appeasing of the Japanese as to be in allegiance with Japanese interests to the detriment of Australia’s interests. Under Section 44 of the Constitution sets out restrictions on who can be a candidate for Federal parliament.

It reads:“

‘Section 44 (i). Any person who..is under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power…shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.’

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So Australia’s Prime Minister Rudd needs to work out whether he is siding with Japan or Australia.

If Rudd recognises Australian Antarctic Territorial Waters, then he needs to uphold and enforce Australia law.

If he sides with the Japanese, he is in breach of Section 44 and must be sacked from the House of Representatives forthwith. Q.E.D.

I also refer to a pertinent well researched letter by Mr Graham J. Clarke (President of Whales in Danger) dated 6th January 2003 to Minister for the Environment and Heritage, David Kemp.   I also point out that since the Prime Minister has confirmed he will challenge Japan legally on this issue, indicates that the Australian Government considers Japanese whalers have breached the law and have a case to answer.

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Comment from Vivienne (20100306):

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<<What a disgrace our Federal leaders are! Instead of arresting the criminal whale killers, they actually act on their behalf and use our AFP to “investigate” Sea Shepherd.

What about Peter Buthane held captive? The cowards we have in government are grovelling to Japan to ensure safe trading relationships and “friendship”, and protected whales are just ignored.

Japan’s bogus “research” is a cover to return to commercial whaling, and due to our government’s incompetence and ignorance, Japan is winning the wars against whales.

This is a totally contemptible action by our Federal government, using the taxpayer-funded AFP contrary to our Australian interests. They have surrendered Antarctic security, and the blood of magnificent and gentle whales are heading towards becoming just another red meat!.”

..Trade with Japan is a different topic. Our economic relationship with Japan should not depend on their being allowed to audaciously break International and domestic laws and treaties. According the the Federal Court, 2008, we would be quite within our rights to stop Japan’s illegal whaling. Whether they are arrested and impounded should not depend on the economic power of the law-breaking nation. Setting a precedent that allows powerful nations to break the laws in our economic zones is dangerous and unfair.

Kevin Rudd is morally obliged to complete his pre-election promises and force Japan to respect our sovereignty. Anything else maligns us to being nothing but cowardly.

“Protected” whales are not political or economic pawns to be traded or betrayed so cruelly.>>

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Australia’s native Dingo

Dingo Persecution must end!   Public perception has to change.

(Photo credit AAP, Jim Shrimpton)

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Dingo numbers have been reduced due to extreme uncontrolled overuse of the deadly 1080 bait, and the colonial cultural persecution of Australia’s top order predator, the Dingo.

<<But scientists say governments need to seriously consider reintroducing dingoes to the landscape in order to protect vulnerable native species.

Dingoes cause hundreds of thousands of dollars damage each year to livestock and there have been huge efforts to cull them by laying poisonous baits and shooting them.   But this has allowed feral species like cats and foxes to thrive and experts say the current approach is counter-productive.

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About 40% of the country’s native species are listed as threatened or close to extinction, thanks to the explosion in numbers of feral cats and foxes.

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Dr Tony Friend, the president of the Australian Mammal Society, says trying to control these animals is a losing battle.

“We are getting reasonably good at controlling foxes in the local areas but cats are a huge problem, partly exacerbated by removing foxes, so once the foxes are taken out, cats do well and basically step into the feet of the foxes,” he said.

Research is being conducted Australia-wide to see if bringing back dingoes will help control these pests.  One recent study in South Australia’s north recorded a reduction in feral cat and fox numbers with the introduction of dingoes.

Hannah Spronk from Arid Recovery, a conservation group based just outside Roxby Downs, is heading the research.

“All seven of the foxes that we released into that pen there were killed within 17 days by the dingoes,” she said.  A night photo of a feral cat with a fairy prion in its mouth.

 

A feral (dumped) cat with a native bird in its mouth in Tasmania

(Photo credit of Parks and Wildlife Service, Tasmania)

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“They did autopsies I suppose you could say and the deaths were attributed to attacks by dingoes.  All six of the feral cats that were in the pen died within 20 to 103 days after release.”

Dr Menna Jones, from the University of Tasmania, is looking at reintroducing top order predators to rebalance specific ecosystems.  As well as dingoes, she is finding out whether the Tasmanian devil could also control invasive species.

“If we can put a large predator back into the ecosystem where it has become extinct, it can do the job of controlling feral cats or foxes 24 hours a day, seven days a week without the need for an ongoing management program that costs a lot of money and costs a lot of effort,” she said.

International expert and wildlife ecologist Professor Roy Dennis says dingoes could be reintroduced in a controlled manner to limit the damage they cause to livestock.  But he says first of all public perception has to change.

“I think it would only work when it was the public themselves that wanted this to happen,” he said.>>

.[Source:  ‘Dingo repopulation could control feral animals’, by journalist Nicola Gage, The World Today programme, ABC Radio, 20120928, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-28/dingo-repopulation-could-control-feral-animals/4286500]

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<<Dingoes don’t mix well with sheep and cattle but scientists believe there may be some benefit to keeping wild dogs around to control feral cats and foxes.

The Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre is investigating the ecological role dingoes and free-ranging crossbreed dogs play in Australia, so they can be effectively managed.

Peter Fleming, who leads CRC projects on managing wild dogs, says some people see them as under-utilised weapons against feral cats and foxes, also known as meso-predators.

Others only see them as destructive pests that attack sheep and cattle.

Dr Fleming, Principal Research Scientist in the Vertebrate Pest Research Unit of Biosecurity NSW, says it’s critically important to manage the negative impacts of free-ranging dogs using the most up-to-date scientific information.

“Right now, pressure is being brought to bear on livestock producers in some areas to reduce lethal control of all free-ranging dogs because of potential environmental benefit of dingoes,” he said in a statement.

“We know wild dogs and sheep don’t mix and that strategic co-management is the best way to go for both conservation and agricultural goals.”

He says PhD students are being sought to help with five-year research program to see if there are benefits of retaining free-ranging wild dogs to suppress foxes and feral cat impacts in some areas – while still controlling them for livestock protection.
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[Source:  ‘Scientists probe dingo’s ecological role’, 20130128, by AAP, ^http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/scientists-probe-dingos-ecological-role-20130128-2dgql.html]

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<<…How do we effectively manage dingoes and other free-ranging cross-breed dogs when we just don’t know the true ecological roles of these predators?

Researchers with the Invasive Animals CRC, led by Ben Allen and Peter Fleming – Wild Dog theme leader for the Invasive Animals CRC – have just published a critical review of dingo research methodology in Biological Conservation. Their work identifies the need for long-term research on the ecological roles of dingoes and other free-ranging dogs.   But in the interim, long-term research to 2017 is already underway.

Based at Orange as principal research scientist in the Vertebrate Pest Research Unit of Biosecurity NSW, Dr Fleming said that depending on what they are eating at the time, free-ranging dogs are viewed differently by different stakeholders.

“For some, they are destructive pests attacking sheep and cattle. For others, dingoes are seen as an ‘under-utilised weapon’ against feral cats and foxes (collectively referred to as meso-predators),” he said.

Dr Fleming said there was much uncertainty about potential ‘meso-predator’ suppression by dingoes and wild dogs.

“It’s critically important that we manage the negative impacts of free-ranging dogs using the most up-to-date scientific information,” he said.

Dr Peter Fleming

Principal research scientist in the vertebrate pest research unit of Biosecurity NSW, Orange

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“Right now, pressure is being brought to bear on livestock producers in some areas to reduce lethal control of all free-ranging dogs, because of potential environmental benefit of dingoes.

“We know wild dogs and sheep don’t mix and that strategic co-management is the best way to go for both conservation and agricultural goals. Community wild dog control programs in livestock production areas can suffer because of conflicting information about the roles of dingoes and the other free-ranging wild dogs.”

“However, our review shows we are unsure what the ecological roles are. The new research may yet demonstrate there are ecosystem services and net benefits of retaining free-ranging wild dogs to suppress foxes and feral cat impacts in some areas, but they will still need to be controlled for livestock protection,” Dr Fleming said.

To get to the bottom of the dingo mystery and to determine the ecological roles of free-ranging wild dogs in the many different ecosystems that make up Australia, the Invasive Animals CRC and its partners Meat & Livestock Australia and Australian Wool Innovation and have embarked on a five-year research program to enhance the nation’s ability to manage all their impacts.

A statement issued by the Invasive Animals CRC said this information was critical to manage this unique and charismatic predator in Australia – the dingo, while mitigating livestock losses.

Based at the University of New England and Biosecurity NSW, the research program will centre on north-eastern New South Wales and south-eastern Queensland, a biodiversity hotspot where livestock producers continue to suffer predation problems.

The UNE is currently receiving applications until February 15 for research PhDs to support the wild dog research team. Substantial Invasive Animals CRC resources are being devoted to the research, with up to eight PhD projects about native and introduced predators, their interactions with their prey, the plants the prey eats and the social and economic context of wild dog impacts.

“In five years’ time we will have a sound understanding of the relationships between the predators, prey, plants and people in the highly-productive north-east of NSW,” Dr Fleming said.

“In the meantime, the coordinated, strategic approach to managing free-ranging dogs and preventing livestock predation must continue,” he said.>>

 

[Source:  ‘Long-term research aims to unravel the dingo mystery’, 20130129, Beef Central, ^http://www.beefcentral.com/p/news/article/2690]

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Dunalley Wharf, Tasmania ~ idyllic serenity

Now with far greater meaning 

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On that blistering hot Friday 4th January 2013…this same wharf became a life saving critical refuge.  Desperately trapped residents fled their homes from a raging inferno bearing down upon them and clung below the wharf for dear life, immersed in the cool salt water.

Dunalley’s Wharf  became a final refuge for people of Dunalley to survive what would otherwise have been certain death by bushfire.  It’s unassuming but vital human value is now etched in local memory, which must now already be legend.

Such horrific memories are destined to endure local lifetimes.

What let the firestorm descend upon Dunalley was negligently and morally wrong.  It was stoppable on the 3rd and the escalated firestorm should never have come to this.

No-one deserves this, ever!

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Dunalley Wharf, a special place.

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Dunalley:  a bushfire-vulnerable community

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The small rural fishing village of Dunalley is situated along on a sheltered coastline in south eastern Tasmania adjacent to established grazing country and immediately surrounded by hilly bushland.

Tourists drive through Dunalley from Hobart enroute down to the popular Tasman Peninsula where historic Port Arthur is situated.  A smaller coastal village of Boomer Bay lies 1km to the north of Dunalley.

Zooming in, Dunalley is positioned on a narrow 700 metre wide isthmus of land between Dunalley Bay and Blackman Bay that connects the main island of Tasmania to the Tasman Peninsula – ‘East Bay Neck‘.

The Denison Canal cuts this isthmus and the town in two providing a boating shortcut transit between the two bays (like a micro version of the Panama Canal) .  The Arthur Highway crosses over the canal at the Denison Canal Bridge.

“..Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”

~ The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Dunalley is surrounded by water on both sides

(Denison Canal not shown)

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Dunalley has for over a century been a sawmilling and fishing town, but over recent decades has seen growth as retirees and holiday makers buy up and extend the population to just under 400 with new housing development communities like adjacent Primrose Sands sprouting up.

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QUESTION 1:  

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What contribution and culpability have (1) housing planning approvals by local Sorell Council and (2) Sorell Council enforcement and compliance monitoring of Australian building standards in bushfire prone areas, played in susceptibilty of properties in Dunalley and Boomer Bay to bushfire damage?  What role and approval if any has the Tasmanian Fire Service had in these housing planning approvals?

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Like so many rural communities across Tasmania and indeed south eastern Australia, the rural lifestyle appeal of coastal villages like Dunalley is the traditional timbered cottage amenity and the rustic bushland setting.  Dunally also has the sheltered bays to complement its appeal.

Dunalley Wharf and Fish Market looking north from Dunalley Bay,

with steep Township Hill in the background  (long before the 2013 bushfire).

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However, the geographic restrictions of Dunalley being:

• Surrounded by coastal waterways
• Close proximity to bushland (a substantial ‘urban bushland interface‘)
• Dunalley’s juxtaposition downwind of the prevailing north-west wind from extensive bushland vegetation

 

..all combined make Dunalley an inherently bushfire vulnerable community.  In the event of a bushfire, normal expected evacuation by road would be restricted.

Indeed, evacuation from the dependengt Forestier Peninsula and sub-dependent Tasman Peninsula had to be both effected by sea, since the logistically vital Denison Canal bridge became impassable due to the bushfire emergency.

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QUESTION 2:  

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What bushfire risk assessment, community education, community bushfire preparation and bushfire evacuation procedures had the Tasmanian Fire Service provided to the communities of Dunalley and Boomer Bay in the years, months, days ahead of the January 2013 bushfire?

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QUESTION 3:  

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Did most residents of Dunalley and Boomer Bay consider their individual properties and their communities in general particularly vulnerable to bushfire?  If so, what bushfire mitigation measures had been previously discussed and actually implemented.  If not, why not?

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Following Victoria’s tragic Black Saturday bushfires of 7th February 2009, in addition to the subsequent Royal Commission, a study by a team of scientists from Australia and America examined 500 of the homes that were affected by the bushfires.

The study sought to learn from effects of land management on house loss to identify how houses could be better protected in future bushfires.   The study compared the impacts of bushfire preparation measures like prescribed burning, grazing, logging of native forests, and the clearing if immediate bush on the survivability of houses in a bushfire.

The key result was that getting rid of vegetation ( trees and shrubs) within 40m of a house was by the most effective property preparation measure.  Whereas measures such as logging native forests and prescribed burning had minimal impact on reducing house loss.  The results of the study were published a year ago on 19th January 2012 in the online scientific journal ‘PLoS ONE‘.

Professor David Bowman, an expert in forest ecology and bushfire management at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, says this research is useful because it confirms scientifically what we already know.

“It’s really important that we get more effective at mitigating the effects of bushfires,” says Philip.  “It does open up some pretty intense political issues,” he says. “You’ve got to ask the question: why are people living in these areas if these disasters are only going to keep happening? Why do peri-urban communities exist?”

Population growth in bushland areas and more frequent bushfire weather predicted with climate change are expected to create major challenges for protecting homes in the future.

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[Source: ‘Black Saturday study looks at bushfire risk’, by Natalie Muller, January-19-2012, ^http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/black-saturday-bushfire-study-reveals-how-stay-safe-victoria-kinglake.htm]

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QUESTION 4:

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What if any vegetation clearing buffer was conducted by the TFS immediately between Dunalley and the bushland recently and when was this done?

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QUESTION 5:

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What if any vegetation clearing buffer was conducted by property occupiers of Dunalley immediately around their properties recently and when was this done?

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QUESTION 6 :  

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What if any bushfire preparation was conducted by property occupiers of Dunalley immediately around their properties recently and when was this done? 

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Another Odd Hot Summer

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Historically, Tasmania’s southern latitude, and the fact that it is surrounded by sea, has generally meant that summer temperatures across Tasmania have been fairly mild in comparision to the increasingly scorching heatwaves that have beset mainland states over recent decades.

But Tasmania, on occasions does get summer heatwaves into the high 30s Celsius and hotter, notably on record during the summers of:

1. 1895-96
2. 1907-08
3. 1939-40
4. 1945-46
5. 1967-77
6. 1976-77
7. 2008-09
8. 2012-13  (just gone)

 

And so it was that at the start of summer on November 30, 2012, the Australian Government’s Bureau of Meterology forecast another unseasonally very hot summer for Tasmania and a media report ran thus:

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<<Today marks the beginning of the bushfire danger season in Tasmania — with temperatures forecast to soar.  The mercury is tipped to go over 30C in the South today, prompting the Tasmania Fire Service to declare the season’s first total fire ban.

Hobart is forecast to reach 32C, while Campania and Richmond can expect 33C.  Yesterday was also a hot one, with Hobart recording a maximum of 30C – 11 degrees above the November average.

The state’s top temperatures yesterday were recorded in Ouse, 32.6C, and Strahan, 32.5C.

TFS chief officer Mike Brown urged everyone living in and around bushland to review their bushfire plans.  He said today’s fire ban was in response to the high temperatures and dry conditions.

“The vegetation across the state has dried out measurably despite recent scattered light rain.. today’s high temperatures meant fires could “develop in size very quickly and be difficult to control”.  “There are a number of fires across the state that have been difficult to control and extinguish,” Mr Brown said.

Last night fire crews were at six vegetation fires across the state, the largest burning out of control around Poatina Rd, Central Plateau.

Southern Water has also introduced water restrictions today in response to the dangerous conditions.  People should avoid all non-essential water use to leave enough for fire fighting.

Weather bureau senior forecaster Malcolm Downing said it was the first “very high danger” rating for the fire season.  Mr Downing said there had been little rain over the past two weeks, which had significantly dried out vegetation.  He said tomorrow should be cooler, with temperatures forecast to be in the low 20s.

Today’s total fire ban means that no fires can be started out of doors in the southern region, which includes the municipalities of Brighton, Central Highlands, Clarence, Derwent Valley, Glamorgan/Spring Bay, Glenorchy, Hobart, Huon Valley, Kingborough, Sorell, Southern Midlands and Tasman.

The ban started at midnight last night and remains in place until midnight tonight.  Mr Brown said today’s fire ban also meant people could not use cutting, welding or other similar equipment in the open.

“Although the use of agricultural machinery, for the purpose of harvesting crops or slashing grass, is not included in this ban operators are requested to take particular care when using this type of machinery,” he said.  Fires should be reported by dialling 000.

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Total Fire Ban Rules

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• No fires may be lit or be allowed to remain alight in the open air until midnight tonight.
• Tools and equipment that use a naked flame or generate sparks must not be used in the open air.
• Barbecues that use wood, charcoal or solid fuel banned.
• Gas and electric barbecues are permitted if the barbecue is a fixed permanent structure.>>

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[Source:  ‘Gearing up for a sizzler’, 20121130, by Anne Mather, The Mercury (Hobart newspaper), ^http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2012/11/30/367334_tasmania-news.html]

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The following day, December 1, media reports alerted Tasmanians to several active bushfires across the state, and significantly one in Forcett.

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<<The Tasmanian Fire Service says the threat from fires across the state has reduced, but has urged residents to continue monitoring conditions.

Containment lines have been set around the fires at Glen Huon, Bruny Island, Forcett and Geeveston. The largest blaze was located at Poatina on the Central Plateau.

The 6,000 hectare Poatina Fire is burning in bushland located near high transmission powerlines, that connect the state’s north and south.

Tasmania Fire Service spokesman Andrew McGuiness told ABC News the fire will probably destroy caravans at Jonah Bay tonight, saying “it’s a big fire and it’s likely to get significantly bigger before they can put containment lines into control it.”

Another fire at Glenlusk, north of Hobart, also continues to challenge firefighters as they try to bring it under control.

Milder temperatures have helped firefighters gain the upper hand today, however windy conditions prevailed.  People who aren’t residents are urged to stay away from the fire zones, while communities near the fires are urged to be alert for any changes in the fire conditions. They should also continue looking at the Tasmanian Fire Service website for the latest updates.>>

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[Source:  ‘Wind and heat hampers bushfire fight’, 20121201, by Tim Gerritsen, ABC News, ^http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2012/11/30/3644822.htm]

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The ‘Precedent Excuse‘ that this latest bushfire could be ‘the worst ever‘, or ‘the worst in 100 years‘, or in 200 years – simply doesn’t wash.

It’s like telling the low lying folk of Queensland’s Lockyer Valley in 2011 that they had experienced the worst in a hundred year flood event; only two years later in January 2013 to experience the worst in a hundred year flood, again.

The risk of ‘Force Majeur‘ is not a factor of time, but of fickle Nature – basically a factor of luck.

Such is a convenient myth perpetuated by the accountable Tasmanian Government to try to shun its planning responsibility that Dunalley’s bushfire disaster was somehow unforseeable, and to try to excuse its emergency response failure that the disaster and its impact were somehow unavoidable.

Pull the other one, its got bells on it.   These days, both floods and bushfires in Australia are a consequence of both Nature, and the actions and inactions of Man.

Government bureaucrats and politicians may think the people are silly, like believing the old saying that ‘lightning never strikes the same place twice‘.  The factors that cause lightning to strike once don’t disappear between storms or even within the same storm.

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QUESTION 7:  

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Since Tasmania’s infamous 1967 fires when the Tasmanian Government forewent any plausible excuse it may have had of ‘bushfire innocence’, what subsequent measures and investment have been taken by the Tasmanian Govermment in (1) bushfire emergency planning and (2) bushfire emergency response – to mitigate the spread and impact of wildfire?  Given that the Dunalley Bushfire Disaster occurred have these measure and investment been adequate in meeting community expectations of government responsibility in 2013?

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QUESTION 8:

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What specific extra-ordinary bushfire fighting resourcing and strategies did the Tasmanian Fire Service seek and have implemented once it became aware of the forecast extreme bushfire weather conditions, and given that multiple uncontrolled bushfires, including the 6,000ha Poatina Fire, were demonstrating the extreme nature of the fire behaviour and already commanding TFS fire-fighting resources?

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Dec 2012   Two Air Tractor 802 Fire Bombers secured

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Air Tractor 802 fixed wing dedicated water bomber

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Just two weeks ahead of the Forcett Fire, the Tasmanian Government’s corporatised forestry department, Forestry Tasmania, announced that it has secured two dedicated waterbombing aircraft from Victoria to be based at Hobart Airport (Cambridge).

Significantly, Forestry Tasmania holds the State’s monopoly delegated management responsibility for Tasmania’s native forest reserves, in which it exploits for commercial timber logging.

Two large native forest reserves were ultimately impacted by the Forcett Fire – one south of the Arthur Highway in the Sorell local government area that includes ‘Big Blue Hill‘ which appears to have no identifiable name, and the other on the Forestier Peninsula – ‘Yellow Bluff Creek Forest Reserve‘.

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What does ‘managed’ mean?

[Photo by Editor, 20110926, free in public domain]

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<<Forestry Tasmania unveiled its latest weapon in the fight against forest fires at Cambridge Airport earlier this month.  The two Air Tractor 802 fixed wing fire bombers were brought to Hobart from Ballarat (regional Victoria) for a week and were immediately put into action, fighting a bushfire at Musselroe Bay in the far North-East (Tasmania).

A private airstrip nearby enabled them to fill up with a mixture of water and foam from temporary inflatable tanks and be over the fire in minutes.

With a capacity of more than 3000 litres and taking just four minutes to fill up, the two Air Tractors, valued at $1.5 million each, dumped 40,000 litres in an hour and more than 150,000 litres on the Musselroe Bay bushfire.

Forestry Tasmania hired the planes and pilots from Field Air with the help of the National Aerial Firefighting Centre.  Forestry Tasmania fire management head Tony Blanks said it was the first time the Fire Tractors had operated “in earnest” in Tasmania, where helicopters were more commonly used.”

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[Source:  ft-unveils-its-latest-weapon-against-fires’, 20121219, Forestry Tasmania website, ^http://www.forestrytas.com.au/news/2012/12/ft-unveils-its-latest-weapon-against-fires]

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Problem was that although one Air Tractor was vitally needed to fight the Forcett Fire, the second aircraft was previously returned back to Victoria at a time when dozens of fires were burning across Tasmania and with forecast extreme bushfire weather.

Madness.  Why?

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QUESTION 9:  

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In the wake of the Dunalley Bushfire Disaster what subsequent measures and investment is the Tasmanian Govermment to implement in (1) bushfire emergency planning and (2) bushfire emergency response to mitigate the spread and impact of future wildfire across the State?

 

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Preparation for an Extreme Forest Fire Danger Index?

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So by early December 2012 unusually extreme bushfire weather conditions were forecast for Tasmania.  But this was what Tasmania had experienced previously, albeit occassionally, but not as unique as some sensationalists in the media would have us believe.

Significantly, from a bushfire management operational perspective, numerous bushfires were already active and occupying the Tasmanian Fire Service and its related agencies, the Parks and Wildlife Service  and Forestry Tasmania, reducing resource capacity to respond to new and escalating bushfire emergencies.

Was the Tasmanian Fire Service by 3rd January already overwhelmed?

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QUESTION 10:

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Why did the Tasmanian Fire Service, well aware of the looming extreme forecast bushfire weather, not request special additional resources, such as from Victoria, including prudent preparatory delivery of the dedicated and proven effective waterbombing heli-tanker, then parked and idle in a hangar at Essendon Airport Melbourne?

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‘Elvis’, the celebrated Erickson Heli-tanker, with specialist bushfire-fighting pilot

A converted Sikorsky S-64E Skycrane, with a special “sea snorkel” and water tank

It is manufactured in Oregon, USA, dedicated to waterbombing bushfires and based at Essendon Airport Melbourne since December 2001.

Australia’s mainland states now have invested in at least four of them for standby bushfire application.

^http://www.ericksonaircrane.com/full_story/fullstory_firefighting.html

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Yet Tasmanian fire authorities defended their choice of aircraft to fight the state’s catastrophic south-east bushfire, while a much bigger helicopter stood idle on the mainland.

As the fires still burnt through the Tasman Peninsula on Sunday night, authorities warned that they held fears for a handful of people unaccounted for after the main fire passed.

The Tasmanian Fire Service’s chief officer, Mike Brown, said it had been an option to use the heavy-lift Erickson Air-crane against the blaze that devastated Dunalley and nearby coastal hamlets on Friday.

Under national aerial fire-fighting arrangements, five of the Air-cranes are positioned on the mainland, each of them able to suck up nine tonnes of water in 40 seconds, and fly at 200 km/h.

The aircraft, such as Victoria’s ”Elvis” and ”Gypsy”, have become part of bushfire folklore.

The Victorian CFA confirmed that in Melbourne on Friday, a day when the south-east fires were already burning in Tasmania in what were officially described as catastrophic conditions, one Air-crane went unused in its Essendon hangar.

Mr Brown said the Air-Cranes, which were heavily funded by the Commonwealth, still required a contribution from Tasmania.

”So we’ve got to have here what’s available in terms of being able to support as well,” he said.

”The support we can provide to the medium helicopters gives us, we think, the best outcome.”

A spokeswoman for the federal Attorney-General’s Department said moving the Air-crane also depended on moving refuelling capability.

Due to the nature of the aircraft, this was slower than moving smaller helicopters such as the Bell 212, she said.

More than 100 structures, many of them homes, have been lost in small communities, mainly around the Tasman Peninsula, but also near Bicheno on the east coast.

Acting Police Commissioner Scott Tilyard said searchers had scoured the burnt-out homes in the worst-hit towns of Dunalley, Boomer Bay and Bream Creek without finding any bodies, but the community still needed to brace for possible deaths.>>

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[Source: ‘Elvis is left idle despite raging inferno’, 20130107, by Andrew Darby, Hobart correspondent for Fairfax Media, ^http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/elvis-is-left-idle-despite-raging-inferno-20130106-2cb6c.html]

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Post-Dunalley – TFS Requests interstate assistance

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Sunday, 6th January:

<<As a result of the ongoing fire situation across the state, Tasmania Fire Service has welcomed and accepted offers of firefighting assistance from interstate authorities.

This will be in the form of personnel and will give some Firefighters and Incident Management Teams (IMT) the chance to have a break, as well as boosting firefighting numbers where needed.

TFS Chief Officer, Mike Brown

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TFS Chief Officer Mike Brown said:

“Tasmanian Firefighters have had a long record of providing assistance interstate and internationally over the years and our peoples skills and capabilities are highly regarded. I have been contacted by many of my counterparts from Western Australia through to New Zealand and many jurisdictions in between with messages of encouragement and offers for assistance.

Yesterday I spoke with the NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner and the Victorian Fire Commissioner and arranged for Firefighters and Fire Specialists to provide some much needed relief for our people. I’m very grateful that they have been able to respond so quickly”.

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The following are confirmed interstate deployment numbers coming to Tasmania:

• 7 x Rapid impact assessment officers from NSW Rural Fire Service (6 arrived yesterday, 1 today)
• 4 x liaison officers arrive today
• 17 x IMT personnel from Country Fire Authority Victoria, Department of Sustainability and Environment Victoria, & MFB arrive Sunday for Hobart
• 4 xIMT personnel arrive Sunday for Launceston
• 7 x Air operations arrive Sunday for Hobart
• 33 x Strike team firefighters arrive Sunday for Hobart (using TFS vehicles)

All personnel are due to return home on Friday.

“The potential for further requests for assistance will be considered later this week” TFS Chief Officer Mike Brown added.

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[Source:  Tasmanian Fire Service, Sunday 20130106, ^http://www.fire.tas.gov.au/Show?pageId=colMediaReleases]

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[Ed:  Better late than never, but tell that to the folk of Dunalley, Boomer Bay, Connelly’s Marsh and Copping!]

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Erikson Aircrane deployed to the Forcett Fire on 3rd January?   If only!

Sorry, this machine was deployed in Dawson in Gippsand, Victoria this month.

Same landscape, different State.

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Erikson Aircrane deployed to the Forcett Fire on 3rd January?   If only!

Sorry, this machine was deployed in Alpine Fire near Harrietville in Victoria this month.

..

When bushfire weather conditions become extreme – tinder dry bush and long grass, low humidity, temperature in the high 30 degree Celsius or hotter and strong winds – then the bushfire risk is exponentially heightened.

Bushfire risk is measured by the McArthur Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI), which was developed in the 1960s by CSIRO scientist A.G. McArthur to measure the degree of danger of fire in Australian forests.

This Forest Fire Danger Index combines a record of:

• Vegetation Dryness  (based upon rainfall and evaporation)
• Windspeed
• Temperature
• Humidity

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A fire danger rating of between 12 and 25 on the index is considered a “high” degree of danger, while a day having a danger rating of over 50 is considered an “Severe” fire danger rating. Above this level in 2010 a distinction was made between Forest and Grassland fuels.

For Forest fuels, an FDI over 75 is categorised as “Extreme” and over 100 as “Catastrophic”.  In Victoria, the alternate rating name adopted for Catastrophic is “Code Red”.

For Grassland fuels the threshold FDI values for the Extreme and Catastrophic Ratings was increased to 100 and 150 respectively. However,in Western Australia, which currently only uses the Grassland FDI, the values of 75 and 100 were being used as thresholds during 2012.

Fire Danger Ratings (from 0 to 100+)

‘Catastropic’ is a new category introduced across Australia

since the Victorian ‘Black Saturday’ tragedy of February 2009

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McArthur used the conditions of the Black Friday fires of 1939 as his example of a 100 rating.   The FFDI on Black Saturday, 7 February 2009, reached more than 200.

However, grassfires present a higher risk than forests under the same bushfire weather conditions, simply because grass is more flammable than timber.

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National Framework for (bushfire) Scaled Advice and Warnings

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In Victoria, in the months following the devastating Black Saturday bushfire disaster of February 2009, in which 173 people perished under catastrophic bushfire conditions ( a FFDI of over 200),  new fire danger ratings were formulated based upon this fire danger index.

The ‘Low’ rating was merged with ‘Moderate’ and a new ‘Catastrophic’ rating was introdiuced over and above what had long been the top rating of ‘Extreme’.

The new Catastrophic (Code Red) rating involves a fire danger index above 100.  Under these types of weather conditions fires will be unpredictable, uncontrollable and fast moving.  The fires in Victoria on 7th February 2009 provide an example of the types of fires that may be experienced under a ‘Catastrophic’ rating.

Standard advice to communities under these conditions will be that leaving is the safest option for survival.

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Australia’s National Fire Danger Ratings

since Sep 2009

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Australia’s new ‘National Framework for Scaled Advice and Warnings‘ were agreed and adopted by all Australian States and Territories at the Australian Emergency Management Committee meeting on 3rd and 4th September 2009.  One would presume that this included Tasmania.

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The national framework includes:

1. The new Fire Danger Ratings (see above coloured table)
2. The vague bushfire management slogan ‘Stay or Go’ replaced by similarly vague slogan: ‘Prepare, Act, Survive‘. *
3. An agreed format for scaled warnings.

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Other agreed bushfire management emergency protocols also include:

• Forecast fire danger advice will be issued throughout the media and will be aligned to the new fire danger ratings (which is based on the fire danger index)
• Key messages have been designed to clearly communicate what is likely to occur if and when a fire starts for each of the fire danger ratings.  Messages will include specific actions for the community to take during this outlook period.
• The CFA Chief Officer will have responsibility for issuing warnings to the community during fires; delegated to local Incident Controllers with a backup in the State Duty Officer in the iECC.
• Information units will have operational guidelines and the technological capability in place to enable them to quickly issue accurate warnings. Approval will occur at local incident level by the IC or deputy IC.
• Where an ICC has not yet been established, warnings can be issued on behalf of the IC by information units in the RECC or iECC.
• Warnings will be disseminated throughout a variety of media, for example websites, local radio and VBIL simultaneously via a single entry tool known as One Source One Message (OSOM).  This will ensure that warnings are provided to all sources at the same time, will appear in the same format and contain the same language.
• The iECC (or SECC) Information Unit will play a monitoring and auditing role in relation to community warnings, as well as a pro-active role when a warning hasn’t been issued or released.
• All areas will have access to OSOM* (warning system). It can be issued at a very local level (for example at a regional office before an ICC has been set up) or in the iECC which will be manned throughout high fire danger rating or fire danger indicator days
• In accordance with Royal Commission recommendations, there will be two warning categories, and three levels of information:

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• 1. ‘ADVICE‘:  This will advise you that a fire has started but there is no immediate danger, and includes general information to keep you up to date with developments.
  2. ‘WATCH AND ACT‘:   This is a heightened level of threat. Conditions are changing and you need to start taking action now to protect you and your family.
  3. ‘EMERGENCY‘:  This will indicate that people in specific locations are in danger and need to take action immediately to protect life, as they will be impacted by fire.

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* NB. The One Source One Message (OSOM) tool is a system with a single, multi-agency web-based portal to publish real time messages using standard incident management templates.

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[Source:  ‘New warning system explained’, by Bushfire Preparedness Program 2009/10, Victorian Country Fire Authority, 20090910, ^http://www.cfaconnect.net.au/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=873]

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Ed: 

A clearer, unambiguous bushfire response slogan to replace ‘Prepare, Act, Survive‘ could be:  

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‘No Bushfire Defence Certificate? 

Self-evacuate now to your nearest registered Emergency Evacation Centre!‘   

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It is high time that under bushfire rated conditions that are ‘Severe’ or ‘Extreme’ and when a wildfire is within a given risk range, that governments legally compel all residents situated in high bushfire-prone areas to compulsorily self-evacuate to a registered Evacation Centre unless they hold a current Bushfire Defence Certificate. 

Such a certificate would at a minimum require:

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(1) Meeting minimum standards of building construction in compliance with the Australian Standard for construction of buildings in bushfire prone areas (AS 3959-2009)

(2) Preparation of property bushfire defence inspected and certificied by a bushfire delegated authority for the current season

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Under bushfire rated conditions that are ‘Catastrophic’ and when a wildfire is within a larger given range, ALL bushfire-prone residents, ought to be legally compelled to compulsorily self-evacuate to a registered Evacation Centre, irrespective of whether they hold a current Bushfire Defence Certificate or not.

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No Fire Danger Index used by TFS in the Forcett Fire

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Although, this bushfire danger rating system was officially in place across Tasmania since late 2009, the Tasmanian Fire Service chose not to include fire danger indices on its website or via the Tasmanian media.  Why not?

The following remains the format of the TFS public notice of active bushfires; in this case the ‘Forcett Fire’:

 

FORCETT FIRE:

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<<Alert Level:  [Going] Advice
Type:   VEGETATION FIRE
Last Updated:    13-Jan-2013 8:18 AM
First Reported:   03-Jan-2013 2:13 PM
Location:   Inala Road, FORCETT
Status:  Going
Agency:  Tasmania Fire Service
Incident Number:  201651
Size:  24,040 Ha
Details:   Bushfire Advice Message FORCETT FIRE     201651    Current from:13/01/2013 08:12 AM    until:  13/01/2013 11:00 AM   or further notice    There is a  large   bushfire at  between Forcett and the Tasman Peninsula . The fire danger rating in this area  is forecast to be  high  for today. Fire under these conditions can be  difficult to control . There is no immediate threat to communities. This bus …
More Info | Current Incident List>>

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[Source:  TFS website, 20130113, ^http://www.fire.tas.gov.au/]

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QUESTION 11:  

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How effectively then, does the above bushfire information by the TFS assist potentially impacted people to be appropriately informed about the fire risk category of danger, the spatial fire threat (where it currenty is, which direction the fire front(s) is/are currenty headed, how fast it is moving, forecast changes), the timing of the threat to various ‘at-risk’ people?  How effectively does the above bushfire information assist these people to appropriately prepare to either defend their properties or else to self-evacuate?   Where are the registered evacuation centres for people?

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QUESTION 12:

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In Tasmania, does the Tasmanian Fire Service measure, use and publish a specific forecast and actual Fire Danger Index based upon weather information received from the Bureau of Meteorology?   Does the TFS use the Forest and/or Grassland index?   Why were such indicators not provided on the TFS website or via the Tasmanian media in relation to the current 2012-13 summer season ahead of and during the recent bushfire emergencies across the State?   Is the publicised TFS bushfire emergency information adequate?

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3 Jan 2013:  Forcett Fire Reported

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It is not officially publicly reported how the Forcett Fire was first detected by the responsible bushfire fighting authority, the Tasmanian Fire Service on the 3rd January 2013, except that the Tasmanian Fire Service website states consistently in successive daily updates that the “First Reported time was “03-Jan-2013 2:13 PM” at Location “Inala Road, FORCETT“.

After the disaster impacting Dunalley, Boomer Bay, Copping and other communities, on Tuesday 8th January, as the result of detailed investigations jointly conducted between Tasmania Police and the Tasmania Fire Service, the cause of the fire commonly referred to as the Forcett Fire had been officially determined.

<<The cause has been determined as of an accidental nature with the fire emanating from an old fire in a burnt out tree stump at Forcett.  This fire has smouldered through the root system and ignited in the weather conditions of Thursday 3 January.

Detectives and Fire Scene Examiners from the Tasmania Fire Service have interviewed all available witnesses and people with information thereby assisting in their determination on the fire.>>

[Source:  ‘Forcett fire – cause determined’, 20130108 2:34pm, Tasmanian Police, ^http://www.police.tas.gov.au/news/posts/view/3789/forcett-fire-cause-determined/]

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But this ‘determined cause’ was the consequence of a prior fire that has not been publicly reported.    The reason for the relatively prompt cause being determined and officially declared by the Tasmanian Police was to legally trigger insurance claim processing to the insured victims, which is understandable.

However, the original cause of the “old fire in a burnt out tree stump at Forcett” remains publicly undetermined.

The Tasmanian Fire Service website states that the fire ignited near Inala Road, Forcett on 3rd January 2013.   Inala Road is situated about 2km east of the rural village of Forcett along the Arthur Highway.  It is a one kilometre long gravel No Through Road that connects half a dozen farm properties to the Arthur Highway.   See map below.

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Inala Road Forcett Satellite Map, 2011

Click image to enlarge (Inala Road is top right)

[Source: Google Maps]

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Inala Road near the intersection of the Arthur Highway in 2010

Photo looks south, with the hills toward Dunalley on the left.

Inala Road is characterised by farmland interspersed with partially deforested native bushland, and patchy regrowth.

Click image to enlarge.

[Source: Google Maps, March 2010]

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Inala Road is easily accessible by fire trucks, so with a small fire and with low wind conditions, the prospect of suppressing the fire early on the afternoon of Thursday 3rd January would have been greater than at any subsequent time before it impacted Dunalley 24 hours later.

The exact location of the ignition along Inala Road has not been reported by the Tasmanian Fire Service on its website.  Like most fore agencies, the Tasmanian Fire Service chooses to delete (censor) operational fire records after a few days.

However, a Forcett Fire Map provided on the ABC News website dated 4th January 2013 was obviously obtained by the ABC from the Tasmanian Fire Service, shown below:

Forcett Fire Map  (Friday, 4th January 2013)

[Source:  ABC News website, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-04/forcett-fire-places-homes-at-risk/4453038]

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Observations from the above TFS Forcett Fire Map:

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1.  The ignition source of the fire was north of the Arthur Highway along Inala Road (top left of above map).  This places the TFS confirmed ‘burning stump’  midway along Inala Road, per juxtaposed mapping below.

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Deduced Ignition Location of the Forcett Fire

In the absence of TFS publicly confirming the exact location of the ‘burnt stump’ ignition source,

by deduction from the Forcett Fire Map above, the Inala Road ignition source appears midway along Inala Road, Forcett.

 

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Inala Road

Where along Inala Road was the burning stump that re-ignited the Forcett Fire?

Ask the TFS.

It is incumbent upon the Tasmanian Fire Service to be transparent about the exact source loation of this fire so that the truth be known.

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2.  Consistent with the prevailing north-westerly windwind, the direction of this fire was that it initially headed easterly after re-igniting from the declared ‘burning stump‘ in the afternoon of Thursday 3rd January.  Sometime in the evening of the 3rd January the wind reverted to the prevailing direction from the north-west and thereafter continued consistently from this direction through the couyrse of the following two weeks into the Forestier Peninsula.

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Open farmland along Arthur Highway, near the Inala Road intersection

looking south east toward Dunalley

Click image to enlarge

[Source: Google Maps, March 2010]

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3.   The separate strip of fire burnt south along the Sugarloaf Road would appear to be specifically contained and so likely to be a deliberately lit control line/fire break defensively intended to prevent the main wildfire crossing the road in the event of a wind change to the east.  This is conjecture in the absence of TFS public explanation on its website.

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QUESTION 13:

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What was the cause of the “old fire in a burnt out tree stump”.  Lightning doesn’t usually light tree stumps; trees on ridges yes.  But Inala Road is not on a ridge, so the lightning excuse is a convenient furphy.  Was the fire a consequence of a farmer’s ‘pile burn’ or ‘burn off’?  Who lit the fire?
Was the burn off authorised by the Tasmanian Fire Service?  If so why, when it is summer and at a time of high bushfire risk?   What investigations are being conducted by the TFS and/or Tasmanian Police into the original cause of the fire?

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Jan 2013:   Bushfire Conditions around Dunalley

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Prevailing Wind

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As the crow flies, Hobart Airport is about 12km from the ignition source that purportedly started the Forcett Fire near Inala Road, and Hobart Airport is about 25km from Dunalley.

The following wind rose chart of the Bureau of Meteorology shows that over the past half century, the prevailing wind for Hobart Airport is predominantly from the north-west.  This may be generally extrapolated for the surrounding Sorrell local government area, including Forcett and Dunalley.

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Average Wind at Hobart Airport (1958-2004)

This Wind Rose chart shows the prevailing wind predominantly being from the north-west at typically 10-20kph.

This was the wind at Forcett and Dunalley on 3 and 4 January 2013 – significantly nothing surprising!

[Source: Australian Bureau of Meteorology,

^http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/climatology/windroses/wr09/wrpdf/094008-9amAnnual.pdf,

>Read Chart]

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Significantly, the prevailing wind is a most relevant environmental factor in the Forcett Fire, because of the juxtaposition of Forcett to Dunalley.

The ignition source at Inala Road Forcett was north west of Dunalley, the same as the prevailing wind.

Wind typically increases in the early afternoon as the temperature differential between the hotter land mass and the nearby cooler sea strong maximises.  This is referred to as a diurnal wind pattern.  On Friday 4th January as temperatures soared, this wind was predictably due to increase and at around 2pm it did.  The 15 km/h breeze increased to a recorded peak of  52km/h at 1.57pm.

So the Forcett Fire on 3rd January was predictably and reliably going to burn toward Dunalley.  The diurnal wind pattern at the time was nothing extra-ordinary, and therefore would have been predictable.

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Ignition source at Inala Road, Forcett was 17km North West of Dunalley

Click image to enlarge

[Source: Google Earth]

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QUESTION 14:

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Given that a light north west prevailing breeze was predictably fanning the Forcett Bushfire toward Dunalley in the afternoon and evening of 3rd January, what firefighting response including backburning was undertaken to prevent the Forcett Bushfire’s spread south east toward Dunalley?

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All Thursday afternoon, through Thursday night and all Friday morning the observed wind was relatively light.  The following account is poignant:

“A couple of kilometres just off the Arthur Highway at Fazackerlys Rd, a small group of farm workers, some locals and a police officer watched from a safe distance the fire which had burned slowly all morning in the wooded hillsides to the north.  The smoke rose straight up from several large and small outbreaks burning around farmland.”

The Forcett Fire on the afternoon of Thursday 3rd January 2013

Burning out of control south of the Arthur Highway heading right (south east)

Low winds meant it was not a fast moving firestorm at this stage.

View across Frederick Henry Bay looking north-east, perhaps Bally Park/Carlton settlement in the foreground.

(Photo by Ian Stewart, 20130103, click image to enlarge)

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So, the Forcett Fire on the morning of Friday 4th January was still slowing burning through relatively accessible farmland under light wind conditions.  Why wasn’t it extinguished?

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Forcett Bushfire

(Photo by Moemahfoudh, 20130104)

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QUESTION 15:

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Given that the Forcett Fire was still declared uncontained by the Tasmanian Fire Service in the morning of Friday 4th Jaunary, what addition emergency bushfire response measures were implemented by the TFS to prevent the fire impacting Dunalley? 

Did the Bureau of Meteorology publicise forecast increased wind speed and the extreme temperature for 4th January on the 3rd January?  What Fire Danger Index was forecast by the TFS for 4th January for the ongoing Forcett Fire and was it not clear to the TFS that the risk to Dunalley and Boomer Bay from the Forcett Fire was catastrophic?

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The 2pm Diurnal Wind

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…and then the wind came up…at Fazackerlys Rd just after 2pm, all hell broke loose.  The fire had taken a run.

As the Forcett Bushfire impacted Dunalley at around 2pm on 4th January, recorded wind gust reached 80km/h, driving the fire south into Dunalley at unstoppable speed.

Bushfires are known to fan their own wind.  According to the CSIRO, bushfires can generate their own wind.  “Strong convection set up by the heat of the fire creates an in-draw wind that can interact with the prevailing wind. Depending on the direction of the prevailing wind and the location of the fire, this in-draw wind may increase or decrease the strength of the prevailing wind.”

[Source: Fire Generating Wind, ^http://www.csiro.au/en/Outcomes/Safeguarding-Australia/FireGeneratedWind.aspx]

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High Temperatures

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On 4th January 2013, maximum temperature records were broken at eight weather stations across Tasmania. Hobart reached 41.8°C, breaking the previous temperature record by 1°C.

However, as explained above, these extreme temperatures although technically breaking records, were only doing so by marginal degrees on the 3rd January.  Tasmania had recorded similar extreme hot summer temperatures on at least seven previously documented occasions.  So, despite media sensationalism and the vested interest of the Australian Government’s climate change commission to claim justification for its government-dependent revenue, by no means were the temperatures of January 2013 unprecedented, or ‘off the scale‘.

Yes, it was forecast to be an unusually very hot dry summer for Tasmania, no more no less.

Read Climate Commission report: >’Off the charts: Extreme Australian summer heat‘

[Source: Climate Commission, Australian Government, ^http://climatecommission.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/CC_Jan_2013_Heatwave4.pdf]

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The Bureau of Metorology has published the maximum daily temperatures for Australia, including Tasmania,  through January shown by colour as follows.

Click on the image and see the changing temperatures specific to Tasmania:

Australia’s maximum temperature mapping through January 2013

Click image to show dynamic progress

Note Tasmania on 3rd January was still in the 30s.

[Source:  Australian Bureau of Meteorology,

^http://www.bom.gov.au/web03/ncc/www/awap/temperature/maxave/daily/colour/latest.loop.gif]

.

Specific to Dunalley, according to its local BOM weather station, the temperatures for January 2013 read as follows.

[Source: ^http://weather.ninemsn.com.au/station.jsp?lt=site&lc=94254&list=ds]

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Significantly, Thursday 3rd January 2013 peaked at a very high 34.4 Celsius.  The maximum on the following critical day Friday 4th January is not recorded.  This is likely due to the Dunalley gauge reader being otherwise pre-occupied escaping from the impacting bushfire.

Anecdotally the mid afternoon temperature spiked at 40.2 Celsius at around 2pm that day, and about a kilometre south-west the Stroud Point weather station registered 54.9 Celsius at a time not disclosed – perhaps between 2:30pm and 3pm that day.

[Source: ‘From spark to raging inferno’, 20130113, by David Killick in The Sunday Tasmanian.  See extract below]

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QUESTION 16:

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Given the pre-existing bushfires across the State causing concern, the forecast bushfire conditions, the known prevailing NW wind across the Sorrell Council area (Forcett – Dunalley) what special bushfire emergency response measures did the Tasmanian Fire Service take critically on 3rd January 2013, on being alerted to the Inala Road ignition to prevent the fire spreading?  Why was the fire not contained on the 3rd January, while it was in accessible farmland, before it advanced slowly into hilly less accessible timbered State reserves toward Dunalley?

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Forcett Fire approaching Dunalley and Boomer Bay

[© Photo by Michael Gay Photography, 20130103]

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So the following article extract provides the best light on what happened on the Friday, 4th January 2013 at Forcett:

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‘From spark to raging inferno’

by David Killick

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<<IT only takes a spark to start a fire.

At Inala Rd near the south- eastern Tasmanian town of Forcett, that spark is believed to have been struck some time before Christmas.

A landowner was clearing a tree stump the old fashioned way by burning it out.  They thought the fire was out, but it smouldered unchecked in the root system for two weeks, before flaring and dooming a town.

The morning of Friday January 4, 2013, was unremarkable in Dunalley.

It was warm and still.

If anything it was perhaps a little quieter than normal.

The heat and the fire risk warning encouraged some people to leave and traffic through the town was light despite the school holidays.

Inside the weather station by the water at Stroud Point, the temperature ticked over the 30C mark just before midday.

At the Dunalley Fish Market in Fulham Rd, tourists and families stopped to eat their lunches.

Along Marion Bay Rd at nearby Copping, many residents seemed to have taken the advice of fire authorities and left.

Local shopkeeper Kate North was concerned, but not overly so.

“If the wind doesn’t come up we should be OK,’’ she said.  “The problem will be if it gets into the bush and heads towards Dunalley.’’

A couple of kilometres just off the Arthur Highway at Fazackerlys Rd, a small group of farm workers, some locals and a police officer watched from a safe distance the fire which had burned slowly all morning in the wooded hillsides to the north.

The smoke rose straight up from several large and small outbreaks burning around farmland.

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And then the wind came up

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And then the wind came up.  At 1.43pm, give or take a minute either side, a wall of flame suddenly emerged above the treetops, leaping into the air, 20 or 30 metres high.

Burning embers began to rain down.  The south-easterly wind had swung west.  The gust that fanned the fire hit Dunalley 8km away at 1.57pm at 52km/h.  The temperature spiked 5C in six minutes to 40.2C.

There is an unholy trinity that keeps bushfire fighters awake at night.  High temperatures, strong winds and low humidity.

Add heavy fuel loads and a source of ignition, and there is no force of man that can stop a bushfire.

The 2009 Victorian fires which killed 173 people have seared the word “catastrophic’’ into the popular lexicon the fire danger beyond “extreme’‘.

These were the conditions that existed in the hills north of Dunalley.

As one man put it, conditions on January 4 were unlike anything Tasmania has seen since 1967.

“I’ve been a firefighter for 35 years. I have never seen a fire so destructive as that was on Friday,” he said.

“On a day like that you cannot fight a fire. It doesn’t matter how much water or how many helicopters you have.’”

AT Fazackerlys Rd just after 2pm, all hell broke loose.  The fire had taken a run.  All of a sudden four houses and their outbuildings were surrounded by the flames.

The Tasmania Fire Service crews raced from outbreak to outbreak, saving what they could.

Local Todd Hildyard had been on a bulldozer several hundred metres away.

He raced the flames to his back steps and with a hose and the help of his teenage son somehow stopped the home going up.

“We were bloody lucky – she was awful close to getting in here,” Mr Hildyard said.

Another group fought a desperate battle just up the road.

Although a house near the highway was saved, one by one the flames claimed sheds and outbuildings.

The beautiful old hay shed by the highway went up.

Less than a kilometre away at the top of a hill above Copping, John Yaxley was fighting an astonishing battle to save his place surrounded by bush, most of it ablaze.

Somehow he saved his home and a shed with $60,000 worth of wine inside, but his parents’ grand pentagon-shaped hilltop house was lost, as was the caretaker’s home.

Locals watched helpless from the shade outside Kate North’s shop at Copping.

Amid the light grey smoke of burning bush could be seen the terrible dark smoke of people’s homes going up in flames.

One older man watched his home burn.

“I saw it catch fire, I knew where to look and I thought `any moment now’ and it went up.  There’s a lot of nice things gone but that is the way of the world. It’s a devil of a thing.”

The fire rolled down the ridgetops to Marshton Lane.

In a hurried roadside conference as the flames raged around, the firefighters knew the task was already too great.

Getting in front of this fire would be an act of suicide.

“Guys, it’s all turned to shit,” said one.

Those there say that just after 3pm the hellfire rolled over the hill behind the golf course like a storm.

A terrifying black, red and purple wall of flames.

Smoke darkened the sky.

Helicopter pilot Ben Brolewicz watched from above.

“It was probably as bad as it gets. With all of the heat that it generated it created a sort of a vortex that picked stuff up and flung it through the air,’’ he said in an interview with the ABC.

Bryan Webster called it a “tsunami of fire”.

With his partner Fiona Hills and her 11-year-old son Darcy Scott, Mr Webster fled to the water’s edge as the fire roared into town.

The family sheltered in the water for two hours with a mob of terrified wallabies for company.

At another jetty, another miraculous escape.

The Holmes family, grandma, grandpa and five grandchildren in their care fled the flames and sought shelter.

A haunting snapshot taken of them sheltering in the water has become the iconic image of these fires worldwide.

The family were calm, but huddled and prayed.  Not one was harmed.

Josh Clements’ home was saved.  His parents weren’t so lucky.  He and his family pushed a boat out into the canal as the front hit and floated in the bay for several hours.

Hundreds of metres from the burning town, the Stroud Point weather station registered 54.9C.

The wind by now was gusting to 80km/h, driving the fire to the south.

The school went up, as did the police station, the bakery and many homes.

But somehow not a single life was lost.

Those who were not in the water were shepherded by police to the local pub to shelter – a move that saved scores of lives.

AS Dunalley burned, the fire spread left and right, from its formerly narrow front.

The eastern edge moved into Boomer Bay – a pretty community of waterfront shacks.

Just after 4pm, Steve Fisher and several dozen other locals watched as the fire approached steadily through knee-high grass.

“We’ll stick with it as long as we can,” he said calmly.

At that moment, just a few hundred metres away to the south, dozens of people were fighting for their homes and their lives.

Simon and Tully Brooks tried to fight the grassfire as it approached.

The father and son attacked with buckets and hoses, but their house went up.

They knew it was hopeless. They grabbed what valuables they could and fled.

Lex Johnson saw his neighbours run for their lives.  “I was up at the corner when it circled around the back and through the trees behind our property,” he said.

“And then we saw the people from down the road running to get away from the fire . . . and it was catching up to them.”

Those cut off by the fires fled to the jetty where many were saved by the bravery of a helicopter crew.

The crew of paramedics returned over and over in thick smoke and plucked people from the water including a pregnant woman and five dogs.

On a point just east of Dunalley, not far from the weather station, it was helicopters too that saved the Jenkins family.

Ten members of the family had moved their caravans and cars to the water’s edge as the fire burst over the nearby hills.

As the flames drew close, a helicopter appeared and doused the family again and again until the threat had passed by.

Further north, at Connellys Marsh the battle would rage through the night.

Cut off from all outside help, neighbours banded together to keep each other safe.

A flotilla of small boats ferried away those who wanted to leave and then those who stayed faced the flames.

Martin Thorpe returned to watch the shack his family had cherished for 30 years, razed by the fire.

GRAEME Grundy dragged a neighbour to safety then fought with Mr Thorpe to save his own place – in part thanks to a water pipe that burst at just the right moment, showering the place with the remaining water from his 1000-gallon tank.

When the sun rose, the seaside hamlet was dotted with small clearings filled with smouldering ruins.

Somehow, more homes were saved than lost.

As the survivors contemplated their extraordinary night, the fires delivered one last cruel blow.  The last home to be lost at Connellys Marsh went up around 8am.

The Inala Rd fire caused more havoc and destroyed more homes and continues to burn in spots south of Eaglehawk Neck, but most of the damage took place in about three hectic hours.

An inquiry will determine how – against all odds – not a single human life was lost or a serious injury sustained that Friday.  Fire chiefs say there has been much planning and many lessons learnt from Black Saturday in Victoria in 2009.  After such horrific losses as Victoria’s, people are far more aware of the risk of fire.

And communications have improved since then too.  The hundreds of broadcast alerts, website updates and urgent text messages played their part.

And there was some luck.  The area was surrounded by water which gave so many a place to run to when it all became too much.

But summer is not over yet.  After a long dry spell, huge tracts of the Tasmanian bush are loaded with fuel.

The peak of our fire season is still weeks away.  As hard as it is to believe, the worst may not yet have passed.>>

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[Source:  ‘From spark to raging inferno’, 20130113, by David Killick, in The Sunday Tasmanian (not published on the Internet), but reproduced in the Tasmanian Times; additional reporting by Zara Dawtrey, Matt Smith, Bruce Mounster, Blair Richards, Linda Smith, and Tim Martain, posted by PB  20130115, ^http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/the-new-normal/show_comments]

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Hindsight Local Reflections

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Most of the bushland that the bushfire burnt through before impacting Dunalley was privately owned.

Locals in the Tasmanian fishing village of Dunalley say the fire which ravaged their community would not have been so ferocious if hazard reduction burns had been carried out before the summer.

A massive fireball bears down on Dunalley on Friday.

The Dunalley Primary School in the foreground would be soon destroyed.

[Source:  Photo by Michael Goldsmith, Tasmania Fire Service,

^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-10/fireball-2jpg/4459102]

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A total of 126 properties were destroyed or damaged in the Dunalley fire, and a photo (above) given to the ABC yesterday and taken from a fire-fighting helicopter shows a giant fireball bearing down on the town at the height of the inferno.

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The following audio is hindsight feedback from local residents of Dunalley and the immediate surrounding area, about their citizen lay views about what could have been done to prevent Dunalley burning.

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Audio: Listen to Felicity Ogilvie’s report (ABC Radio News, AM Programme, 20130110):

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One resident who still has a home is oyster farmer Justin Gock.

“I believe that if you’ve got people living in areas where there’s substantial forests, there should be significant management plans in place to control situations like this,” he said.

“Because if these areas were back-burned like they used to and the infrastructure was in place, fair chance it might not have happened.”

Tony Disipio, who lost his house in the blaze, is critical about the lack of preventative burns around Dunalley.

“Well 25 years ago they used to burn off regularly around the hills, it was like a winter thing, a winter exercise,” he said.

“And I noticed over the years that there was just less and less of it.”

Homes damaged by bushfire seen from above between Dunalley and Boomer Bay, Tasmania Photo: A total of 126 properties were destroyed or damaged in the Dunalley fire. (AAP

Farmer Sandy Gray has also noticed that preventative burns have been declining in recent times.

“In the old days, they used to go around and just quietly do a few, especially on the northern, north-western sides of the townships like Dunalley. It’s a pity they don’t still do it,” he said.

The State Government and Fire Service are promising to review their policies on controlled burns, but with fire warnings still current for parts of the state, they say they will wait until the current crisis is over.

The Tasmanian Fire Service’s Deputy Chief Officer, Gavin Freeman, says there has been no reduction in preventative burn-offs near Dunalley.

“I don’t believe there has been less done. You can always look back with a bit of hindsight and say yes, we could do more perhaps,” he said.

“But until we get these fires under control and are able to look back and do a proper analysis of where the fires have burnt to and what they burnt through – and bear in mind, under catastrophic conditions – we don’t really know whether that field reduction burning would be a benefit or not.”

The fire service may do some burn-offs, but the responsibility for preparing for a bushfire lies with the land owner.

At Dunalley it appears most of the bushland the fire tore through is privately owned.

The Tasmanian Minister for Emergency Management, David O’Byrne, says public land accounts for 20 per cent of the area affected by the fire.

“Fuel reduction and that sort of management is a joint responsibility between government, in terms of our land and in the parks land, but also in the private land that is around Tasmania,” he said.

“It’s important we have a community conversation around this. Now is not the time for that conversation, we need to get these fires under control.

“Once we can assess the impact of the fuel loads around… we can have a discussion on the basis of fact and reality as opposed to people’s pretty raw emotions at the moment.”

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[Source:  ‘Dunalley locals question control-burning regime’, by Felicity Ogilvie, AM Programme, Thu Jan 10, 2013, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-10/dunalley-locals-question-fire-prevention-strategies/4459040]

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Video: Dunalley family’s amazing story of survival (ABC 7.30 Report)

(Click image to replay ABC News report)

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65 homes lost in Dunalley, and others lost in nearby Boomer Bay and Copping

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