Smoking Ceremony or Smoke and Mirrors?

Staged for the delegates by National Parks and Wildlife Service of New South Wales (NPWS), somewhere outside Sydney, Australia

[Source:  ‘Global First Nations environmentalists share stories at the World Parks Congress in Sydney.5:30’, ^https://twitter.com/nitvnews, 20141113]

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Every ten years a World Parks Congress is a forum staged by the International Union for Conservation of Nature to discuss the effectiveness of World Heritage Listed Protected Areas.   For 2014, Parks Australia put up Sydney’s hand to host and fund it.

<<“We (Parks Australia) are delighted to be co-hosting the IUCN World Parks Congress with our colleagues in the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service – and look forward to welcoming inspiring leaders from around the world.”>>

IUCN’s vision is a “just world that values and conserves nature.”  The theme for the 2014 conference is “Parks, people, planet: inspiring solutions”.

The last congress was in Durban, South Africa eleven years ago in 2003 and significant messages from that congress were that:

1. Considerable progress has been made in the establishment of protected areas although significant gaps remain
2. Protected areas face many challenges, and management effectiveness must be strengthened
3. Protected areas play a vital role in biodiversity conservation and sustainable development
4. A new deal is needed for protected areas, local communities and indigenous peoples
5. There is a need to apply new and innovative approaches for protected areas, linked to broader agendas
6. Protected areas require a significant boost in financial investment
7. Protected areas management must involve young people

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Congress Cost Benefits ?

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The obvious first question for the 2014 Sydney Congress is what are the outcomes from these seven messages of 2003?

The second question is what is to be the conservation return on investment of staging the 2014 congress in Sydney?   That starts with Parks Australia and NPWS disclosing the full costs of the congress.  How much will it have cost by the time this week is over?   Five million? Ten million? Twenty million? More?  That also involves disclosure of the onground conservation outcomes, if any.   The congress hosts more than 5000 delegates for a week-long event in Sydney.

If the answers are not forthcoming and/or the performances less than satisfactory, then perhaps the money could have been better spent (invested) by Parks Australia and NPWS on specific onground conservation of current and worthy Protected Areas in Australia.  So the third question is what is the opportunity cost of the 2014 IUCN World Parks Congress which could have delivered the IUCN vision of a “just world that values and conserves nature”?

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Congress Opportunity Costs

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According to IUCN director general, Julia Marton-Lefevre, assessments during the past decade have found that half of the world’s protected areas at best — and possibly as few as 20 per cent — are managed effectively. “Some are what we refer to as ‘paper parks’ ” – parks just on paper.

The Australian Government’s $180 million allocation to expand the park reserve system expired last year.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is a case in point.  It is the iconic Protected Area in Australia.  Its World Heritage listing along with various national zoning, management plans, permits, education and incentives are supposed to protect and conserve the marine ecosystems and migratory species from human threats. But farm and urban runoff continues to contaminate the rivers that flow into the Reef.

In 2009 and 2011, mining company Queensland Nickel discharged nitrogen-laden water and 516 tonnes of toxic waste water into the Great Barrier Reef.

On 21 July 2013, on the second day of the biennial joint training exercise Talisman Saber, two American AV-8B Harrier fighter jets launched from aircraft carrier USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) dropped four bombs, weighing a total 1.8 metric tons (4,000 pounds), into more than 50 metres (164 ft) of water. On 3rd April 2010, The Shen Neng 1, a Chinese ship carrying 950 tonnes of oil, ran aground, causing the 2010 Great Barrier Reef oil spill.

In December 2013, Greg Hunt, the Australian environment minister, approved a plan for dredging to create three shipping terminals as part of the expansion of an existing coal port. According to corresponding approval documents, the process will create around 3 million cubic metres of dredged seabed that will be dumped within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

On 31 January 2014, a permit was issued to allow three million cubic metres of sea bed from Abbot Point, north of Bowen, to be transported and unloaded in the waters of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, just outside of Abbot Bay.  The dredge spoil will cloud the water and block sunlight, thereby starving sea grass and coral up to distances of 80 km away from the point of origin due to the actions of wind and currents.  The dredge spoil will smother reef or sea grass to death, while storms can repeatedly resuspend these particles so that the harm caused is ongoing; secondly, disturbed sea floor can release toxic substances into the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

Dredging the Great Barrier Reef for bulk export shipping

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The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park has become just a blue line on a map.  The trickle of funds for Australia’s national parks betrays a lack of appreciation of their economic contribution. Annual funding for the authority that runs Australia’s most famous reserve, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, is about 1 per cent of the $5.2bn it earns the country in tourism revenue.

Yet if the IUCN World Parks Congress cost a conservative $20 million to stage then a key opportunity cost would be the June 2014 Federal budget cuts to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

The budget axed 17 staff including five of its’ directors positions.   These positions included the director of heritage conservation, the director of policy and governance and the director of coastal ecosystems and water quality as part of an internal restructure.  It’s being described as the greatest loss of expertise from Australia’s most important natural wonder and it comes at the very time the Great Barrier Reef is facing the greatest threat to its survival.

The Greater Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has been reduced by the Australian Government to being in name only and ineffective at protecting the reef.

Until recently, one of those five directors, Adam Smith, was charged with dealing with the contentious Abbot Point coal terminal development and the proposal to dump three million cubic metres of dredge spoil into the marine park.   Despite Dr Smith’s concerns, the sea dumping was approved by the Marine Park Authority.

Dr Smith has since accepted voluntary redundancy and moved on after disagreeing with the Authority’s new economic leadership and values.  Heritage conservation director Jon Day has left after 21 years, disillusioned too with the direction the Authority has taken to compromise the reef.

Next year UNESCO will decide whether to put the reef on its world heritage in danger list.  Native Dugongs are already endangered.  The deliberate extermination of the dugong and turtles which habituated the Gladstone area is a national tragedy. Dugongs are species listed under the Federal Environment Protection Biodiversity & Conservation Act, which requires the Federal government to legally protect these animals.

Prior to the massive dredging operation of 52 million cubic metres of seabed for the development of the world’s largest LNG Terminal, ( which is 62% completed) a study commissioned by the Gladstone Ports Corporation found that a take, or a quota, of more than zero dugongs would be unsustainable.

In the face of massive mortality of dugongs, turtles and inshore dolphins during the ongoing massive dredging, both the Federal and Queensland governments ignored the slaughter.

Look at the stranding data from the Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management. Monthly cumulative Dugong strandings by year for Queensland, up to 31 January 2012.

There are 22,000 vessel movements a month in Gladstone Harbour. No ship strikes of Dugongs or of Green Turtles need to be reported.  No audit of environmental conditions has been undertaken by the Queensland or Federal Governments.   The wholesale slaughter of our marine wildlife is the price Australians are paying for the transformation of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area into the world’s largest unregulated quarry.

Mass tourism operators good for the economy

Getting up close to protected Humpback Whales within their 100 metre Protected Area

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Australian protected areas have seen rule changes in the eastern states have allowed cattle to graze, recreational shooters to hunt and hotel developers to build in national parks. Shore-based recreational fishing has been allowed in areas of NSW marine parks previously zoned as no-take sanctuaries.  National parks on land and in the ocean are dying a death of a thousand cuts, in the form of bullets, hooks, hotels, logging concessions and grazing licences.

Yet as host of the 2014 World Parks Congress, Australia is showcasing “our own inspiring places, inspiring people and inspiring solutions.”     The Global Eco Forum within the Congress programme focuses on tourism exploitation of Protected Areas because like the new Greater Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the new values are not about conservation by the billions in revenue opportunity to Australia’s economy.

The October 2006 issue of National Geographic published an article “The Future of Parks: Hallowed Ground – Nothing is Ever Safe”.

It stated:

“Landscape and memory combine to tell us certain places are special, sanctified by their extraordinary natural merits and by social consensus. 

We call those places parks, and we take them for granted.”

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Sydney’s 2014 World Parks Congress appears to be expensive window dressing, showcasing fraudulent conservation of Protected Areas in Australia.

It’s termed Greenwashing.  The opportunity cost of the 2014 Congress could have instead funded the retention of the previously effective Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and so done more for Protected Areas than all the pomp, promising, luncheons, showcasing, and talk-festing of the congress combined.

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Protest to stop Queensland Resources Council dumping dredge spoil inside the Reef

Protest by Cairns and Far North Environment Centre (CAFNEC), June 2014

^http://cafnec.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/rally-promo-photo.jpg

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Further Reading:

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[1]    IUCN World Parks Congress (Sydney 2014), International Union for Conservation of Nature, ^http://worldparkscongress.org/

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[2]   ‘Global Eco-Tourism in Protected Areas‘, by EcoTourism Australia,  >2014 Global Eco Tourism in Protected Areas.pdf   (1.1MB, 2 pages)

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[3]   Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (website), Australian Government,  ^http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/

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[4]   Fight for The Reef (website), Australian Marine Conservation Society, ^https://fightforthereef.org.au/risks/dredging/

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[5]   No Hunting in National Parks (website),  The National Parks Association of NSW,  ^http://nohunting.wildwalks.com/

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[6]   ‘An international perspective on tourism in national parks and protected areas‘, by J.G. Castley (2014), >An international perspective on tourism in national parks and protected areas.pdf  (100kb, 10 pages)

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[7]   ‘EXTRA: ‘Nasho’, Royal National Park, Sydney’s neglected southern jewel‘, by Nick Galvin, Journalist, Sydney Morning Herald, 20140613, ^http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/extra-nasho-royal-national-park-sydneys-neglected-southern-jewel-20140613-zs6d8.html

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[8]   ‘Paradise lost: Australia’s heritage jewels under threat‘, (audio), ABC ‘Background Briefing’ radio programme, by Sarah Dingle, 20131208, ^http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/2013-12-08/5132224

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White Lemuroid Possum

(Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Area in Danger)

Has the white lemuroid possum become the first mammal to go extinct due to global warming?
The species, normally found above 1000m, has not been sighted during any nighttime spotlighting expedition since 2005. Experts fear a temperature rise of 0.8 degrees Celsius may be to blame for the animal’s disappearance. 

[Source:  ^http://www.wherelightmeetsdark.com/index.php?module=newswatch&NW_user_op=view&NW_id=453]

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Elphinstone Plateau

(from Mount Mark cliff edge looking SW)

Blue Mountains World Heritage Area

[Photo Source: © Wyn Jones, circa 1991]

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There exists a vast plateau unspoilt from the valley floor and it lies just west of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains.

It is Elphinstone Plateau, known mainly to locals and to informed bushwalkers.  It’s deep gorges provide critical habitat to one of the world’s most endangered plants, Microstrobos fitzgeraldii, and to its integral waterfall spray dependent ecological community.

Elphinstone Plateau lies interconnected with the Cox’s Watershed traversing the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, connected to National Parks owned land, to Narrow Neck and to the Jamison Valley.  The photo above shows how country is interconnected in the Blue Mountains and that Elphinstone Plateau remains one of the last surviving wild places of the Central Blue Mountains area.  We value it.

Elphinstone Plateau is an integral continuum of the Blue Mountains Great Southern Escarpment.  Elphinstone Plateau’s uniqueness and its dependent habitat and wild values deem that it should be integrated into the Blue Mountains National Park and the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.

Elphinstone Plateau’s history contains stories, many sad and some a curse, and more recently of local community battles fought for years late into the night driven by a committed local few.

Exploring Elphinstone Plateau

[Photo © The Habitat Advocate, no reproduction permitted]

 

The website is about to embark on a protracted conservation campaign to “Save Elphinstone Plateau” from Developer Wars – Book 3.  The Habitat Advocate has its origins within walking distance of Elphinstone Plateau.  We have explored it, but we know little of its ecology, its history, its Aboriginal heritage, its recurring struggles against selfish developer exploitation.  So we are about to research all this and share our research journey on this website in the months to follow.

In doing so, we shall be shining a light on the stories of battles that have come before, back to the 1980s.  This promises to stir skeletons from closets and to reveal facts that some would prefer were forgotten.  For those interested in documentaries and reading history, our series of articles pursuing this conservation campaign will be an epic ride connecting the present to the past.

So after months of online hibernation, The Habitat Advocate is back in conservation action, awoken by a conservation warrior, asking us for support.

Elphinstone Plateau is where this website and logo were conceived.

 

Windsor Downs Nature Reserve ablaze

Mis-identified by media as the ‘Marsden Park Fire’ ..”which started burning in a tip..”

[Source: Two Homes under threat in Sydney grass fire‘, 20130910, Australian Broadcasting Corporation,

^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-10/two-homes-under-threat-in-sydney-grass-fire/4948314]

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Why did three wildfires start today in north western Sydney in protected reserves of Sydney’s remnant Cumberland Plains Woodland?

The fires all started around midday during high gusty wind conditions and unseasonally high temperatures.  There was no lightning to speak of, so all three fires must have been caused by people.

Reckless burnoffs? Deliberately lit?   By the same people?  By developers wanting to undermine the Cumberland Plain Woodland and so extend their sprawl?

Whether it was bush arson or recklessness will be a matter for bushfire investigations which need to be mandatory for each and every wildfire.  A forth wildfire at Winmalee in the nearby Blue Mountains (the ‘Hawkesbury Road Winmalee Fire‘) was purportedly a neglected hazard reduction burn – the Rural Fire Starters fuelling more work for themselves.

What did each wildfire cost – economic loss, infrastructure loss, productivity loss, direct firefighting costs, indirect costs, social costs?  These are never measured or reported.  The ecological costs are always ignored because ecology is not deemed to be valuable in our current society.  How much death and harm has been infliced upon Windsor Downs Nature Reserve?  Such value questions are beyond the thinking of our current society.

The RFS only prioritises saving human life and property.  It thus has no different role than the NSW Fire Brigade.  So the RFS should not exist.  It only exists because the New South Wales government does not want to properly pay for firefighting.  The RFS exists as unpaid volunteers so that the NSW government can divert hundreds of millions in taxes to other priorities it somehow considers to be more important.

Then the NSW government appeals for more volunteers to do its dirty work for free.

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Whereas in New South Wales, a NSW Fire Brigage professional firefighter gets paid $29 an hour minimum.  There will be many families that would dearly desire to receive that for their unpaid volunteering efforts.

>Benefits of being a Retained Firefighter   (NSW Fire & Rescue)

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“At Richmond Road and Bennett Road at Windsor, the RFS  (New South Wales Rural Fire Service) says a grassfire could impact properties around George Street and the area of Bligh Park.  The fire has crossed Garfield Road and is burning in the Windsor Downs Nature Reserve.”

[Sources:  ‘Home lost as grass fires rage in Marsden Park and Windsor‘, 20130910, Daily Telegraph newspaper, Sydney, ^http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/the-hills/home-lost-as-grass-fires-rage-in-marsden-park-and-windsor/story-fngr8i1f-1226716140957;  ‘Two Homes under threat in Sydney grass fire‘, 20130910, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-10/two-homes-under-threat-in-sydney-grass-fire/4948314]

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The fire authorities have labelled this current fire the ‘Richmond Road Grass Fire‘, so will the records of the fire will be just scattered or erased?   Today’s initial account of the fire on the official Rural Fire Service website reads thus :

“..A grass fire burning in the area of Richmond Road and Bennett Road at Windsor”.  The fire is burning on both sides of George Street, South Windsor and both sides of Richmond Road. The fire is burning under strong northerly winds. An Emergency Alert telephone message has been sent to residents in these areas.

There is the potential for the fire to impact on properties around George Street and the area of Bligh Park.  The fire has crossed Richmond Road and is now burning in the Windsor Downs Nature Reserve.”

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To put this into geographic perspective, this is a presumed map of the affected area, in absence of RFS public transparency:

 

The presumed ignition of the Richmond Road Grass Fire

from Bennett Road, Windsor Downs

(outer north-western Sydney Metropolis)

[Source:  Google Maps 2013]

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<<Emergency warnings have now been issued for four bushfires in Sydney’s far north west, as temperatures in the city exceed 30 degrees with strong northerly winds.

The RFS says five firefighters have sustained smoke inhalation and two have received minor burns.

The fires are at Castlereagh, Richmond, Marsden Park, and Winmalee where one property is alight.  At Richmond Road and Bennett Road at Windsor, RFS says a grassfire could impact properties around George Street and the area of Bligh Park.  The fire has crossed Garfield Road and is burning in the Windsor Downs Nature Reserve. >>

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[Ed:  Garfield Road is in Riverstone, not Richmond, and is also quite distinct from the separate fire at Windsor Downs.  Media reporting has been misleadingly false, overlapping and confused and likely due to naive junior desktop journalism.  Worse is that the RFS report is equally confused.  Fortunately no person died relying upon officialdom, but the wildlife count is never published].

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Map showing the juxtaposition of the Windsor Downs Nature Reserve over 3 km north west from Garfield Road in Riverstone.

Journalists have a lot to answer for when it comes to fact checking during emergencies.

[Source:  Google Maps 2013, click image to enlarge]

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<< About 3,200 homes in the Richmond area have lost power and Endeavour Energy says it is working to get the supply back.  The RFS says the fire is burning intensely under strong winds.

In Marsden Park,  a grass fire is burning out of control and has crossed Garfield Road.  While at Castlereagh, near Penrith, an emergency warning was issued around noon (AEST) for a fire which has destroyed a shed and burned 60 hectares.  About 50 homes are thought to be under threat.  The fire is burning around properties on Devlin Road and is moving towards homes on Nutt Road.

RFS Inspector Ben Shepherd says the conditions are difficult for firefighters.

RFS Inspector Ben Shepherd:

“I’m currently sitting on Nutt Road and the fire is moving quickly towards some homes in that area. The actual fire itself is putting up a huge column of smoke… and the wind continues to be quite strong.  Because of that, that’s starting to send a couple of spot fires ahead of the main fire front itself.”

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Local resident Kelly Elson has been evacuated from her home near the fire front.  She says she first noticed the fire at about 10:30 this morning.

Windsor resident Troy Evans says that fire started in grass near his house on Bennett Road.

Windsor resident Troy Evans:

“So I went and told the firies ‘you better get a couple of trucks round here real quick’  which they did, luckily.  They got the place under control then the wind turned and it’s just roared up through next door, jumped the road, it’s gone through the church, it’s over in the bus bay, it’s meant to have taken a couple of houses out in Bligh Park.  Now it’s on it’s way into the jail, it’s just crazy.”

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A very high fire danger alert has been issued for the Illawarra, Sydney, the Central Ranges, the Hunter, the north west and the north coast.  More than 40 uncontained bushfires are currently burning across New South Wales.

Mr (RFS Commissioner Shane) Fitzsimmons says it is hot, dry and windy in most of the state today, with seven districts in very high fire danger.  He says he is worried about the unseasonally warm start to spring on the back of a dry winter.

The RFS is urging property owners in semi-rural and rural areas to think about the conditions before they burn off land.”

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[Ed:   Fitzsimmons, why blame the weather and not the landholder who is accused of causing the ignition?]

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[Source:  ‘Homes under threat from bushfires at Castlereagh and Windsor in Sydney’s far north west’, 20130910, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-10/two-homes-under-threat-in-sydney-grass-fire/4948314]

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[Ed:  So the RFS is urging property owners in semi-rural and rural areas to think about the conditions before they burn off land. 

Is this head office code for the known landholder who caused the fire and the RFS being too public servant skin timid to lay charges?  So why is the landholder in Bennett Road not under arrest for suspected arson?]

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The fire inside the Windsor Downs Nature Reserve today

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Windsor Downs native woodland habitat being burned alive

[Source:  ‘Bushfires threaten Sydney’s western suburbs – NSW Rural Fire Service issues emergency warnings’, 20130910, Sydney Morning Herald newspaper (Sydney), ^http://www.smh.com.au/environment/bushfires-threaten-sydneys-western-suburbs-nsw-rural-fire-service-issues-emergency-warnings-20130910-2thnl.html]

 

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A liar bird of disinterested political masters

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Cumberland Plain Woodland

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Cumberland Plain Woodland including the Windsor Downs Nature Reserve, the nearby Castlereagh Nature Reserve and Agnes Banks Nature Reserve, all fall under the custodial management responsibility of the National Parks and Wildlife Service New South Wales – a state body.

Windsor Downs Nature Reserve features.. << an historic windmill and water tank protects a number of endangered plant communities and includes species such as the broad-leafed ironbark, grey box, scribbly gum, narrow-leafed angophora, pea flowers and a species of geebung.  

Several bird species have been recorded – the red-capped and hooded robins, white-winged choughs, buff-rumped and yellow-tailed thornbills and the endangered regent honeyeater – which are usually found in the drier habitats of the central west slopes. >>

[Source:  NSW Government, ^http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/NationalParks/parkHome.aspx?id=N0598]

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Windsor Downs Nature Reserve is not just set aside for picnics.  It is a remant ecological community with the fast disappearing Cumberland Plain Woodland.  It is supposed to be protected.

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<< The Cumberland Plain Woodland is the name for the distinct groupings of plants that occur on the clay soils derived from shale on the undulating Cumberland Plain in central New South Wales. The most commonly found trees in the woodland are Grey Box Eucalypts Eucalyptus moluccana, Forest Red Gums Eucalyptus tereticornis, Narrow-Leaved Ironbarks Eucalyptus crebra and Spotted Gum Eucalyptus maculata. A variety of other lesser-known eucalypts as well as shrubs, grasses and herbs are also found. It is the dominance of Grey Box and Forest Red Gum that makes the community distinctive.

In 1877 Cumberland Plain Woodland covered 107,000 hectares occupying approximately 30 per cent of the Sydney Basin. This community type was once widespread in the Plains but has been reduced to a few fragmented stands by human use for farming, industry and housing. Today less than six per cent remains in small fragments scattered across the western suburbs of Sydney, totalling only 6400 hectares. The remaining fragments occur in areas subject to intense pressure from urban development.

Although some areas occur within conservation reserves, this is in itself not sufficient to ensure the long-term survival of the community unless the factors threatening the integrity and survival of the community are eliminated.

The remaining stands of this ecological community are threatened by the spread of the Sydney suburban areas. Threats include clearance for agriculture, grazing, hobby and poultry farming, housing and other developments, invasion by exotic plants and increased nutrient loads due to fertiliser run-off from gardens and farmland, dumped refuse or sewer discharge.>>

[Ed: and of course ‘bushfire’, which the government does not like to include out of embarassment of neglect, yet which is causes the most devastating impact].

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[Source:  ‘Woodlands vanishing from Sydney’s outskirts’, by Environment Australia, Australian Government, ^http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/publications/cumberland.html]

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Cumberland Plain Woodland in the Sydney Basin Bioregion – proposed critically endangered ecological community listing

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<< The NSW Scientific Committee, established by the Threatened Species Conservation Act, has made a Preliminary Determination to support a proposal to list the Cumberland Plain Woodland in the Sydney Basin Bioregion as a CRITICALLY ENDANGERED ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITY on Part 2 of Schedule 1A of the Act and as a consequence, to omit reference to Cumberland Plain Woodland from Part 3 of Schedule 1 (Endangered Ecological Communities) of the Act. The listing of Critically Endangered Ecological Communities is provided for by Part 2 of the Act.

The Scientific Committee has found that:

1. Cumberland Plain Woodland was listed as an Endangered Ecological Community under the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 in June 1997 (NSW Scientific Committee 1997). Since this listing, a large volume of new data and analyses have become available. In addition, a nomination to change the status of Cumberland Woodland to Critically Endangered status has been received. This Determination addresses additional information now available in accordance with current listing criteria under the Threatened Species Conservation Regulation 2002.

2. Cumberland Plain Woodland is the name given to the ecological community in the Sydney Basin bioregion associated with clay soils derived from Wianamatta Group geology, or more rarely alluvial substrates, on the Cumberland Plain, a rainshadow area to the west of Sydney’s Central Business District.  >>

<<..high frequencies of fires may result where fragmentation increases the interface between urban areas and bushland, as this results in increased arson, car dumping, planned fuel-reduction fires and accidental ignitions.

High fire frequencies are associated with reduced diversity of native plant species in Cumberland Plain Woodland (Watson 2005). ‘High frequency fire resulting in disruption of life cycle processes in plants and animals and loss of vegetation structure and composition’ is listed as a Key Threatening Process under the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995.

The season of fire, which may be altered as a consequence of hazard reduction fires, may also influence the species composition of the grassy woodland understorey (Knox & Clarke 2006; Benson & von Richter 2008).

Disruption of ecological processes associated with alteration of fire regimes contributes to a very large reduction in ecological function of the community. >>

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[Source:  ‘NSW Scientific Committee – preliminary determination’, Australian Government, ^http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/determinations/cumberlandplainpd.htm]

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But wait, there is a:

^Windsor Downs Nature Reserve Fire Management Strategy

which reads…

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The official Fire Management Strategy has been conveniently removed from public access on the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) website.

However, the following extracts from the similar and nearby Agnes Banks Nature Reserve are instructive as to the approach taken by NPWS management on all nature reserves across the Sydney Basin that comprise remnant ecology of the Cumberland Plain Woodland.

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Source:  ‘Agnes Banks Nature Reserve Fire Management Strategy, 2006, (last modified 20070323), NPWS (NSW), NSW Government, ^http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/parks/06354AgnesBanksFMS.pdf]

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[Ed:  Disturbingly noted is that the NPWS ‘ecological’ policy is that it ok to burn these woodland reserves every 8 years. So government care factor about bushfire impact?]

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<<..little research has been undertaken into fire management prescriptions for Cumberland Plain woodland and forest associations when compared to the nearby Hawkesbury sandstone communities.>>

~ Windsor Downs Nature Reserve et al. Plan of Management (NPWS 1999,p.18)

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The official Bureau of Meteorology had in the days prior, forecast strong gusty north westerly winds for the western Sydney region for both yesterday and today, following a few days of calm winds.  The Rural Fire Service would have been well aware of this forecast, the extreme bushfire conditions that this posed and the considerable escalated risk of damaging wildlfires.

The subsequent actual weather observations for Richmond are telling.  Look at the 10th.  The arsonists know what they are doing.

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[Source:  Australian Bureau of Meteorology,

^http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/dwo/201309/html/IDCJDW2119.201309.shtml]

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Reliant mainly on public calls to ‘000’, fire trucks and road-routed volunteers, the RFS continues to be grossly under-equipped to handle wildlfires in a timely and effective manner, which increasingly to many is unacceptable to bushfire prone communities in this now 21st Century.

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Windsor Downs Nature Reserve ablaze  (from Hawkesbury Lookout)

[Source:  ‘Hazard reduction burn started major Sydney bushfire’, by Megan Levy, Sydney Morning Herald, 20130913,

^http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/hazard-reduction-burn-started-major-sydney-bushfire-20130913-2tois.html]

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Windsor Downs Nature Reserve incinerated (see browned woodland canopy in centre of photograph)

[Photo taken by Editor from Hawkesbury Lookout looking north east on 20130921, photo © under  ^Creative Commons]

Click image to enlarge

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Steadily year on year, the last bushland reserves that provide critical remnant habitat around Sydney are being destroyed.   Before long the only bushland will be that in suburban gardens, and the wildlife will be finally made regionally extinct.

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Critically Endangered Regent Honeyeater

(Anthochaera phrygia)

A native bird species dependant upon a disappearing habitat

Humans obliterated its habitat for logging, farming and housing

Then we constrained it to a few nature reserves like Windsor Downs,

Then we burnt the reserve.

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Further Reading:

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[1]   ‘NSW Scientific Committee – preliminary determination‘, Australian Government, ^http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/determinations/cumberlandplainpd.htm

>Download Report  (125kb, 18 pages, PDF)

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[2]   ‘Castlereagh, Agnes Banks and Windsor Downs Nature Reserves – Plan of Management‘, NSW Government, ^http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/parks/pomfinalagnescastlereagh.pdf

>Download Report  (100kb,38 pages, PDF)

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Footnote

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‘Hunt for arsonist over western Sydney bushfire’

[Source:  ‘Hunt for arsonist over western Sydney bushfire’, Friday 20130913, ABC, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-13/hunt-for-arsonist-over-western-sydney-bushfire/4956022]

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<<Authorities say they believe a fire that destroyed a home at Marsden Park in Sydney’s west on Tuesday was deliberately lit.   Investigators have also not ruled out that an arsonist may have caused a blaze at nearby Londonderry.   Police are now calling for witnesses to help identify the person responsible for sparking the Marsden Park fire.

Assistant Commissioner Alan Clarke says it is believed the fire began on Grange Avenue just after midday on Tuesday.

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Alan Clarke:

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“There are crime scene indicators at the source of that fire that would lead us to suspect arson activity.   I really can’t tell you more than that at the moment. It’s mainly our crime scene indicators and forensic evidence that would have us raise that suspicion.  If anyone has information, if anyone saw any suspicious activity in or around that fire location, any part of it… please pass that information on for the benefit of police.”

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Rural Fire Service Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers has confirmed another serious fire at Winmalee, in the lower Blue Mountains, was caused by a hazard reduction burn conducted by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service.

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Rob Rogers:

“That fire was burn on the weekend, it was patrolled on Monday, there was smouldering activity.  That fire then jumped containment lines on the Tuesday and became an active fire. The winds on that day did exceed forecast and they were around 90 kilometres an hour, and obviously that tested the control lines on that hazard reduction and it did escape. In these strong winds branches came off trees, hit the powerlines, the powerlines were brought down, they ignited grass in that area and that was the cause of that fire.  You would have to obviously be suspicious that it did come from the hazard reduction, given that it was in a very close proximity to it.”

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Investigators have found a fourth fire that began on Richmond Road at Windsor Downs was sparked by downed power lines.   The investigation into a fire that closed the M1 motorway, formerly known as the F3, north of Sydney yesterday is continuing, with another hazard reduction burn the suspected cause.  Assistant Commissioner Alan Clarke has warned those that deliberately light fires or cause them through negligence will be caught.

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Alan Clarke:

“Last year we arrested 87 individuals and they faced charges in respect of bushfire and fire related activity for 117 charges.  We know this year again we will be putting offenders before the court. It’s sad but it’s true.”

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