Article by Tigerquoll initially posted on CanDoBetter.net on 20090226:

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The Fire was nearly out..so why was it abandoned by bushfire management?

The 2009 Wilsons Promontory bushfire was reportedly sparked by lightning striking the remote Cathedral Range on the east coast just north of Sealers Cove on Sunday 8th February 2009.

Witnesses say that by the following Friday 13th, the fire was still localised on the Range and all but out. This is confirmed by the following satellite photo taken by NASA’s MODIS Rapid Response Team on the 13th. The satellite takes high-resolution images of visible, shortwave and near-infrared light of Victoria twice daily.

Wilsons Promontory on 13th Feb 2009

showing scattered cloud over the Prom and on the east coast (right side) a small red (burnt) patch with only a single column of smoke noticeable.

© NASA 13-Feb-09

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Daily updates of this fire can be found at the following URL:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/fires/main/world/australiafire_20090223.html

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The Prom was left to burn

Over the subsequent days the fire continued to burn then the winds increased. Now, more than two weeks later most of the northern half of ‘the Prom’ has been burnt. The vegetation has gone. The Victorian Country Fire Authority (CFA) website today reports 23,800 hectares burnt out. The Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) website shows the following map of the burn (shaded area below).

© DSE Wilsons Promontory Media Map 24 Feb 09 12:30pm

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The fire has burnt the Cathedral Range, along the east coastline right across and along the Corner Inlet shoreline to Millers Landing. Affected sites are Vereker Creek, Whiskey Bay, Tongue Point, Monkey Point, Three Mile Point, Mt Roundback, Three Mile Beach, Mt Margaret, Lighthouse Point Lighthouse, Mt Hunter and parts of Darby Swamp. Wilsons Promontory National Park is just one of the many important natural and wilderness areas of Victoria devastated by these current bushfires.

Wilsons Promontory where thousands of hectares have been burnt

© Photo. John Woudstra 18-Feb-09

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Frequent Fire History

In the case of the Prom, this is the second time in four years that fire has burnt through this northern region. On 21 March 2005, a twenty hectare prescribed burn was lit east of Tidal River. It escaped three times over a period of twelve days and burnt out 6,000 hectares of native bushland in the National Park.

A key investigative report was undertaken by Commissioner, Emergency Services, Bruce Esplin, (the Esplin 2005 Report) into a number of fires over previous years. In the case of this DSE prescribed burn in the Prom, the investigations found that the prescribed burn was poorly planned and after ignition, was not patrolled properly.

A notable finding of the report was that: “There remains considerable community uncertainty about the effectiveness of the prescribed burning program, and what changes, if any have occurred in the amount of prescribed burning undertaken since 2003”.( para 33)

Yet prescribed burning continues each year across Australia, not in the small mosaics, but on a grand scale and with a record of frequently getting out of control. On top of the 6,000 hectares four years ago, just a few days ago we hear of over 23,000 hectares of the Prom has now been burnt. Fires in the Prom also occurred in 2001.

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Impacts on Flora and Fauna

The Prom has diverse vegetation communities including warm temperate and cool temperate rainforest, tall open forests, woodlands, heathlands, and swamp and coastal communities. There are rare stands of White Mangrove, being the most southerly stands of mangroves in the world.

The Prom is rich its diversity of native mammals with over thirty species having been recorded, many of which are either rare or threatened. These include the Long-nosed Potoroo, Swamp Antechinus, White-footed Dunnart, Broad-toothed Rat, Feather-tailed Glider and Eastern Pygmy-possum. “One of the most significant habitats of the New Holland Mouse also occurs within the park, and a number of species of whale have been sighted in the waters off its coastline.” The Prom also provides habitat to populations of Eastern Grey Kangaroos, koalas, wombats and emus.

The heathlands, influenced by the frequency and intensity of fire, are rich in species and provide habitats for a variety of fauna, including many threatened species. [Source: Parks Victoria website]

However, bushfire research across Australia has shown that while some native flora are fire tolerant and/or can recover and in some case thrive in the immediate years following a fire, other species have not adapted and so they become displaced and can die out. (DSE website).

While the Victorian Royal Commission is focusing on the fire management measures to protect life and private and public property associated with the 2009 Victorian Bushfires, the impacts on flora and fauna seem to have been overlooked. Some species may not survive if fires are too frequent, as the plants are unable to reach maturity and produce sufficient seed before the next fire episode. (DSE website).

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Threatening Process

Little is known about the recovery of fauna diversity as a consequence of such widespread bushfires, be they caused by lightning, intentionally or otherwise. But given the scale of these current fires across the Prom crossing from shore to shore, it is probable than many native animals, as in many other parts of Victoria, will have been burnt alive in the fires and that their already rare populations will now have declined substantially and be at risk of local extinction.

In respect to Australia’s fauna, given that there we now have a fraction of the intact native habitat compared with pre-1788, how can anyone argue that allowing bushfires to get out of control is not a threatening process?

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Originally posted February 23rd, 2009 by Tigerquoll on CanDoBetter.net

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In Victoria in 1992, some bureaucrat got the idea of changing the name (and focus) of the Department of Conservation and Environment to a Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, then in 1996 to a Department of Natural Resources and Environment, then in 2003 a split to (1) a Victorian Department of Primary Industries and (2) a Department of Sustainability and Environment.

[Source: http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/asaw/biogs/A002037b.htm – Note: this link has subsequently been altered by the University of Melbourne to protect its petty government funding and disclosing its forestry bias]

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Currently this government department is known by an obscure acronym: ‘DSE‘.  But those out in the ‘tree face’ genuinely caring for old growth forests of Victoria, discard this acronym to mean either…’Don’t Support Environment‘ or simply the ‘Department of Sparks and Embers‘.  The reason in empirical.  The DSE has a reputation for Forestry Logging bias – facilitating old growth logging, habitat deforestation and related bush arson.

Meanwhile, across the border in NSW, in 2007, the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) was changed to the Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC) so as to make it look like the NSW Labor Government publicly cared about climate change by delegating a name change.

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While pandering to ‘climate change’ populism, the fundamental concept of ‘conservation’ has been dismissed by government.

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All the DEC business cards and logos were changed to DECC at what impact on climate change?  At what cost this extra ‘C‘?  The cost has been to remove the Conservation imperative!

Rather than forming a dedicated research and response organisation to focus on climate change, the conservation was dropped from the existing department. Cynically, including ‘climate change’ as a name of one of its departments, government must feel cosy sending a message it is addressing climate change. For a while the department was headed up by The NSW Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water – a bucket of outdoor type activities that sounded good together.

Across the border in South Australia, they have the Department for the Environment and Heritage (DEH), which sounds borrowed from the federal Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (another collective bucket). It is hard to see how with so many diverse portfolios, a minister can dedicate any leadership to making genuine improvements to what’s left of Australia’s intact natural environment and its desperate need for conservation.

With all the money spent on names changing, the tens of thousands could have gone into on-ground conservation activities like fox control programmes.

by Editor 20100526.

So what has the long trusted conservation brand of the National Parks and Wildlife Service come to represent in New South Wales?

Does tourism and revenue matter more than conservation?

The NSW Keneally Government’s Tourism Bill threatens to introduce specific tourist development provisions into the National Parks and Wildlife Act, 1974, including a long shopping list of facilities to allow for such things as fast food joints, supermarkets, golf courses, rifle ranges, conference centres and resorts of all sorts.  It is tantamount to prostituting our National Parks. Instead of Parks and Wildlife being the custodian of wildlife and wilderness, it will become an ‘eco-pimp‘ – procuring visitation to protected areas that exploits and harms fragile ecology for commercial gain.

Keneally’s eco-pimp bill threatens to prevent future court appeals against bad developments in our precious National Park. Our Courts should retain the power to thrown out developments, such as private universities and wedding reception centres that don’t belong in our national parks.

Like the precursor  Part 3A Planning tyranny bill before it,  Keneally’s eco-pimp bill invites construction of new private accommodation facilities inside National Parks.

There is no evidence whatsoever to support the notion that private development in national parks will boost the tourism industry or provide extra funds for park management. A stronger nature tourism industry for NSW with more people enjoying the parks is best achieved by encouraging tourism investment in nearby towns where it most benefits regional communities.

There should be bi-partisan support to strengthen national park laws, not to weaken protection so as to facilitate commercial development. With our rapidly growing population, the integrity and protection of our parks is more important now than ever before.

The cost of visiting National Parks should remain small, to ensure parks can be accessible to all.

The environmental credentials of any party that supports Keneally’s Exploitation Bill, or any aspect of it, would be permanently tainted.

Keneally is blind to the motives of this anti-environment bill.  Take her out of her sheltered urban environment and to experience some of our magnificent wilderness  first hand may allow her to realise the precious values of the natural world and the wicked folly of this bill.

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^© The Habitat Advocate    Public Domain

by Editor 20100525.

At the end of April a copy of the “National Parks and Wildlife (Sustainable Tourism) Bill, 2010” came into the possession of the Colong Foundation. This Bill introduces specific tourism provisions into the National Parks and Wildlife Act, 1974, including a long shopping list of development opportunities that would permit fast food joints, supermarkets, wedding reception centres, conference centres and resorts of all sorts.

The Colong Foundation sought the advice and assistance of Mr Tim Robertson SC, who in 2004 so admirably defended the Grose Wilderness from exclusive occupation by Fox Studios.  Justice Lloyd in his judgment on that case found that the production commercial feature film “Stealth” (about rouge military aircraft), “has nothing to do” with the National Parks and Wildlife Act’s objects or the purpose for reserving land as National Park. The case was thrown out Court, but not until after several local conservationists had been arrested defending wilderness.

If this “Sus. Tourism Bill” is passed, then the legal action to stop “Stealth-type” activities will be virtually impossible and bad developments will sprout up in our precious National Parks.

The whole point of these changes is to destroy the nexus between uses of the national park and the conservation purposes for which the park was reserved, and the power of the Court to adjudicate on whether the Minister’s decision accords with those purposes. Under these new laws, it is the Minister, and not the Courts, who will decide whether a use accords with the Park’s purpose.

Mr Robertson advised that the proposed legislation “removes the legal protection of National Parks from uses which damage their ecology and landscapes, by destroying the principle that National Parks can only be used for a purpose which promotes the use of the land as a public park. It provides the legal authority for the privatisation of National Parks by enabling exclusive possession rights to be given for commercial purposes to private interests under the broad rubric of sustainable tourism. Under this rubric, National Parks will be able to be used for general tourist purposes, such as tourist resorts, convention centres, shopping centres, fast food outlets, sporting activities and fun parks, at the discretion of the Minister, even where those uses do not promote the conservation of the Parks.”

The tourist industry grab for land rights over National Parks has to be stopped. Environment groups will be taking the issue to the people at the Penrith by-election and through the media.

Given the Coalition’s stance on Part 3A planning laws, it seems unlikely that the Coalition Parties will support these new park laws. The Shadow Environment Minister, Catherine Cusack wrote to the Nature Conservation Council in November 2009 and advised that she and the then Shadow Tourism Minister, Don Page, “do not support private accommodation facilities inside National Parks.”

The NSW Government should act to strengthen national park laws as they have repeatedly promised to do, not weaken them to facilitate commercial development. National Parks and Wildlife should not be selecting development sites in parks with the aim of offering these sites to the tourism industry in an “investor-ready” form. Our parks should not become profit centres for developers.

There is no evidence whatsoever to support the notion that private development in national parks will boost the tourism industry or provide extra funds for park management. A stronger nature tourism industry for NSW with more people enjoying the parks is best achieved by encouraging tourism investment in nearby towns where it most benefits regional communities.

With our rapidly growing population, the integrity and protection of our parks is more important now than ever before.

How is it that the Coalition Parties seems capable of grasping these ideas, while the NSW Labor Government remains unresponsive?

Keith Muir, Director, Colong Foundation for Wilderness

Sydney, Australia

 

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^© The Habitat Advocate    Public Domain