The following media release was distributed by a group called the NSW Regional Community Survival
Group* after TV personality Don Burke was interviewed by radio personality Alan Jones in Sydney yesterday:
"Australia’s pioneer lifestyle presenter and Chair of the Australian Environment Foundation, Don Burke, has called upon the Iemma Government to make further changes to native vegetation laws so that farmers in western NSW can control infestations of invasive scrub.
“Premier Iemma must act fast to stop the destructive invasion of native scrub before it is too late for the environment
and farmland of western NSW,” said Don.“Recent changes to native vegetation regulations announced by the NSW Government are a step in the right direction, but they still don’t provide farmers with enough flexibility to rehabilitate land degraded by invasive scrub.
“Hundreds of farming families will be forced off their land if this problem is not fixed: who then will be left to care for the environment of western NSW?” Don said.Invasive scrub (also called woody weeds) are native shrubs that have increased greatly in density over the last 130 years, invading the formerly open grassy woodlands of western NSW from the Queensland border to the Riverina in southern NSW.
Scrub infestations now cover up to 12 million hectares of western NSW – an area twice the size of Tasmania – with another 6 million hectares vulnerable to invasion when the drought breaks. It is estimated that up to 1,000 farms are fighting the problem.
“I was invited by farmers from Nyngan and Cobar to view first-hand the destructive impacts of invasive scrub on the landscape of western NSW. What I saw was not a natural feature of the environment.
“I was shocked to see how near ‘monocultures’ of scrub had out-competed native grasses for moisture and nutrients, leaving the soil prone to severe wind and water erosion.
“Vast tracts of land are now an ecological desert, exacerbating current drought conditions,” said Don.
Don said that for thousands of years, Aboriginals used fire to suppress outbreaks of scrub.
“Original infestations of scrub can be traced to a lack of bushfires after the land was first settled and coincided with periods of above average rainfall in the 1860s and 1870s. High rainfall seasons in the 1950s, 70s, 80s and 1990s resulted in further outbreaks. Overgrazing in the distant past – including by rabbits – also contributed to the invasion of scrub,” explained Don.
“With the introduction of tighter land clearing laws in 1996, farmers in western NSW have been ‘straight jacketed’ ever since in their efforts to stop the insidious spread of native scrub. With native grasses virtually obliterated in the last ten years, the country will no longer carry a fire, so it can’t naturally thin dense areas of scrub.
“Clearing and short term cropping are now the only effective tools to remove scrub and suppress regrowth, giving
native grasses a chance to rejuvenate,” said Don.“Farmers want to restore the landscape to its natural state of open woodlands and grasslands, but political pressure from radical greens has put a bureaucratic handbrake on land restoration.
“In return, farmers are prepared to set aside a minimum of 15 per cent of their land for the preservation of native
woodlands. Combined with rehabilitated native grasslands, this will lead to an average cover of 50 to 60 per cent of
native vegetation on farms in western NSW.“After making statements about the vital role that farmers play in protecting the environment, I’m calling on moderate
green groups such as the Australian Conservation Foundation to support farming families in their efforts to rehabilitate the degraded landscape of western NSW,” ended Don.
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* The NSW Regional Community Survival Group was established about a year ago to draw attention to the problem of invasive woody weeds in western NSW. Some of the groups members were interview by the Sunday Program as part of its feature on 'The Great Land Clearing Myth'.
An interesting collection of comments.
My background is south east NSW forested land.
Critical of tunnel vision greens. Full marks for caring and dedication, zero for broad vision and an open mind on how the ecology evolved. Polys who are elected to manage for all,suck up to where the votes are percieved to be.
The SE bush ecology evolved for thousands of years on controlled small cool burn for thousands of yeats. National parks who are supposed to care for the flora and fauna refuse to continue this nethod. They do not have the funds even if the will is there. Result, wholesale destruction of flaura and fauna by broad front wildfire every 15 or 20 years.
I have photographic evidence ot 200 year old trees which have been killed by wildfire since Nadgee Nature Reserve was declared around 1952.
How did these trees survive for previous 200 years? Ben Boyd National park will be next. Not if but when. When it goes there will be no stopping it on a wide front with the accompanying bush barbecue.
I despair for the future of wildlife in National Parks.
I rest my case
P.S. My liver must be playing up...
Stewie,
I recently read an old copy of the West Australian newspaper, from February 1961, just after the uncontrollable Dwellingup fires. The fires were due to insufficient resources allocated to the then Forests Department for controlled burning. The editorial strongly supported more controlled burning. How times have changed. Half baked journalists now blether about bushfires being entirely due to global warming.
In 1961 a Mr. P. Riegert, of Yarloop, wrote to the paper, saying that an old settler had told him that the bush was burnt 'by the natives' as often as it would carry a fire. For jarrah forest, that is every 3-4 years. There were no uncontrollable fires in the jarrah forest then. They could all be put out by hand, with wet bags, or green branches, if anyone bothered. A man could step over the flames. Sanity must, eventually, penetrate the pudding heads of the 'ignis nullius' brigade. How many more uncontrollable fires (deaths?), followed by expensive government inquiries, and glossy reports, do we need? Judge Leonard Stretton said it all in 1939. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, especially if they are as thick as two short planks, with a tuppenny degree in ecomythology, taught by tuppenny ha'penny professors, who have never seen a real bushfire, and dismiss bushfire history as 'anecdotal'. How's that for a rant?
G’day Davey,
I have been tempted to write more to you but instead have opted to wait until I see what eventuates from conservation that will happen between our president of the Wildfire Taskforce Inc, Rob, in a couple of weeks and Jen. Following that conversation I hope to get together with Rob and write an article(s) for posting, if Jen agrees with that proposition. And also I’d expect you be more experienced in the matter of fire ecology than I. I have a deep interest and I’m learning.
I have read sometime ago an article by Stephen Pyne some years ago (forget title) and it was excellent.
The 1939 fires destroyed (virtually) all stands of Snow Gums as the fire crowned from Mt. Hotham to Omeo.
Before this fire these trees were predominately a large single trunked tree in the order of hundreds of years old. After the fires they grew as they are now, with each tree being a multi-trunked specimen.
Due to the perverse politics of endangered species, today’s departmental experts have declared that fire is not a part of the alpine and sub-alpine landscapes and yet the Aboriginals probably burnt that country every year as they headed up for the Bogong Moth ‘festival’.
I have photos somewhere of what it looked like a week after the fire went through there. Obliterated in a word.
This accounts for the great reduction in Pygmy Possum numbers, Brushed Tailed Rock wallaby and other species that inhabit/inhabited such areas. The department does not want to talk about that to much, and flora and fauna management plans hardly give it a mention. Post 3 years ago it was never mentioned at all. Zero. Zip. None.
I’ll give you another interesting bit of trivia. Sorry if I already posted it.
After the 1939 fires had come down from Hotham and burnt out Cobungra station, a pile of animals were found dead in the corner of a paddock. There was a mix of animals in there, sheep, cattle, wallabies, wombats. All piled on top of each other against the fence.
The interesting bits, apart from the mix of animals was,
None had actually died from burning, as there was noticeably no singeing of the fur.
The closest forest was at least 1 mile away.
Due to the severe drought of that time, there was not a skeric of vegetation, green dry or otherwise on the ground prior to the fire.
When we took either Phil Cheney (or was it the local DSE fire manager) up to Mt. Hotham, in 1999 to show and raise concerns of excessive fuel loads, the bones that had been lying there ever since 1939 mysteriously disappeared.
To think what had happened there on that day boggles the mind but if you understand how hours later that fire jumped into the Livingstone Valley, Omeo, exploding 4 kilometres across it, in one mighty whoosh, then you could only think that this fire had one head of steam on it. Certainly not something that seems environmentally friendly.
You mention 20 y.o. fuel.
A few kilometers out from town here we have forest that is a type that should probably see fire between 7-15 years. It has not seen fire for 80-100 years. When a wildfire gets hold of this on a bad day kiss the fauna goodbye. Scary, sad stuff.
And they have the gall to nominate endangered species in there, from threats other than wildfire.
Long term research plots inteh Pilliga clearly demonstrate that dense regrowth must be managed if there is to be a positive biodiversity outcome.
Thinning trials established in 1964, maintained a number of control plots not subject to any silvicultural treatment or other management. These plots have remained "locked up" so to speak and have grown in diameter by ony one or two millimetres in the ensuing period ( remeasured in 2000, I think).
The defining feature of these plots is the complete absense of an understorey. With site capacity reached any germinating understorey shrub or grass was comprehensively outcompeted. Where the forest was thinned a grester level of understory diversity was achieved.
Western Plains Zoo published a paper on similar work that they carries out and the biodiversity benefits of thinning invasive woody scrub (from memory sometime between 1999-2001).
Stewie,
Yes I am. If there are no other layers of ash in NZ glaciers then it would seem the 1939 fires were of unprecedented intensity. We have such evidence here in WA, where recent hot fires (20 y.o. fuel) have killed 200 year old trees. How did they survive before, if the bush was only burnt every 20 or 50 years, as some claim?
Have you read Steve Pyne's latest book on Australian bushfire (Still-burning bush, Scribe Short Books, Melbourne, 2006)? It is a follow up to his previous 'Burning Bush'. I have not read it yet, but there is a review by Ian McDougall at http://www.webdiary.com.au/cms/?q=node/1311 - he picks fault with Steve's flowery language, but agrees with his findings. So do I.
For those interested in North American work on Indian use of fire, see Gerry William's stuff at http://www.wings.buffalo.edu/anthropology/Documents/firebib.txt