Just over a year ago media reports indicated the Blue Gum Forest of the Grose Valley was “hanging in the balance” because of a wildfire made “more intense, unpredictable and extensive by massive backburning operations”.
I trekked into the forest today and was surprised and pleased to see a beautiful forest with little evidence of fire damage.
The Blue Gum Forest, Grose Valley, Blue Mountains, Australia, February 3, 2008. Looking to the south-east.
The Blue Gum Forest, Grose Valley, Blue Mountains, Australia, February 3, 2008. Looking to the north-west.
The Blue Gum Forest, Grose Valley, Blue Mountains, Australia, February 3, 2008. At junction of Grose River and Govett Creek, looking to the north.
As I struggled up the steep escarpment on my way out of the valley, I passed a couple descending into the valley and I asked if they were planning to visit the Blue Gum Forest.
“Yes,” replied the women, “At least what is left of it”.
Like me, and so many Australians, she believed the media reports that the forest had been badly damaged. As we passed I suggested she would be pleasantly surprised by what she saw.
Why has reporting in the popular press been so negative? Was the state of this iconic forest misrepresented as part of a wider campaign against back-burning?
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Additional Notes and Links
Link to picture of burnt forest in Sydney Morning Herald:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-ghosts-of-an-enchanted-forest-demand-answers/2006/12/10/1165685553891.html
Link to earlier blog post with a question from Bill in Melbourne about the state of the forest:
https://climatelab.com.au/blog/archives/002620.html
The Blue Gums in the Grose Valley are Mountain Blue Gums Eucalyptus deanii, here are some links to the more common Tasmanian Blue Gum, Eucalptus globulus:
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s1702968.htm
http://www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/cgi-bin/arr_html?Eucalyptus+globulus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus_globulus
hello,
can i use the picture of the woods wiht green grass and trees and branches hanging down with bushes for school because im doing a book trailor for my reading class?
plez & thanks,
brittanie
criten,
"Was a good hike indeed, will have to do another sometime! I don't know anybody who likes this kind of stuff :("
I do but my usual walking partner has moved to Perth:( We were at and almost went down the Grose Valley the day the fires started but walked the Grand Canyon instead. Didn't know about the fires until I got home.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=vHx-2QGSIYQ
You are sure to recognise some of it.
How the regimes have changed in other places is well covered here.
http://www.australianalps.deh.gov.au/publications/fire/pubs/alps-fire-history-chapter1.pdf
“Evidence in fact points to a sevenfold increase in bushfire frequency across much of the Alps following European occupation”
Allan: My previous post was to establish a rough Blue Mts fire history, then raise the issue of terrain etc in particular regions. The report below mentions the different regimes state to state. Note; this preceded the Nairn Inquiry.
Current Issues Brief no. 8 2002-03
Bushfires: Is Fuel Reduction Burning the Answer?
‘Effectiveness of Fuel Reduction Burns
Opportunity to Carry Out Fuel Reduction Burning
Environmental Effects
Escapes of Burns
Where People Live—Prescribed Burns and Blackened Bush
What Frequency for Fuel Reduction Burning’
"There is no simple answer to the issue of fuel reduction burning because of the diversity of forests, topography and climates in southern Australia as well as the different priorities that different land managers have in developing specific burning regimes"
http://wopared.parl.net/library/Pubs/CIB/2002-03/03cib08.htm#Are
Reading the comments of Jones in the SMH article doesn't make a lot of sense.
The fires in 2006 (and most of the other years) were started by lightning.
No obvious human intervention there and if Jones is so against human intervention I assume he would of prefer to just let the fire take it's course.
I lived in the Blue Mtns during all the fires from 1960's through to 1990 and was a member of one of the brigades from 1978.
My first fire with the brigade was one that had started in the Grose and had jumped the Bells Line of Road and burnt through to Mt Wilson.
That was in 1978, not mentioned by Jones.
There was a major fire either in the Grose or Jamison Valley every 7 to 10 years
Very few arsonists or careless campers bother to travel to the more remote regions in the Blue Mts to light fires.
And the blasted trees still keep on growing back!
PS
Vic Jurskis has an informative PP presentation
comparing various forestry lots and private lands and the difference of having a fuel management plan and doing nothing. The good health of a well managed lot is stark compared to a lot that has been allowed to "choke"
There's an old adage in the news media: "If it bleeds, it leads"
Good news does not sell papers. Nor does it provide dramatic footage for TV cameras.
And of course there's that other piece of wisdom; "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story."
Modern media will hype anything to sell more advertising. They also appear to care little for time-consuming research.
Then there is the fallacy that our forests were pristine and untouched by human hands before the coming of Europeans. Nonsense. Many of them had been actively managed and reshaped over thousands of years.
"Records show that the Blue Gum Forest was burnt in 1957, 1968, possibly 1982, 1994 and now 2006"
http://www.reportage.uts.edu.au/stories/2007/society/fire.html
"Without human interference , this forest may have been burnt once or perhaps twice in 50 years, not five times," Jones said.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/they-paid-163130-for-this-treasure-what-price-now/2006/12/10/1165685553948.html
GDGE: There is plenty more on the net about the Blue Gum Forest situation
Sorry Jen,
I don't know about those, but Mr. Infinity sounds right. He may be a forester. We, and the government, should listen more carefully to them. They are professionals, as opposed to academic paper producers. No wonder the market wants more pulp mills. All the old-timers I know in WA say that the jarrah forest was greener when it was burnt more often, say every 2-4 years. Being a greeny, I support that.