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When the 'green dream' becomes a bushfire nightmare

By Mark Poynter - posted Monday, 2 June 2014


The EEG has also asserted for some years that Victorian bushfire control has been blighted by deliberate mismanagement. In its submission to the Victorian Government's Parliamentary Inquiry into the 2006-07 forest fires, this was attributed to the presence of 'pyromaniacs on the front line' and it was speculated that 'a large number of people in all levels of command could be making decisions that perpetuate the drama and intensity of the fire situation.' Ms Redwood reiterated this sentiment after the recent Goongerah - Deddick Trail fire when she reportedly said "It does seem like there is some financial incentive to keep fires going rather than put them out."
 
This thinly veiled implication that forest management authorities are corrupt and incompetent is a familiar theme running through the EEG website, and is somewhat exemplified by a cartoon drawn by Ms Redwood in which the former Department of Sustainability and Environment (now DEPI) is lampooned as the "Department of Stupendous Errors – what sort of goof-up can we help you with?"
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This is significant given that one of the concerns raised by Ms Redwood and her community in relation to the Goongerah – Deddick Trail fire is that fire authorities must give more respect to community concerns and suggestions. However, respect is a two-way street, and it is hypocritical for a community being represented by someone who has so publicly disrespected forest and fire management authorities for many years to be now calling for them to be more respectful.

Given the decades of incessant campaigning by Ms Redwood and her cohorts to effectively tear down the cornerstones of the stronger forest and fire management culture that existed in the past, it is richly ironic that she is now an advocate for changing the 'culture of fire-fighting in East Gippsland' and returning to the fire-fighting tactics of the past.

It would be wrong, however, to attribute the decline of effective forest and fire management totally to environmental activism. Other factors are also playing a part, such as the evolution of an operational health and safety paradigm that is inhibiting effective fire-fighting by strangling it in a tangle of risk-avoidance 'red-tape'.

What can be said though, is that by continually misrepresenting forestry and timber harvesting as an eco-catastrophe for over 30-years, environmental activists have manufactured a misguided perception amongst society's most influential urban-based media and political classes that 'saving' forests is simply a 'no-brainer' with no significantly adverse consequences.

This is reflected in almost all mainstream media coverage of forestry issues in which forests are wrongly portrayed as exceedingly fragile rather than resilient, renewable and disturbance-dependent; and where any forests not already contained in National Parks are supposedly earmarked for destruction by a corrupt, greedy, and uncontrolled 'logging industry'.

We can only speculate on how this has shaped the mindset of those who've grown-up with this nonsense and are now staffing land management agencies such as DEPI, but it is probably reasonable to assume that at least some are in the job because they want to save forests rather than actively manage them. Perhaps this underlies the not uncommon instances of misguided priorities where avoiding the disturbance from fireline construction is deemed to be more important than putting out the fire.

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We can be more certain about how decades of forest activism and unbalanced media have shaped political views. This was exemplified in the recent biography of former Victorian Labor Premier, Steve Bracks, who implied that closing the State's native hardwood industry is an unwritten ALP policy. No substantive reasons were given as to why – simply that no-one who votes Labor likes it and so it's a political winner.

Accordingly, under Bracks, the last Victorian Labor government committed to 'saving' the Otways forest (2002), the Wombat Forest (2002), the Goolengook and other East Gippsland forests (2006), and the Murray valley red gum forests (2006) from the 'logging industry' – all announced as promises at the height of State election campaigns.

The damage that this has caused to forest fire management probably hardly matters to a former politician like Bracks, or to major ENGOs like The Wilderness Society and its supporters, who are safely insulated from the fire threat in Melbourne's inner suburbs. But it sure matters to the small remote forest communities of East Gippsland and elsewhere, where the threat of bushfires is felt up-close and personal each summer.

While Ms Redwood and her cohorts have substantially contributed to their own predicament, this shouldn't detract from the need to seriously examine the management of the Goolengook – Deddict Trail bushfire because documented observations of their performance certainly suggest that it was blighted by confused priorities, inadequate and poorly deployed resources, and an apparent lack of urgency. Whether things can be substantially improved is another story, given the changed world in which DEPI must now exist and operate.

If nothing else, such an inquiry could at least awaken the media and political classes to the reality that aquiescing to the 'green dream' of a forested landscape fully reserved in national parks has never been free from adverse consequences, including an unfolding bushfire nightmare for both rural communities and their natural surroundings.

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About the Author

Mark Poynter is a professional forester with 40 years experience. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Foresters of Australia and his book Going Green: Forests, fire, and a flawed conservation culture, was published by Connor Court in July 2018.

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