Max Rheese, who seems to aspire to the title of “Man of a Thousand Front Groups”, has a column in today’s Australian attacking the Victorian Government for not accepting the Parliamentary Environment and Natural Resources Committee recommendation of a prescribed burning target of 385,000 hectares per annum on public land.
I have previously explained what is wrong with this Big Dumb Number approach to bushfire hazard management. I have also previous linked to a submission on this matter by the Victorian National Parks Association and a scientific report by Chris Taylor on the Black Saturday fires. There is nothing in Rheese’s piece which hasn’t already been addressed in these sources and I simply recommend a re-reading.
However one thing does deserve additional comment. Rheese implies, and the OO has previously reported, that the 385,000 ha/annum figure was recommended by “departmental officers” from the Department of Environment and Sustainability. No such figure was recommended by the DSE in its submission to the relevant ENR inquiry, and when I discussed this matter with DSE officers when in Melbourne last July, they explained that the ENR Committee had come up with this figure itself on the basis of a “rudimentary interpretation” of data provided by DSE. This issue is also addressed by the VNPA.
Without breaking too many confidences, I can assure you that DSE Land and Fire division are the strongest opponents in the world of the big dumb number appraoch.
If told to meet a target (say with a National party minister after the election), they would use their best endeavours to to meet it. However, you would find the little desert and areas of wilderness a long way away from towns getting burnt over and over again, since it’s the only safe and affordable place to try to meet that sort of idiocy.
A sophisticated risk management process, focusing on areas of greatest loss of life and property, is the only approach to use.
Oh and while we’re at it, can you imagine the justified outrage from tourism groups, from health advocacy groups?
Quite so. At the extreme, the 385,000 hectare target could be met by burning half the Murray-Sunset National Park each year, which would do nothing at all for hazard reduction.