Forest managment must improve to stabilise timber industry

COMMENT

BY JOHN MULLIGAN

MY letter to your paper last month about the possibility of harvesting the dying fire killed timber fromthe East Gippsland forestsdid not attract any support or discussion.

TheGoongerah peopleand their ‘green’ supporters would certainly, through theirignorance of the ‘balance of nature’ in the forest, not have given any support to such an idea.

The timberworkers whoare on some sort of government support cannotcomment forfear of losing that support. But through all this the taxpayer is surely paying.

Our East Gippsland forests have,since the 1940s and in particular after the recent fires over large areas,been changed beyond recognition to their former state,due the initial abandonment of allowing naturalfire (lightning)and settlers burning before the 1940's and then more latterly, inadequate fuel reduction burning by DELWP and Parks Victoria.

The recent 2019/20 fires over large areas of East Gippsland have resulted in killed timber,with dense scrub and wattle regrowth.

Withoutchange to present management,weare in dangerofour forests becomingdeserts of scrub.

Iamsure that neither the ‘Green Conservation movement’ or the timber industry or the local people or government want this.

Ican well understand conservationistsbeing ‘anti’ fuel reduction burning as practised by DELWP, continuous drip torch lines around aperimeter and then incendiary bombing the central area does not give any wildlife achanceofescape, such burns are naturally hot and in no wayresemble or mimic natural fire. They are usuallycarriedout in winter or spring whereas natural fire is late summer and autumn, usually slow, because it is alesswindy time of the year. Because there is less wind,the smokelays more heavily over the land.

The general public, the tourist industry and the grape growing industry will not tolerate this natural smoke -they have powerful political pull to frustrate DELWP and to stop autumn burning, leaving DELWP late winter and windy spring in whichtocarry outfuel reductionburns,whichare usually too hot, damaging and risky.

There is no doubtthat the bushitselfand taxpayers have not been well served by DELWP and Parks Victoria.

There are afew peopleinDELWP who understand the nature of the forestsand fire, and if given achance, coulddothe job, but DELWPisgoverned by city-basedacademics with littleactual bush experience.

As Iunderstand it, of the approximately 2500 DELWPemployees about 2000 are domiciled in Melbourne or large towns, not in the bush where they are needed.

Of course all the blame for the failure of the forest management mustlie withthe ‘Captain of the ship’, in this case,our Premier;hehas failedinhis duty.

To my knowledge he has not even visited the area since the 2019/20 fires to see the damage.

Why should he worry about the bush?

All his votes come from the city.

Ilistened thismorning (24/2/23)toatalkon local ABC radio featuring Goongerah environment centre, VicForests and Orbost Chamber of Commerce;this discussion centred aroundthe cessation of logging.

Basically, the Goongerah people being happy that logging had been stopped so that gliders and possums could (allegedly) flourish. No concern for the timber industry and its employees, other than to proposethat these peoplecould be employed in the forests.(What wouldthey do? Who would be employing them?And who wouldpay them?)

VicForests is naturally concerned about lack of access to timber and difficulty of satisfying green surveys, etc.

There was no talk at all of the terrible loss and damage causedbythe 2019/20 fires, the fire killed timber, and the enormous loss of wildlife attributed to these fires.

No recognitionoracceptance of blame for the misguided policies which caused these fires and tremendous loss of forests values, while the Goongerah people are so concerned about the risk to possum and glider populations allegedly caused by logging, thiswould be minimal comparedto the losses during the recent fires, yet the Greens ignore this.

The word hypocrisy comes to mind!

VicForests is not blameless either, as increased volume and profits are their aim.

Ihave never believed in large scale ‘clear-felling’ of our natural forests.

Another point that comes to mind is that Ihave been accused of promoting fuel reduction burning in the interests of achieving a‘grassy understory’ in our forests for cattle grazing.

This is wrong, as bushgrazing is largelyfinished, but yes, Idowant to see a‘grassy understory’, plentiful wild flowers and abundant wildlife, as they once were.

Fire in such forest did little damage to the trees, unlike today with adense understory, which kills standing trees and promotes an ever-thickening unnatural scrub growth, unsuitable for wildlife, and promoting the potential for even hotter damaging fires in the future.

It must be remembered and it is well recorded, that it was the open forests with the ‘open grassy understory’ for their stock that attracted the first settlerstoEast Gippsland. Obviously this was the stateofthe forests before their settlement.

So it’s about time thatall interested parties ‘took aBex’ and had a‘good liedown’, and then come together in good faith to resolve the differencesand plot apath forward for our forests.

We need better managed forests for all sorts of reasons and we need awell-managed stable timber industry.

JohnMulligan is an experienced bushman and member of the Howitt Society