Protect

Fire and Water

BY GRAHAM QUINT, DIRECTOR, CONSERVATION

This article wasn’t written yesterday. It was written in November 2019. In that month, the New Zealand Parliament unanimously passed its Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Bill. Days later, fuelled by New South Wales’ longest drought on record, there were massive bushfires that tore through the state and burned through one million hectares of bush, homes and surrounding areas. The Hunter Region and Greater Sydney were under threat. For the first time ever, a ‘catastrophic’ fire warning applied to Sydney. A statewide emergency was declared.

From its earliest days in the 1940s, the National Trust in New South Wales has acted to recognise and conserve Australian native bushland for its ecological, scenic, cultural and fauna habitat values. We need to protect our natural heritage now more than ever.

The National Trust (NSW) has always been committed to protecting our natural environment – our bushland regeneration techniques have advanced and evolved over 40 years to become one of the most innovative and successful native vegetation conservation initiatives. Our newly adopted Koala Conservation Policy is the most recent in a range of actions aimed at better recognising and protecting New South Wales’ unique native vegetation and biota.

I was visiting Forster on the mid north coast when the November bushfires started. It gave me firsthand experience of how extended drought, climate change and historic lows in rainfall are having an impact that is testing the capacity of our most skilled and experienced firefighters.

World Heritage Lost Only eight days into spring in 2019, the Binna Burra Lodge was totally destroyed by the bushfire that swept through south eastern Queensland. The 1930s Binna Burra was a much-loved feature of the World Heritage listed Central Eastern Rainforest Reserves of Australia.

World on Fire In 2019, over 600 wildfires consumed more than 2.4 million acres of forest across Alaska and northern Canada. The University of Alaska’s International Arctic Research Center found that: ‘recent fires are too frequent, intense and severe. They are reducing older-growth forest in favour of young vegetation, and pouring more carbon into the atmosphere at a time when carbon dioxide concentrations are setting new records’.

Former NSW Fire & Rescue Commissioner, Greg Mullins, was in northern California in early November 2019 to assess the damage caused by the Kincade Fire, which had swept through the state’s famed wine country north of San Francisco. Mullins said that in this area 18,000 structures were destroyed in 2018, 9,000 in 2017 and 3,000 in previous years.

Mullins states that: “as in Australia, California’s fire season is getting longer, stretching resources with fire speed, size and intensity increasing”. He warned that our fire services would not have access to use the aircraft needed – as has been historically possible – because of the overlap in seasons. Mullins and 22 other expert firefighters had written to the Prime Minister of Australia to express their grave concerns with predictions of what was coming in November.

Koalas Lost In late October 2019, major fires near Port Macquarie swept through prime Koala habitat and as many as 350 were, as was described in the news, ‘incinerated’. The total estimated population of Koala in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory is 16,130.

“I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.”

Greta Thunberg, World Economic Forum 2019.

Forster Fires This is the transcript of an emergency despatch call reported on local television in Forster: “Multiple houses under threat on Southern Parkway. We need units now, we need them now. We have fire everywhere. It has jumped. I repeat it has jumped. Give me everything you’ve got. Just get me everything you’ve got as soon as you can.” The fires in and around Forster and Tuncurry were extensive, fierce and frightening. As this is written, a nine-hectare fire came dangerously close to a retirement village and the main Forster shopping complex on the Lakes Way.

In the Sydney Morning Herald on 11 November 2019, Peter Hannam’s article Old Hat: Is there a link between climate change and bushfires detailed recent Victorian Country Fire Authority research, which has found that human-led climate change is the primary driver of the upward trend in the fire danger index, through both higher mean temperatures and, potentially, through associated shifts in large-scale rainfall patterns.

Action Across the Tasman On 7 November 2019, the New Zealand Parliament passed its Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Bill. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s coalition government comprised of Labour, the Green party and NZ First also had the support of the opposition National Party to pass the legislation, which is intended to set a course for the country to radically reduce emissions by the year 2050.

It’s Time The summer is not over and Greater Sydney, the Hunter and Illawarra Regions have catastrophic fire dangers forecast by the NSW Rural Fire Service. The National Trust calls for urgent coordinated action by Governments at all levels to avoid a situation as has been occurring in California and now in New South Wales. The National Trust welcomes the statements made by NSW Environment Minister, Matt Kean, at the Smart Energy Summit in Sydney and reported by Alexandra Smith and David Crowe in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Lives, homes, property, our built and natural heritage and Australia’s unique ecosystems and fauna are all under immediate threat if urgent action is not taken.

COMING SOON

Trust Talks: Climate Change and Heritage

Our Trust Talks series will commence in June this year with our first topic to focus on Climate Change. Register your interest in attending here: by emailing Jilly Clark, jclark@nationaltrust.com.au and write ‘Trust Talks’ in the subject header. Top image – Hell The image captures the intensity and devastation of the November 2019 bushfires that impacted the north coast, Hawkesbury, Blue Mountains and Sydney’s Upper North Shore. The bushfires took lives, incinerated native wildlife, razed homes and towns to the ground.

Middle image – Where there is smoke Bushfires moving towards Hallidays Point in New South Wales.

Bottom image – Brothers in arms Children watch from the beach as bushfires ravage the north coast of New South Wales in November 2019.