Bundarrah Days

HERE'S the latest spin from the Victorian National Parks Association. Philip Ingamels of the VNPA has written an opinion piece for the Herald Sun which claims alpine grazing does not reduce blazing.

It's more of the same old nonsense the VNPA has peddling for years but I've published it here so that you can read both it and my response and draw your own conclusions.

HIGH country cattle grazing has never saved the alps from fire and never will.

You might think that grazing reduces the risk of bushfires because grass burns and cattle eat grass. But the obvious isn't always true.

Shortly after the 2003 fire, a group of scientists set about testing the "grazing reduces blazing" theory.

The authors of that study are all scientists with solid reputations: Dick Williams from CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Carl-Henrik Wahren of the Centre for Applied Alpine Ecology at La Trobe University, Ross Bradstock of Biodiversity Conservation Science at the NSW Department of Environment and Conservation and Warren Mueller of CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences.

Measurements were taken in more than 400 places through 100 sq km of the Bogong High Plains in grazed and ungrazed areas.

The scientists surveyed the spread of fire through dense alpine heath, open heath and in grasslands. Importantly, there was no significant difference between grazed and ungrazed areas.

Heathlands were the most flammable with 87 per cent burnt. Open heath was 59 per cent burnt and 13 per cent of grassland areas were burnt.

In alpine areas, fire is mainly spread by flammable shrubs, which cattle don't eat.

Over the past 60 years, scientific evidence has shown that the bare ground caused by cattle can help the spread of shrubs.

Cattle can sometimes slow a fire briefly within small areas of intensely grazed grassland, but this is insignificant on a larger scale.

The 2003 fire blazed through almost every alpine grazing licence area in its path.

The notable exception was Pretty Valley on the Bogong High Plains, which is the largest grassy plains area in the Victorian Alps. The only similar high plains grassland is in Kosciuszko National Park in NSW.

Significantly larger areas remained unburnt, although grazing ended more than 40 years ago.

In the Caledonia fire of 1998, in the southern section of the Alpine National Park, every grazing licence area in the path of the fire went up in flames.

That fire stopped at the ungrazed and unlogged Avon Wilderness, but mainly because it rained.

In the Black Friday fires of 1939, vast areas of Victoria were burnt and 71 people lost their lives, but there were almost no national parks in those days and cattle grazing and logging were widespread.

Justice Stretton in his 1946 royal commission into forest grazing blamed extensive shrub growth on the cattlemen's practice of burning to promote grasses.

"With each burning, the growth of scrub was stimulated so that it successfully contended with the grass for possession of the mountain sides," Justice Stretton said.

Fire has always been part of the Australian landscape, but it behaves differently in different forest types.

Burnt areas recover differently in different locations, at different altitudes and in different soil types.

That is why there should be more monitoring before and after control burns and natural burns.

Victoria's great natural areas are going to be placed under unprecedented stress during the climate crisis and our vulnerability to fire will continue to increase.

It is a serious situation that will not be solved by 19th century practices, particularly when these practices have been shown to be part of the problem.

We need greatly boosted research to safeguard future generations and to ensure the survival of Victoria's remarkable natural heritage.

RESPONSE: What Ingamels has written is outrageously misleading and loaded with incorrect information.

Mountain Cattlemen have never claimed grazing will stop fires in the alps. We say alpine grazing reduces blazing. That is an indisputable fact proven by events. The only areas of The Bogong High Plains spared the ravages of the 2003 fires were those which were grazed. In addition to Pretty Valley, mentioned by Ingamels, my licence area was relatively unscathed, as were others. The grazed areas affected were isolated patches of snowgum and heathland, mainly located at the edge of the plains and caught by the firefront as it emerged out of the valleys. When the fires reached the grazed snowgrass they died. By contrast the ungrazed Bogongs were uniformly destroyed, grasslands, heath, spagnum moss beds and every other plant community. The much vaunted trial plots from which cattle were excluded were obliterated while the surrounding grazed areas were spared. You can see it for yourself. Don't rely on Ingamels.

The study quoted by Ingamels was carried out by scientists whose record destroys any claim to objectivity. Scientists can pick and choose the areas they study and they did. Fire scientists and experts I have spoken to including Athol Hodgson of Forest Fire Victoria have pointed out that the conclusions drawn from that study are not supported by the data collected. All the people involved in the study were previously well known for their opposition to alpine grazing. They ran around here and there, took a few measurements of country they had no way of knowing had been grazed or not, or to what extent if it had, and then claimed there was no difference between grazed and ungrazed areas. The conclusion that there was no difference between the percentage of area burnt on grazed and ungrazed areas is ludicrous.

That alpine grazing mitigates fire is a hypothesis tested and proven by events infinitely more powerful than a cursory and biased glance over a devastated landscape by four individuals with an agenda.

It is not true that the Bogong High Plains burned uninformly in 2003. Ingamels even contradicts himself by citing Pretty Valley as an exception. In fact, it was not an exception but a good illustration of what didn't happen on the vast majority of grazed areas. They did not burn. As Ingamels points out Pretty Valley is the largest grassy plains area in the Victorian Alps. It was grazed and was untouched by the fires. By contrast similar areas in Kosciuszko National Park that were ungrazed were obliterated but he conveniently fails to mention that.

Without presenting any evidence Ingamels claims cattle cause bare ground and increase shrub growth. Untrue. Studies often quoted by the VNPA itself show that shrub on The Bogongs increased by 40 per cent between 1940 and 1975. This was during a period when cattle numbers were substantially reduced. For the 90 years of grazing up until 1940 there was no measurable increase in shrub even though the stocking rates were far higher. Ingamels flies in the face of the facts.

The 1998 Caledonia fire mainly burned through heavily fuel laden forest, not high plains. Grazed areas that were spared in 1998 have been devastated this year after nine years without grazing.

Ingamels represents a bushwalking group which promotes policies that have resulted in much of the destruction we have seen this summer.

The Victorian National Parks Association is no friend of the alpine environment. With friends like that Heaven help the high country if it ever makes an enemy.

FOOTNOTE: Last month Bundarrah Days reported that the Cresta Lodge on Mt Buffalo, formerly known as the Tatra Inn, had burned down in questionable circumstances. We are now informed that the lessees of the lodge have engaged a private investigator to delve into the circumstances of its burning.

It's interesting that green activists have long resented the existence of the lodge. In a 1975 book, The Alps At The Crossroads, supported by the VNPA there is a picture of the Tatra Inn followed by this caption: "Luxurious accommodation should be located outside the park - not within it." The Tatra Inn is only a memory now.

STATE Labor MP, Rob Hudson, is feeling a little precious. In fact, he might be the only precious thing left in Victoria by the time his government completes its term.

He feels so offended by the activities of Push For The Bush that he no longer wants to be on the mailing list.

See below.

To: Push For The Bush
Subject: Re: FW: NEWS UPDATE

Please remove me from your email list. I do not wish to receive your emails.

Rob Hudson, MP
State Member for Bentleigh
379 Centre Road
Bentleigh, 3204
Ph: (03) 9557-6661
Fax: (03) 9557-8646

Push For The Bush organiser, Bob Richardson, who actually spent most of his working life as a union official responded to Mr Hudson with the following:

To: 'rob.hudson@parliament.vic.gov.au'
Cc: 'graeme.stoney@parliament.vic.gov.au'
Subject: RE: FW: NEWS UPDATE

I'm not sure as a politician that you should be allowed to block opinions
from the people who pay your wages.

After all you use our taxes to tell us what a great job you're doing via
television advertising

Your country vote went down at the last election because you aren't
listening.

Your government has now presided over two disastrous bushfires and you
obviously don't want to know.

Bob Richardson

WELL SAID, Bob!

FOR a perfect example of the contempt in which the Bracks Government holds country Victoria, read on.

The following is from the archives of Bundarrah Days. Back in July the ALP Member for Ripon, Joe Helper attended a public meeting at Merrijig to defend the government's ban on alpine grazing.

The post I wrote after the meeting tells the story. Comicially, although the joke is on us, this same Mr Helper is now Victoria's Minister for Agriculture.

"07/17/2006
"Intuitive" Science Ended Alpine Grazing

Victorian Labor MP Joe Helper says he knows intuitively that cattle spread weeds.

And last Sunday at a public meeting at Merrijig he appealed to his intuitive beliefs in support of his government's ban on alpine grazing.

Those who attended the meeting in the hope of hearing the real reason the Bracks Government destroyed the heritage of the Mountain Cattlemen were left disappointed. Mr Helper frustrated the audience to the point that he was accused of obfuscation.

Not that he could he speak with any authority on the issue, at one point appealing to the fact that he was a motor mechanic by trade. Nevertheless, one would have hoped that as a Member Of Parliament charged with voting on the future of alpine grazing, he would have acquainted himself with a few facts first.

However, as he more or less confessed to the meeting it was his intuitive feelings and the seed laden cattle pats he saw in his mind's eye that turned him against us.

Challenged to name a noxious weed that cattle feast on Mr Helper settled for thistles but then asked where the thistles were on the high plains he had to rely on his intuition again."


Ring Joe at Parliament House, Melbourne, on 9651 8911, to book your tractor in for a service.

POLITICAL reporter Rick Wallace seems to have it in for Opposition Leader, Ted Baillieu.

In today's Australian Wallace writes:

"With the state in the grip of a fire emergency, Baillieu, the wealthy scion of one of Victoria's establishment families, was photographed aboard a yacht at the annual KPMG Couta Boat Classic at Sorrento, on the Mornington Peninsula."

He neglects to mention the fact that Ted Baillieu also spent time personally fighting fires at Howqua Hills, very close to where the New Zealand firefighters were burned.

In contrast, Premier Bracks, who had a responsibility to remain at work during the crisis went on an extended holiday to Wye River and wasn't sighted until the power crisis put the lights out in Melbourne. I didn't hear of him fighting any fires.

TAKE these three words - delicate, sensitive, fragile.

Those used to be the popular choice among greens when describing the environment of the high country.

Nowadays, of course, the most descriptive words are charred, burned and black.

Delicate, sensitive and fragile are words better applied to the egos of Bracks, Thwaites and their green land managers.

Oh, and let's not forget bruised.

SOME good rains over the past few days have eased the fire threat in Gippsland and around Tatong momentarily but more hot weather is certain to rouse them again.

There's still a lot of unburnt country and hot, dry conditions with driving winds causing fire to jump containment lines are the last thing we want.

Being about to enter what is traditionally the hottest time of the year the fire danger is going to be critical. In 2003 the fires were at their worst around the 26th January and Ash Wednesday in 1983 didn't come along until the 16th February.

In other news there is a piece in today's Herald Sun on the destruction of The Bluff Hut. Graeme Stoney has vowed to rebuild it with the assistance of friends and says the new hut will be as close as possible in construction and appearance as the original.

I don't expect that Parks Victoria will place any obstacles in his way.

SINCE the feature article, Mustering Courage, appeared in The Herald Sun yesterday we have been inundated with messages of support.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21075414-5...

The response has been overwhelming and so far there hasn't been a negative message.

That's proof that Australians are prepared to get behind a just cause and are wise enough to distinguish between responsible use of public land and the folly of locking it up and transforming it, by neglect, into fuel for flames.

The Bracks government was re-elected in November but it's well and truly on notice now that it must improve its performance dramatically and stop treating rural Victorians with disdain. You can only push people so far before they push back. Our determination to to fight this to the end is as strong as ever thanks to you folk.

A SPOKESWOMAN for Parks Victoria told The Weekly Times this week I was "irresponsible" for returning cattle to the Bogong High Plains while PV was dealing with wildfires.

In essence she accused me of not playing fair because PV was to preoccupied to deal with me.

How's that for the pot calling the kettle black? I exercise a entitlement to graze having informed PV and DSE of my intentions months before the fires broke out and I am irresponsible.

Interesting how a Mountain Cattleman engaging in a traditional activity dating back nearly two centuries is irresponsible when negligent land management leading to the worst bushfire crisis in our history is not.

My actions were environmentally responsible. Grazing does mitigate fire although the cattle won't be able to accomplish much in what remains of the grazing season this year.

Parks Victoria and the Department Of Sustainability and Environment are tragically incompetent land managers. A responsible government would abolish them and replace them with professional management authorities staffed by experienced and competent officers.

REPORTS from locals around Marysville working on containment lines say that fires are raging out of control in the Thompson and Upper Yarra catchments.

The Thompson fire, originally burning on the eastern side of the dam has reportedly crossed to the western side and is burning in a south-westerly direction. DSE would rather you didn't know about that yet. The Upper Yarra Valley, Warburton and the Acheron Valley could soon be under threat depending on weather and wind direction.

PREMIER Steve Bracks took holidays with Victoria in the midst of one of the greatest bushfire crises in its history.

The Australian reports that he rushed back to work yesterday after wildfires cut power transmissions.

Rushed is hardly the right word. He wasn't in any kind of hurry until the disaster hit home to Melbourne when up to 100,000 homes lost power, air conditioners shut down on one of the hottest days this summer and hundreds of people were stranded in sweltering conditions in city lifts.

That's how seriously Steve Bracks has been treating the disaster in the bush. If you were Premier would you have taken holidays while much of the state was burning around you?

What an inspirational leader! What an example he sets.

There are thousands of volunteer firefighters who have sacrificed their summer holidays for the good of the community, their holiday pay supporting their families while they risk their lives to divert the flames around homes and townships.

Meanwhile, Steve Bracks takes a holiday! Pity it wasn't permanent.