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2020. It’s been fun. Let’s move on.

Wow. What a year. Crazy summer fires. Covid lockdowns. Terrible winter snow pack, but also some incredible snow storms. Lots of fighting over our mountains, including the endless culture war argument about horses. Kind of glad it’s almost at an end.

We all know the story: a dry winter and spring led to a horror summer, with massive fires across the eastern Victorian high country, Snowy Mountains and Brindabellas. Luckily Tasmania got off easy last summer.

Then the lockdown(s), which hit mountain and valley towns in Victoria especially hard, isolated Tasmania, and closed the NSW/ Victorian border. The economic impacts of these events will last for a long time.

And then there were the ongoing arguments about how to treat our mountains. It felt like issues were widespread this year. Here’s a few of them:

Continue reading “2020. It’s been fun. Let’s move on.” →
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Finding hope among the old trees

I don’t know about you, but my wanders in the mountains are often dominated by grief as I see places I love burnt beyond recognition. I’ve spent way too much time looking at burnt forests lately (for instance the Tabletop fire), and the realisation that as I get older, the forests are getting younger has been hard to accept.

More than 90% of snow gum woodland in Victoria has burnt at least once in the last 20 years, and we are down to a fragment of remaining old mountain forests (estimates are that we only have 0.47% of old growth alpine ash left in Victoria). Most people who are paying attention will see what’s going on, and experiencing solastalgia (the distress specifically caused by environmental change and climate change) is both natural and normal. But it can be hard to stay positive in the face of grinding and overwhelming change. And many of us, especially if we live in the bush or mountains, hold fear about the ever more intense fire seasons.

But there is so much wonderful country that remains, and we know that, given time, alpine ash and snow gum forests will recover (if we can keep the fires out until they mature).

Continue reading “Finding hope among the old trees” →
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Federal government accepts need for publicly owned air fleet

Since last summer, there has been a long public conversation about how we can increase our ability to fight bush fires. While this has covered everything from the role of fuel reduction burning, the impact of climate change, and the question of Cultural Burning, another important aspect has been the role of planes and helicopters in fighting fire.

There is a recent – and significant – development in this debate.

Continue reading “Federal government accepts need for publicly owned air fleet” →
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Federal government rejects key recommendation from Royal Commission

Australia’s fires over the summer of 2019/20 were unprecedented in scale and level of destruction. Fuelled by climate change, the hottest and driest year ever recorded resulted in fires that burned through more than 17 million hectares, killed up to 3 billion animals, and affected nearly 80% of Australians. This included the tragic loss of over 450 lives from the fires and smoke.

Aerial firefighting capacity – planes and helicopters – are an essential component of Australia’s ability to respond to bushfires. This was demonstrated in the 2019-2020 bushfire season, when an unprecedented use of aircraft occurred. However last summer also showed that we simply don’t have enough aircraft to fight fires in a bad season. This puts landscapes, people, towns and houses, and fire fighters at risk.

The recent Bushfire Royal Commission report recommended the creation of a national publicly-owned aerial firefighting fleet, which can then be allocated to the states “according to greatest national need”.

Continue reading “Federal government rejects key recommendation from Royal Commission” →
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‘State of the Climate 2020’ – what does it mean for mountain environments?

The Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO have just released their updated ”State of the Climate’ report. This is produced every two years and provides an update on what is happening with the latest climate science. As in previous report’s, the impacts of climate change on the Australian landscape are clear. There are also some specific details for people concerned about mountain environments.

Continue reading “‘State of the Climate 2020’ – what does it mean for mountain environments?” →
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We need a national aerial firefighting fleet to protect mountain environments

Australia’s fires over the summer of 2019/20 were unprecedented in scale and level of destruction. Fuelled by climate change, the hottest and driest year ever recorded resulted in fires that burned through more than 17 million hectares, killed up to 3 billion animals, and affected nearly 80% of Australians. This included the tragic loss of over 450 lives from the fires and smoke.

Aerial firefighting capacity – planes and helicopters – are an essential component of Australia’s ability to respond to bushfires. This was demonstrated in the 2019-2020 bushfire season, when an unprecedented use of aircraft occurred. 

However last summer also showed that we simply don’t have enough aircraft to fight fires in a bad season. This puts landscape, people, towns and houses, and fire fighters at risk.

Continue reading “We need a national aerial firefighting fleet to protect mountain environments” →
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The Tabletop fire 10 months on

Mt Tabletop is in the Alpine national park, on Gunaikurnai country, between Mt Hotham and Dinner Plain. Its snow gum country that is already feeling the changes that are coming with climate change. The forests in the area have burnt in 2003, 2013 and 2019/20. Some areas have burnt 3 times. 

The terrain is a mosaic of snow plains, old open forests, crazy regrowth in burnt areas, and multi aged woodlands. It was burnt badly last summer.

Continue reading “The Tabletop fire 10 months on” →
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Stand with bushfire survivors for climate action

Bushfires devastated huge areas of mountain country last summer – across the eastern Alps in Victoria and the northern Snowy Mountains in NSW. These fires triggered three government inquiries – all of which identified climate change as being a key factor in the scale of the fires.

Now the Bushfire Royal Commission is due to release its final report. A key question will be whether the Commission recommends that Australia act decisively to reduce it’s contribution to global heating. Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action (BSCA)  is asking you to stand with us on climate change to highlight the need for the federal government to act.

Continue reading “Stand with bushfire survivors for climate action” →
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Fires hitting mountain environments around the world

Last summer, large sections of the mountains of New South Wales, Victoria and ACT were hammered by bushfire. The Emergency Leaders for Climate Action noted that: ‘Australia’s Black Summer fires over 2019 and 2020 were unprecedented in scale and levels of destruction’. 

The same terrible fires have been burning environments across the northern hemisphere through their summer. For instance, Colorado has seen its largest ever fires. Fires have burnt on Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest mountain, and in the north east of the USA, a region that rarely burns. One fire chief in Maine said “this was a whole new kind of fire, this is the stuff you see out west.”

And the same forces are at play everywhere: climate change is making fire seasons more intense. The world has warmed as a result of human activity and now all fire events occur in a warmer environment. Thankfully this awareness is now becoming part of the mainstream debate.

Continue reading “Fires hitting mountain environments around the world” →
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A Fire Management Plan for the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area

The Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (TWWHA) is a World Heritage Site in Tasmania. It is one of the largest conservation areas in Australia, covering 15,800 km², or almost 20% of lutruwita/ Tasmania. It is also one of the last great expanses of temperate wilderness in the world.

In recent summer’s, significant sections of the TWWHA have been devastated by bushfires. The 2018/19 fires were especially destructive.

Fire is perhaps the greatest challenge for the management of the TWWHA, particularly in the context of climate change. With the September 2020 release by the Parks and Wildlife Service of a range of discussion papers for public comment, the state is moving towards the development of a Fire Management Plan for the TWWHA, as recommended by the 2016 report by Tony Press (Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area Bushfire and Climate Change Research Project) and prescribed by the 2016 TWWHA Management Plan. 

How have the papers been received by conservationists?

Continue reading “A Fire Management Plan for the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area” →
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Living with the Fear

Last summer’s fires burnt through communities right along the east coast of Australia and across large sections of the High Country. The sheer scale and ferocity of the firestorms made many individual fires unfightable. Many covered long distances in short periods of time, racing across the country. In some instances, like at Mallacoota in Victoria’s far east, they literally pushed communities to the beaches and into the water.

The fact is that these are the fires of the ‘present future’ – the climate change fuelled era that we are already passing into. This means ever worse fire seasons which, in turns means greater impacts on the people, businesses and communities that live or rely on increasingly fire prone landscapes. As noted by fire historian Stephen J Pyne, we now live in the ‘pyrocene’ – the age dominated by fire.

As was shown by last summer, the economic costs of fire seasons can be devastating. But there is something else going on that is obvious – on a personal and emotional, even spiritual, level. Many people are struggling with post traumatic shock, and many now hold a deep unease about the places they call home. Many people now openly express fear of the bush, and the fires that will come, summer after summer.

Continue reading “Living with the Fear” →
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ANU launches centre for early fire detection & suppression

Last summer, 1,507,895 ha of Victoria was burnt, much of it in the remote mountains of the Alps and East Gippsland. Almost every significant fire in Victoria during the 2019–20 season was as a result of lightning strike. 

Many of these started after storms moved across East Gippsland and the Alps on November 21 and December 31. Forest Fire Management crews swung into action and many of the fires were quickly put out. Aerial bombing dealt with others. In the 2019/20 fire season, state government FFMV crews suppressed 89% of all new ignitions with aggressive ‘first attack’ techniques. But there were simply too many lightning strikes, and some grew into massive blazes, including the fires that went on to devastate the forests and landscapes of East Gippsland in coming weeks.

It is clear that we need additional air capacity to get on top of these small fires before they become blazes. We also need more career remote area firefighters. Victoria should also follow the lead of NSW and TAS and establish a volunteer remote area firefighting force. In recent years, the NSW teams have able to keep 90% of the fires they attended contained to less than 10 hectares in size.

But fire seasons will continue to get longer and more intense because of climate change. We need all the help we can get to stop these lightning caused fires before they turn into blazes. This new development could deliver some useful help:

Continue reading “ANU launches centre for early fire detection & suppression” →
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