LETTER TO MINISTER
Dear Minister
Campaign to undermine bushfire management in WA
I feel sure we do not need to bring to your attention the insidious, dishonest and calculated campaign currently being waged to undermine professional bushfire management in WA. This is taking the form of a stream of media articles, forums, pseudo-scientific papers and community messaging aimed at alarming the public about the government’s fuel reduction burning program in WA forests, as a prelude to having it shut down.
Conducted by a tiny group of elitist academics from Curtin and Murdoch Universities, supported by two of WA’s most fervid environmental activists, the messages being promulgated are that (i) fuel reduction burning is destroying the biodiversity; (ii) it has no value in bushfire control; and (iii) it is not needed anyway because if left long enough without fire, the forest becomes non-flammable. None of these statements is true.
There has been no decline in biodiversity in WA forests as a result of prescribed burning since the1950s. Indeed, the reverse is true – in forests protected (by burning) from high intensity wildfire, and in association with fox and feral cat control, the wildlife is flourishing. The number of plant species in the data base is not declining at all, but continues to grow, as your predecessor acknowledged in response to a Parliamentary Question.
The statement (by Murdoch University academics Enright and Fontaine) that fuel reduction burning has no value in controlling wildfires has been seized upon by those opposed to prescribed burning, despite the fact that it is palpably false. Worse than false, the assertion is ridiculous. It repudiates bushfire science and the practical experience of firefighters all over the world across history. The idea that eucalypt forests become non-flammable if left unburnt (invented by academic Phillip Zylstra from Curtin University) and supported by his Curtin University colleague Kingsley Dixon, is patent nonsense. If this was the case it would have been known to generations of foresters, park rangers, farmers, land managers, firefighters and bushwalkers. Curiously not one person other than Dr Zylstra has actually observed or reported this illusionary phenomenon during the last 200 years. We have measured fuels in forests that we know from departmental records have not seen fire for over 90 years, and far from being non-flammable, they are carrying tonnes and tonnes of bushfire fuel.
The credibility of Dr Zylstra, by the way, can be judged from one example: The Bushfire Front invited him to meet with us and go through his experimental design, results and analysis. He refused to do so. We then invited him to take us to areas in the forest that demonstrated his theory. He refused to do so. Instead, he writes letters to newspapers, speaks at gabfests organised by his friends, and gives interviews to gullible journalists. It is also revealing that his published paper on fuel flammability modelling was critiqued by CSIRO scientists and utterly demolished. A second paper, co-authored with an eastern states academic and a zoologist, and widely promulgated on The Conversation, has been shown to be based on laughably shonky methodology. I might also mention that there is a personal aspect to this campaign. Anti-burners are attending prescribed burns and filming P&W staff at work in a way that they (the staff) can be identified and vilified on social media. The staff involved are fine and dedicated young men and women who are doing their job to the best of their ability, under instructions from their District Manager, and implementing government policy. Intimidating and “shaming” young field staff is itself shameful and reveals the depths of unprofessionalism to which these people are prepared to stoop.
Four things characterise this elitist group of academics:
(i) They have little or no real-world experience in bushfire management and no experience in designing and carrying out prescribed burns. We are aware of only one instance where one of them carried out a prescribed burn. This was Dr Kingsley Dixon of Curtin University, and his burn was left unattended and had to be controlled by a Parks and Wildlife crew when it threatened to escape.
(ii) They propose that the current system of bushfire management (evolved and refined over nearly a century) be dismantled, but offer nothing in its place. Nothing other than more and larger water bombers. The futility of this approach is again being demonstrated in California as I write.
(iii) They have no skin in the game, no personal responsibility, and no accountability for bushfire outcomes. They do not, and nor do their families live in places threatened by bushfires. They are able, with carefree abandon, to promote policies that will result in loss of life, economic, social and environmental damage, and other people in the witness box at a Coronial inquiry. They are cold-bloodedly happy to see the lives of our firefighters put at risk, because the policy they advocate will result in larger and more high-intensity bushfires. Their position is a classic example of the “luxury belief” … secure and safe from bushfires in their leafy campuses at Curtin and Murdoch, they can advocate for a situation that puts other people’s lives at risk.
(iv) They are anti-science and anti-environment, because they choose deliberately to ignore the work of real fire scientists like Dr Burrows, Dr Christensen and Dr McCaw, and because the policies they promote result in the incineration of forests, not their protection. It is ironic that these people call themselves conservationists, but are prepared to sacrifice our beautiful forests on ideological grounds.
We urge you to publicly condemn these people, and to disown their dangerous, arrogant and inhumane campaign. In past years we have welcomed strong statements of support for effective bushfire management from the Premier and Environment and Emergency Services Ministers. But in the face of the concerted campaign of undermining coming out of Curtin and Murdoch Universities, this support needs to be redoubled, and publicly promoted by those who are ultimately responsible and accountable (in other words, the government).
In particular we are alarmed at the absence of support from Jane Kelsbie MLA who represents the southern forests and those who live and work in them. We have not seen a single statement supporting government bushfire policy or departmental staff from her, and there is a growing view that she in fact supports the undermining campaigners. She should be disassociating herself from people who are promoting policies that will result in death and destruction in her electorate. Both the first and second McGowan governments have taken a commendable and responsible position in relation to bushfire management, recognising that there is no option to do nothing for the next 100 years while waiting forlornly for the forests to become non-flammable. Your powerful support for DBCA’s professional, tested and effective bushfire management approach will put you at the forefront of bushfire leaders in the world.
We would welcome an opportunity to discuss these issues with you, specifically to get a feeling for what is being done to counter the dangerous and inhumane campaign coming out of Curtin and Murdoch Universities.
Yours sincerely
Roger Underwood AM
Chairman
July 20, 2022
Copies sent to
- Minister Whitby
- Minister Dawson
- Shadow Minister Aldridge
- The Vice Chancellors, Curtin and Murdoch