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Ingram speaks at international environmental conference

Mr Ingram was among guest speakers at the Environment Institute of Australia & New Zealand (EIANZ) International Conference held in Broken Hill, NSW, from October 23 – 26.

By Craig Ingram - 24th October 2003 - Back to News

The impact of fires in East Gippsland earlier this year and the push for more fuel reduction burning were two of the issues raised at and international environmental conference attended by the Independent Member for Gippsland East, Craig Ingram.

Mr Ingram was among guest speakers at the Environment Institute of Australia & New Zealand (EIANZ) International Conference held in Broken Hill, NSW, from October 23 – 26.

"The Outback Summit - Earth, Fire, Water, Spirit - was held to focus on environmental management issues and challenges and featured speakers from across Australia in addition to many invited international speakers," Mr Ingram said.

Presenting a paper titled ‘East Gippsland: Burned at the Political Stake’, Mr Ingram stated that there is ample scientific evidence that fire has had an essential role in the evolution of Australia’s landscape for many centuries.

"Fires have been started deliberately and accidentally by man and naturally by nature, but the wildfires that swept through large areas of my electorate during the summer of 2003 were not natural," he told the conference.

"This fire behaviour seemed to be attributable in most parts to excessive fuel on the forest floor; a factor that had worried locals for decades.

"The environmental consequences of the fire have been extreme and the long-term environmental impact will take years to fully assess.

"In the aftermath of the fires many issues have emerged that need to be addressed - some issues have been simmering for decades.

"In my region, large sections of the community are extremely angry at the government agencies responsible for public land management, as they have failed in their duty of care to maintain the forested areas adjacent to private land in a reasonable condition to protect private assets from wildfire.

"We have an opportunity to start from scratch in the alpine areas after this fire season. The extremely large area that was burnt in the fire perimeter would allow the DSE to change its fire suppression response in that area and allow the natural lighting strikes to burn and re establish the natural mosaic fire areas that occured pre-European settlement.

"Combined with active fire prevention surrounding private land holdings, the current conditions would mean that there is no significant threat from wild fire within the burnt area for the next couple of decades, but this would require a significant policy and institutional change in mind set.

"Before last summer’s fires, a senior DSE manager in Victoria stated that if the government spent the money that it costs to import one Erickson sky crane in the autumn for fire prevention, we would meet the targets of fuel reduction and ecological burning in Victoria most years and would need the services of the sky cranes less in summer.

"In an electorate that is made up of 80% national parks and state forests which represents a major part of the biodiversity reserves established in this country we cannot afford to continue to manage our public lands as we have over the past 200 years.

"Managing fire in this flammable country is an incredible challenge. Reintroducing a more natural fire regime and even determining what is a natural fire regime in a substantially changed landscape will require the best efforts of public land managers and the full support of the community.

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: news@gippsland.com

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