You
are definetely not alone. I brought this issue up a year ago, and have since
talked to quite a lot of people with the same view. The Conservation Council
organised an interesting meeting and set up a subgroup to tackle the issue,
mainly around fuel hazard reduction burning, but also fuel hazard reduction
chopping and clearing. This group has not progressed too far and finds it hard
to ‘battle the mindset’ of many people involved with bushfire reduction methods,
plus probably contractors lack of understanding, the excuse is always ‘we are
just following the strategic bushfire plan’, which is rubbish as I have read
it.
They have burnt very good patches of the red stringybark
forest on The Pinnacle (when a vulnerable small purple pea was flowering-[NSW])
then ‘cleared’ another section about 6 weeks later. Within 3 years 70-100% of
the patch has been affected and this is after 3 years of drought and no fuel on
the ground. Where speckled warblers, sittellas and white winged trillers have
bred, and diamond firetails were recently seen. The burning has actually killed
50 trees, thus creating more fuel.
Other sites that were to be burnt included
allocasuarinas on Mt Majura (glossy food), Stirling Ridge (while an
endangered daisy was flowering) [but I think my emails stopped these],
Aranda bushland (when most has already been burnt). Gossan Hill. Temperly
Pl (why???)
Hazard reduction bulldozing/clearing has also recently
been done along Belconnen
Way in Aranda, where they also cut down some very
mature looking yellow box_redgums which provide a corridor between gossan and
aranda. Clearing rocks in grasslands with threatened lizard species that rely on
rocks, bulldozing through cooleman ridge rehabilitated areas, the list goes on
and on.
The
narrow-minded interpretation of their own rules seems to blind them to simple
facts eg the Pinnacle is surrounded by huge areas with no trees or cover where
firetrucks can drive, that a nature reserves primary goal is to conserve
native species, and that these reserves need to be connected. That this
could all be done in a win-win with bushfire reduction if planned a little and
then we dont have to be in conflict.
COG
is involved in the Conservation Council’s Biodiversity working group and on the
Council (Jenny Bounds and Jack Holland). Tell your member and get involved. They
are trying to get the mindset of corridors and connectivity into ACT
planning.
Benj Whitworth
On Fri, Jun 6, 2008 at 10:47 AM, Mark Clayton <> wrote:
Hi all,
I have watched with interest the
debate over the clearing of the willow species along the Molonglo River.
Generally I am quite happy for this to happen but will be interested to see
what species are used to replant the cleared areas. However there two far more
serious issues going on in at least some parts of Canberra that no-one seems
to be concerned about; firstly the almost complete removal of all large Acacia
species and the pruning of Eucalypts and other "native" species to within an
inch of their life along the road verges. This I assume is a so-called
response to the potential for a future bushfire wiping out Canberra after the
2003 fires. Over the last six months or so I have watched as trees along
Ginninderra Drive have either been totally removed or severely pruned. In
Kaleen and Giralang along Baldwin Drive ALL Acacias
have been removed and all the lower branches and most double trunks on the
Eucalypts and Casuarinas have been cut off to at least about 2 metres from the
ground. Certainly there was a need to clear some of the larger dead Acacias.
Many of these Acacias provided food for Superb Parrots (especially A.
baileyana which is classed as an invasive species) and many smaller species
such as the thornbills, particularly species like the Yellow Thornbill. All
the material pruned from these trees is mulched and all over the parts of
northern Canberra that I regularly travel through are dotted piles of this
mulch – some of these piles have been in
situ for more than two years. If the government is serious about
fire control measures then we may as well totally clear Mounts Ainslie and
Majura, Black Mountain, Red Hill and all the other hills with any sort of
vegetation on them. This current exercise is a total knee jerk reaction from
someone who has no idea what they are doing.
The second issue is the total
destruction of plants in many areas so that we can build ever more housing
locally – what I assume is called the "in-fill policy". Some of the latest
examples is the block of units being built along (I think) Totterdell Street
near the Belconnen Mall. This whole area several years ago was a well wooded
park and Regent Honeyeaters have been recorded in the general vicinity. There
is also the expansion of Radford College into the natural bush in Bruce as
well as the hospice opposite Calvary Hospital along Hayden Drive. Every time I
drive around the city I see more and more destruction of small patches of
bush. I am sure most long-term Canberra residents remember the small weather
station surrounded by trees that was opposite the ANU between Barry Drive and
Boulderwood Street in Turner. It now has town houses planted on it. I have
often wondered if I would be allowed to tender for the wood-chipping rights to
all these area as I would by now be a very wealthy person!!!
It is all well and good to say
Canberra has a good network of reserves (it doesn't!!!) but if birds can't
move between these reserves we will soon loose our biodiversity. I think
everyone is aware that the ACT Government recently announced a moratorium on
developing parts of the central Molonglo Valley and that a study was being
undertaken on the Brown Treecreeper population in the "Kama" block at West
Belconnen. I am assisting Chris Davey with this study but personally believe
that this population will disappear sooner rather than later. Look at what has
happened to the Brown Treecreeper in both Mulligan's Flat NR and the lower
slopes of the Mount Ainslie/Campbell park areas – they have gone and both
these areas have access to huge areas of potentially suitable habitat for the
species to move through. I have lived in Canberra for over 50 years, arriving
here as a small child in the early 1950s, and have watched as the city grows
and we loose more and more bird species and general natural history. Brown
Treecreepers, Southern Whitefaces, Hooded Robins, Jacky Winters, Varied
Sittellas etc, etc were common breeding species where we now have Fern Hill
"Technology" Park when I lived in O'Connor – I doubt if any of these species
are still present along O'Connor Ridge.
Canberra is very rapidly in danger of
loosing its title of the Bush Capital. I don't think this current ACT
Government has the faintest idea about the local environment, despite the best
efforts of COG. Are we as a group going to sit back and watch all this happen
before our eyes or is there more that COG can do?
I look forward to people's
comments and opinions.
Mark
