Like all health advocates we support ,to a man, the need for massive firefighting effort when lives are at risk .
But like all health profesionals, we mustn't allow the present crisis to prevent us from preventing the next one .
Will the massive expenditure on attempted fire control and the technological wizardry of the new milleneum prevent something bigger than 1939 from happening? Will the goverenmnets huge resources for planning and doing long term land use planning be diverted and squandered on reactionary and ineffective windowdressing. Playing around on the boundaries of a problem made too big to "solve"? . Will firefighting and shallow reactionary stuff be the enduring symbol of the Bracks legacy; Conflagration rather than conservation .natural resource non management rather than natural resource management. Its been Government by defence rather than government by attack. rather brings the word sustainability into disrepute?
Will, for example the huge expenditure on fire management by Mr Thwaites in 2006 make up for the damage done by his carelessly closing down forests for multiple use and management? How much money will be spent for the priveleged few land managers who remain like blatant heretics to behave in ways which, he, Mr Thwaites has declared ' no longer acceptable". There are some wild land advocates who would say " let it all burn - that's the natural imperative " I wonder if Mr thwaites or Ms carbines is influenced by their simple ideological modelling?
While it may suit some to sell utopian dreams, the best way to have our cakes and eat them too is to allow for biodiversity .That 's not what the simple idealogues can handle .After all they don't study the subject to show themeslees approved leaders in the field . Yet , if we did what the wild ones wanted most of the plantation timbers and your superannuation would go up in smoke too - and more often than is naturally good for any one element of the ecosystem. !Posted Dec
16th 2006
