Kangaroo Island landowners want to clear more vegetation to stop future fires
Kangaroo Islanders who lost homes, animals and land to last summer’s bushfires still feel vulnerable to the next catastrophe and ongoing climate change. They want to clear more bush but say they are held up by native vegetation rules.
SA News
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Kangaroo Island landowners have told a Senate committee they feel hamstrung in burning off vegetation to reduce the risk of another catastrophic fire.
The committee investigating Australia’s “faunal extinction crisis” travelled to the island on Tuesday to meet with farmers, landowners, foresters, tourism operators and environmentalists about the impact of the region’s summer fires on vulnerable species.
Beekeeper Peter Davis, also a member of the Kangaroo Island Landscape Board, said legislation was stopping landowners and parks managers from burning off or clearing vegetation.
“When you exclude fire, you get catastrophes like we had,” said Mr Davis, who weathered a firestorm that destroyed his son’s home.
“A lot of people have not used fire for fuel reduction but also as a protection method for stopping large-scale fires.”
Stephanie Wurst, whose family lost its Stokes Bay home and half of its livestock, said the community must prevent another catastrophic blaze using measures such as cold burning and roadside vegetation breaks.
“We have to try and look at how we can minimise the risk so we don’t have a catastrophic wildfire event with such an impact on our community,” she said. “It’s time to change the way we manage our landscapes to ensure that we don’t experience further extinctions through … fire and drought.”
Margi Prideaux, who also lost her home, said much swifter action was needed on addressing climate change.
“I would class this as a national emergency level event from an extinction point of view,” she said. “I’ve moved psychologically and physically into a group of people living inside the grip of climate change – it’s here, it’s now and it bites hard.”
Dan Rogers, the Environment Department’s principal adviser on ecology, said endemic invertebrates were now a major concern, including species of spiders and moths, which scientists knew little about. “A lot of those species haven’t been found since the fires,” he said.
Kangaroo Island Eco Action’s Caroline Paterson was worried about large-scale habitat loss. “What’s left of our native vegetation on our roadsides is (also) very important as habitat,” she said.
Meantime, group member Fraser Vickery raised worries about the potential for a planned increase in hazard-reduction burns across the state to place some species at further risk.
A State Government spokesman said reducing fuel hazards made bushfires easier to control and ultimately saved lives and property.
An extra $37m over five years would allow the Government to increase prescribed burns by as much as 50 per cent.
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Davis family survives being trapped in a raging firestorm on Kangaroo Island: See the video
michelle.etheridge@news.com.au
