Bushfires: Western Australia’s burning regime concerns ecologists

The West Australian government has stepped up prescribed burns in national parks, on crown land and in local government areas.

The Morrison government’s inquiry­ into hazard-reduction burns in the wake of this summer’s scorching bushfires will hear that the West Australian government has stepped up prescribed burns in national parks, on crown land and in local government areas.

 Almost half the national parks and reserves in Western Aust­ralia’s drought-affected southwest forest region have undergone ­controlled burns to reduce the age of undergrowth and leaf litter.

 As at June 30, 48 per cent of about 2.5 million hectares of southwest forests had a fuel age of less than six years since last burnt.

 The state’s Department of Biodiversit­y, Conservation and Attractions says it aims to prescribe-burn a target of 200,000ha each financial year.

Over the past four years, an average of 197,129ha in three key forest regions has been hazard-reduced.

 NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons warned last week that hazard-­reduction burns were being hampere­d by longer fire seasons and extreme weather. He said reductio­n burns were “not the panacea” some may be looking for to temper bushfires.

 But the West Australian ­government says it will step up fire mitigation on all forms of land, including­ unallocated crown land and unmanaged reserves, with a new $35m fund for the Department of Fire and Emergency Services­ to reduce fire risk on land that other jurisdictions are not taking­ responsibility for.

 Bushland in local government areas will also be targeted, with a $30m fund for local councils to identify bushfire risk and carry out fire control. Fifty-five councils have already signed up for funding for bushfire risk management.

 The intensified burning regime has alarmed the Leeuwin Group of ecologists and botanists, who say Western Australia’s globally recognised biodiversity in the plant-rich southwest could suffer extinctions.

 It calls for widespread prescribed burns in national parks to be replaced by essential burning around towns and facilities and more equipment that will extinguish­ fires quickly.

 Stephen Hopper, former director of Britain’s Kew Gardens and a Leeuwin member, says Western Australia’s policy “is driving DBCA staff in some districts to burn national parks frequently to make up quotas for the 200,000ha forest targets set by government over the past decade’’.

 “This is because they can burn larger areas at less cost than focusing where they should — burning close to strategic human life and towns, farms, infrastructure and fence lines and protecting sensit­ive biodiversity from fire in conservation reserves,” Professor Hop­per said.

He said some rare endemic plants and animals on granite rocks and 5000-year-old peatland swamps were “being incinerated”.

 Professor Hopper prescribed burn that got out of control had threatened more than 10 threatened plant species atop the eastern Stirling Range — “one of the greatest concentr­ations of endangered plants in a small area in the world”.