We are at a critical point in history; we know for certain that climate change is with us and that we have gone beyond the turning point, due to ignorance, lack of strong leadership and courage in dealing with tough issues.
The Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) fire fear industry has evolved performing wholesale burning of our native forests, contributing and exacerbating the effects of climate change. This frequent burning regime is destroying leaf mulch on forest floors, which dramatically reduces and depletes: moisture, microbes, invertebrates etc - all the necessary ingredients required in the breaking down of leaf matter, hence destroying the symbiotic relationship needed for a healthy forest ecosystem.
We are blindly unaware regular burning of native forest creates more volatile fire prone vegetation types: leguminous woody shrubs with a lifespan of only 5 - 8 yrs, weed invasion, loss of tree canopy; subjecting soil to high temperatures with further moisture loss. Never mind the death of thousands of invertebrates, reptiles, nestlings, marsupials, mammals and flora species. The long-term effects are becoming obvious, as whole ecosystems are becoming extinct at a phenomenal rate.
Wholesale prescribed burns can and do escape, and are known to reignite over summer. Meanwhile, the carbon gasses churned out by wholesale burns create a thick blanket of smoke, sitting in the upper atmosphere for days - sometimes weeks, so dense it blocks out the sun. This would appear to be way more carbon than what a coal fire power station would produce, yet never seen as part of the solution to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.
Particulates from smoke produced by burning our forests are toxic; containing lung irritants acrolein and formaldehyde as well as carbon monoxide, which decrease oxygen levels in the blood. Again there is no action taken on wholesale burning while it contributes to the short and long-term effects to community health.
The government and media have a moral obligation and responsibility, by not supporting the industry's 'fire fear' driven campaign as they have in the past, feeding it with the same ferocity as the very nature of fire itself. It is visual, tragic, emotional and destructive, the very elements required to maintain and drive the 'fire fear' into our psyche.
Yes it is all of those things, as all natural events are, Mother Nature is to be respected. We require education, awareness and personal responsibility as to how we may live and prepare for such events. To have an understanding that this is a natural occurrence, as are cyclones, tornados, tsunamis, floods etc.
DEC`s wholesale native forest burning industry was born out of the native forest logging industry - a juggernaut out of control. As long as these industries continue to rape and pillage our natural environment unchecked and unchallenged, the climate change issue will remain a debarkle.
Wholesale burning and logging is contributing to an imbalance in our natural environment. Wholesale burning is contributing to the ill health of our planet and the ill health of its inhabitants.
Meanwhile what about the moral obligation and responsibility of the government, where is the leadership, who will make the hard decisions for the long-term protection of the health and wellbeing of its people and the planet?
Wholesale burning, is burning down our house.
