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NewsLost in our wildernessIf we continue to ignore history and the nature of the bush and how to manage it wisely there will be further problems from fires, argues Professor Ken Taylor (Faculty of Environmental Design at the University of Canberra) in The Canberra TimesNature’s all right in her place, but she mustn’t be allowed to make things untidy.’’ Whether you agree with this comment from the character in Cold Comfort Farm depends on which side of the park-management fence you sit, particularly in the controlled use of fire to manage fuel loads in our urban open spaces and national parks. Inevitably the unprecedented bushfires are raising timely debate in Canberra on fire management in the ACT open-space system. Aled Hoggett’s commentary (CT, January 31, p. 21), for example, is a welcome reflection. Canberra’s open-space system includes public open space within and adjacent to the suburbs - including the critical urban edge - and in the remoter national parks. For the latter it is those parts of the parks relatively near urban zones that are critical, given the way we have seen the devastating ability of fire to spread from them to the urban area. For a number of years many of us have been voicing concern at the palpably apparent accumulation of ground litter. Over the last three years I have had the privilege of doing a weekly broadcast on ABC 2CN on Canberra’s suburbs. This has involved comprehensive site visits to each of our 90 or so suburbs. Apart from getting a feeling of the intense sense of place and emotional engagement of people with their suburb very much grounded in the landscape character of Canberra’s Bush Capital image I have viewed with mounting alarm the build-up of ground fuel in our bushy urban open spaces. Generally it is not the network of open spaces which is at fault, nor the predominantly locally indigenous plant material. Rather, it is the lack of control of the accumulation of highly combustible woodland litter material. When conceived by the NCDC in the 1970s as an extension of earlier plans for a landscape skeleton on which the city plan would hang, the network was called the National Capital Open Space System. It was seen to have a multi-purpose function as public urban open space, flood control, ground water recharge, nature conservation and others. Some time after self-government the name was changed to Canberra Nature Park. For some managers and environmentalists that signalled a philosophical shift in the function and meaning of the system. It became and remains a quasi-national park; a kind of ersatz wilderness where fuel-reduction burning and sensible management as an urban open space are compromised. If you think I exaggerate, take a walk along the Aranda edge of Black Mountain. The fuel accumulation is scary. Using Black Mountain as an example, it is difficult to understand what the aim is and what is trying to be created. I suspect it is some notion of reclaiming ‘‘wilderness’’. But it never was that, even when Europeans arrived. Examination of early descriptions indicate an open woodland attractive for grazing. This suggests to those of us who know how to read the landscape that Aboriginal management created an open woodland free of understorey shrubs and accumulated litter and dead branches. Nevertheless, it must be said that there are some parts of the open-space system that are tortuous, creating difficulties of quick access. This does not mean that we get rid of them (one can imagine the reaction in the suburbs) but that we look seriously at their landscape character. The issue of the pine forest close to suburbs also poses problems and no doubt will be rethought. But it is worth remembering the fire did not start in the pines. In the inquiries that are to follow, much attention will focus on arguments for and against fuel-reduction burning. This will involve objective assessment of fuel loads, combustibility, and management options. I suggest that we would do well also to look at historical records of the condition and appearance of indigenous woodlands over time for both city bushlands and the national parks. Black Mountain is a city example. There are similarities beyond the city edge in Namadgi. When Europeans arrived there around 1828 with stock what they found landscape-wise is notable. From the descriptions we can deduce that it was open Snow Gum woodland with an abundant grassy understorey devoid of shrubby undergrowth. There were large open tracts of grassland as at Gudgenby and others on the tops of some of the hills. Apart probably from some grasslands, this was not natural. It was a result of Aboriginal burning over time and, as many of us believe, to a preconceived mental plan. They controlled nature, including stopping tree regeneration on the grasslands, and created a cultural landscape pattern which aided their hunting techniques and movement. Why would they want or tolerate a litter-laden, untidy and, in places, impenetrable mess? The problem now is that we don’t know how they did it. There have been fires in and around the Namadgi area since 1828, but none of the magnitude of January 2003. Inevitably, to any landscape historian the question is: Why? The grinding drought does not explain it away. That is only one part of the equation of disaster. The history of human occupation and management from Aboriginal people through European phases must be examined. Inevitably the seriousness of the build-up of combustible litter and the changing face of the landscape must come into question. The bush is not a fragile thing that can be left with minimal intervention. It is hard, brittle and unforgiving. It responds to burning because that is how it evolved under human influence. What we have in and around Canberra is reflective of the dry sclerophyll woodland belt of south-eastern Australia. If you want to see what it looked like when Europeans arrived and eulogised over its open grassy nature - which we now know was an Aboriginal cultural artefact - look at some of our early colonial landscape paintings. We also know that in many areas there are now more trees than when Europeans arrived and some grassy areas that existed as a result of Aboriginal management are now treed. The challenge now is for the politicians to listen seriously to a wider range of management techniques. Those of us advocating such an approach have been over-ruled and we have not had the political ear. If we continue to ignore history and the nature of the bush and how to manage it wisely there will be further problems, perhaps not in the near future in the immediate national parks, for the tragedy there is that so much has gone and taken with it grazing land that did not deserve to go. But there will be problems from the city bushland unless we act to review management. In the meantime, keep your hoses ready. Return to the News Archive |
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