Strategic Fuel Breaks? Rescheduled to 20 October

Rescheduled due to rain and Muckleford Creek flooding.

DELWP have established an east-west strategic fuel break along Bells Lane Track in the Muckleford Forest. The process involved cutting and mulching for a distance either side of the track, except where the vegetation was judged to be of a high quality or had strong habitat values, particularly in the Conservation Reserve section. Only understorey plants were cut and mulched. DELWP did some pre-work consultation in May 2022 and community members provided their views on sections where cutting and mulching should be minimized.

On Thursday 20 October, there is an opportunity for anyone interested to find out more through:

a look at the works done along Bells Lane Track – meet at 11.30am at the eastern end of the track at the corner of Bells Lane Track and Muckleford School Road (45 mins)
a presentation by DELWP plus discussion – Newstead Community Centre (Lyons Street, Newstead) – 12.30-2pm

Interested? Just turn up! DELWP contact is Justine M Leahy (DELWP) justine.leahy@delwp.vic.gov.au

(Also posted on the Muckleford Forest blog)

Strategic Fuel Breaks?

On Thursday 6 October, there is an opportunity for anyone interested to find out more through:

a look at the works done along Bells Lane Track – meet at 11.30am at the eastern end of the track at the corner of Bells Lane Track and Muckleford School Road (45 mins)
a presentation by DELWP plus discussion – Newstead Community Centre (Lyons Street, Newstead) – 12.30-2pm

Interested? Just turn up! DELWP contact is Justine M Leahy (DELWP) justine.leahy@delwp.vic.gov.au

(Also posted on the Muckleford Forest blog)

The state of the environment: Cultural burning

The recently released State of the Environment Report has attracted a lot of media attention. This article in The Conversation looks at what the report says in relation to cultural burning and ‘institutional’ bushfire management programs – ‘planned’ or ‘prescribed’ burns.

While the article refers to 25 years of research in the ‘stone country’ of the Arnhem Land Plateau, one of the observations is that ‘once the ecological benefits of cultural burning are lost, they cannot be simply restored with mainstream fire management approaches’ using the cypress pine (Callitris spp.) as a case study.

Arnhem Land, NT. [Photo by Vladimir Haltakov on Unsplash}

One of the differences the article highlights is that ‘institutional fire management’ tends to be large-scale, and ‘based on concepts of efficiency and generality. It is controlled by bureaucracies, and achieved using machines and technologies’. It is an ‘industrial approach’ rather than using ‘place-based’ knowledge and close relationships with Country.

Here is the link to the article: New research in Arnhem Land reveals why institutional fire management is inferior to cultural burning (the full research report is here – https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-12946-3).

Bu can we use both traditional knowledge and technology? A recently webinar by Australian Wildlife Conservancy on jointly-managed areas in the Kimberley highlighted that helicopters were being used to conduct cultural burning in remote locations. Instead of the helicopter flying a ‘standard’ pattern and the operator dropping incendiaries at regular intervals, the approach was that a traditional owner/elder for each patch of Country would be in the helicopter and determine precisely where fire was to be released into the landscape. Many helicopter trips no doubt, but sounds like a great example of combining and using knowledge, connections and technology.

Fire for Healthy Country

Cultural burn: Wooragee Landcare Workshop with Elder Uncle Ron Mason (2019)

Working with Dja Dja Wurrung and DELWP, the Talking Fire project is planning a Djandak Wi cultural burn over the winter months.

Djandak Wi is the term used by Djaara – Dja Dja Wurrung people, the Traditional Owners for our part of Central Victoria – for the process of returning cultural fire to Country.

The project seeks to deepen and transform our understanding of how to care for our local landscape by bringing Djaara knowledge and experience into a practical experience of using fire as a way of caring for Country.

Since we announced the project in the Newstead Echo in February 2021, we have been looking at potential public land locations, talking about practicalities, and inviting key local organisations to get involved. The chosen location is in the Muckleford Forest, close to the Newstead-Maldon Road, and part of the proposed planned burn area known as ‘Bruce’s Track’.

You can find out more about the project on this webpage. You might also like to look at some of the resources on Aboriginal cultural burning that we have added to our Resources page.

Please head to our home page to ‘follow’ Talking Fire for updates on this project and to learn how you can be part of one or more of our workshops or yarning sessions.

Or you can follow Talking Fire on Facebook.

Talking Fire is a project of Newstead 2021 Inc and was initiated by the Muckleford Forest Friends Network. Talking Fire aims to support and initiate community conversations to build understandings of the place of fire in our landscape.

The Fire for Health Country project in Newstead is supported by Wettenhall Environment Trust as a pilot in their Burning Country program.

Hear Stephen Pyne talk on fire policy

Over the next few weeks you can hear Professor Stephen Pyne – US historian and fire policy analyst – speak at a number of events – in Bendigo and Melbourne.

I heard Stephen speak last year. He brings an extraordinary perspective on the history of the development of fire policies in the USA, and in parallel here in Australia. His analysis points to the many failures in these policies – in the past and today.

Here are five opportunities to hear him:

Living with Fire: Tues 6 August, 9.30am-2pm,
La Trobe University City Campus Level 20, 360 Collins St, Melbourne.
Bookings essential – Eventbrite ($40/$20 concession)

Humans have been living with fire in the landscape for millennia. However, different groups within society (e.g. indigenous people, urban and rural residents, scientists, govt land management agencies and politicians) can have quite different views on the place of fire in the landscape. Many climatologists predict that the frequency, severity and extent of bushfires will increase under most future climate change scenarios.

La Trobe University’s Centre for the Study of the Inland and its Research Centre for Future Landscapes are bringing people together to discuss constructive ways of valuing different cultural perspectives on living with fire, to address this growing challenge in a sustainable and holistic manner.

With the renowned Professor Stephen Pyne (Arizona State University) delivering the keynote address, followed by presentations from Lee Miezis (Deputy Secretary, Forest, Fire and Regions DELWP, Professor Dick Williams (Charles Darwin University, formerly with CSIRO, Dr Tim Neale (Deakin Uni, ) and Trent Nelson (Parks Vic) and ending with a panel discussion with all the presenters, this will be a seminar not to be missed. Includes morning tea and lunch.

Fire’s American Century:
Wed 7 August, 6-8pm, Melbourne Museum Theatrette.
Bookings essential – Eventbrite – Free

Renowned environmental historian, Professor Stephen Pyne, is the speaker for the 2019 Bernard Bailyn Lecture in North American History. Stephen Pyne will outline how the American fire scene and national policies have evolved from the late 19th century to the early 21st. No-one has written more extensively on fire than Stephen Pyne. And it isn’t only American fires that have piqued his curiosity over the years.

Planning for the Pyrocene: Stephen Pyne and Tom Griffiths
Sunday 11 August, 3.00-4.00pm, Strategem Studio
Bendigo Writers Festival: Ticket for this event

Here we are, in 2019, and it seems we have no idea how to manage fire in our combustible landscape. Does controlled burning help or hinder? What have we learnt from the devastating deadly fires of recent years? Stephen J Pyne has written many books on fire management, including A Fire History of Australia and Fire on Earth. Following the Californian fires of 2018, he has written about the new age we are now entering, calling it the “pyrocene”. Stephen talks with Tom Griffiths about how communities can plan with confidence by understanding their environments and how they are changing.

There are also two other events at the Bendigo Writers Festival:

Fire People: Chloe Hooper, Stephen Pyne, Sian Gard
Friday 9 August, 3.15-4.15, Bendigo Bank Theatre
Bendigo Writers Festival: Day or Festival Pass holders only

There are those who light them and those who fight them. Beyond headlines about the ever-increasing danger of fire, the devastation of a firestorm, and the losses that follow, from out of the communities affected come the stories about what happened and how it makes them feel. Stephen Pyne and Chloe Hooper talk to Sian Gard about the way fire changes lives, and about finding ways to describe those experiences. Can writing get close to conveying both the fire and the people whose lives are marked indelibly by it?

Fieldwork:
Saturday 10 August, 1.15-2.15pm, Capital Theatre
Bendigo Writers Festival: Day or Festival Pass holders only
What do we know about the places we live, the bush, the towns by the side of bitumen and dirt, the people who live and work beyond the city cluster? It’s through the curiosity and patient effort of writers who make the journeys and spend time asking the questions that we come to understand the country and people’s place in it. Paul Barclay is joined by three “fieldwork” writers – Gabrielle Chan, Kim Mahood and Stephen Pyne – to ask about where they go, how they travel, what they take with them and what they bring back.