NYUNGAR elders spoke out against prescribed burning in the southwest during a recent visit to Bridgetown.
“They don’t understand what they are doing,” Nyungar elder George Morrison said.
“They burn to some diary. We live our seasons and we see each day on its merit. We do not do big fires, this is lazy, we burn only what we need to burn and only when mother nature would want us to. We would not burn on the hottest of days and in winds that will carry flames and embers.”
Following the Nannup prescribed burn which escaped and set alight 32,000 hectares in the Blackwood region, and a Fire Emergency and Services Authority (FESA) report listing Bridgetown, Donnybrook, Boyanup, Boyup Brook and Nannup in the state’s 77 highest risk hot spots, a total fire ban was declared in the southwest during extreme weather in late December.
This included the shires of Boyup Brook, Bridgetown-Greenbushes, Donnybrook-Balingup, Manjimup and Nannup.
A DEC spokesperson said there would be no further burnings prescribed for these areas during the remainder of the summer – only to be proved wrong when a controversial DEC prescribed burn was undertaken northeast of Walpole in late December.
A DEC spokeswoman said the prescribed burn went ahead because fuels remaining in the burn area had become suitable to burn, and the local weather conditions at Walpole were suitable.
“The burn had had a number of previous ignitions and therefore contained ‘live’ fire. The remaining fuels needed to be burnt for the burn to be made secure,” she said.
Mr Morrison said the southwest was made of many trails.
“Some they need to walk to understand the terrain and the conditions, and these walks will tell them whether a burn is needed or not. The southwest has its heart with the Bibbulmun trail which goes from one end of Nyungar forests to the other. From Albany, through Walpole, to Pemberton, so through our native old growth forests, to Balingup, Collie, Dwellingup and to Kalamunda in the Perth hills near where the terrible fires of Roleystone last year destroyed so many homes,” he said.
Well known Nyungar Dr Bill Hayward, Australia’s first practicing Aboriginal chiropractor, was born in Katanning and raised in Collie and while in Bridgetown spoke against DEC prescribed burns practices.
“What they’re doing is asking for trouble. You only burn when you need to, that’s what our people did, only when they could see they needed to reduce forest fuels,” he said.
“They were controlled burns in small areas. You are often better served by waiting rather than putting communities at risk. Because of the Ash Wednesday fires in Victoria much more was made of forest fuel reduction. Non-Aboriginal peoples are part of a blame culture and want easy solutions. Our people did not do burns each year.”
The DEC spokeswoman said DEC recognised traditional Aboriginal burning practices, and so far as possible incorporated these into its prescribed burning program while also meeting community safety objectives.
The DEC maintained prescribed burns were not arbitrary and were necessary to effectively reduce fuel reduction in forests.
A recent Council of Australian Governments (COAG) report disagreed with the DEC arbitrary target. Page 104 stated, “Comparing the gross area treated annually in fuel-reduction burning – that is, for a whole agency, region or state – with a published target is not a good basis for assessing performance and is likely to be counterproductive.”
The report stated there were risks to life and property and concluded, “...at a state or regional level the area actually treated in fuel-reduction programs in a particular year bears little direct relationship to the real reduction in risk.”
The DEC spokeswoman said DEC’s annual prescribed burning target of around 200,000 hectares in the south-west forests reflected the proportion, around eight per cent, of the forests that studies have shown needed to be burnt annually to restrict the extent of forest fires to less than one per cent of the south west landscape each year.
“DEC’s prescribed burning practices are not determined by ‘arbitrary policies’,” she said.
“Rather, they are determined by scientific research and practical experience and the need to protect communities and the environment from intense summer bushfires.”
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