Tuesday, January 07, 2020

If you want to stop wildfires, put qualified people back in charge of forests

There was a time when Australian foresters kept Australian forests safe and productive.  They maintained access tracks bridges and fire breaks, undertook prescribed burning, cleared flammable litter from the forest floor, cut suckers, manned fire lookouts, and maintained their own fire-fighting crews in decentralized districts.  University-trained professional foresters were supported by tough, experienced rangers who learned their job in the bush.
Almost every advance in bush fire management in Australia, from the science of fire behavior to aerial burning, was thanks to our foresters.  Into the 1980s, they were regarded as international leaders.
To pay for good forest management, sections of the forest were logged, allowing ground space and sunlight for the swift re-growth of new trees.
And those fading die-hards still beating alarm drums about man-made global warming should be reassured — the use of hardwood and softwood timber in power poles, telephone poles, bridges, wharves, posts, sleepers, hay sheds, and houses provided long-term sequestration of the dreaded carbon.  Moreover, growing trees extract CO2 more quickly than mature trees.  Win, win, win....MORE

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you want to stop wildfires stop the arsonists. Australia is having the same problems with arson as California has. Guess who is starting the fires? It ain't the Kangaroos!!!

Anonymous said...

https://pjmedia.com/trending/climate-change-or-arson-24-australians-charged-with-intentionally-setting-bushfires/

Anonymous said...

The Fortescue Metals chairman said he wanted to avoid politicising the issue of the fire recovery, but told reporters arson was the single major cause of Australia’s bushfire crisis not anthropogenic climate change.

“A warming planet is but a small part of what’s happening out there in Australia as you know a large proportion of these fires have been lit by arsonists but it all comes together,” he said.

The California fires fall into the same bracket. But the Fake News and the California swamp will not report the truth.

Anonymous said...

WATCH: Crowd Applauds Volunteer U.S. Firefighters at Sydney Airport
Too bad these US Firefighters are going to be disappointed with the fire organization in Australia compared to that of the USA>. Besides this is just eye candy for the State Department because what are 20+ firefighters going to do in the current fire mess in Australia? No more than what they are able to do in the fires mess in California where arsonists outpace the efforts to corral wildfires. Until the arsonists are caught and punished there will be no control of wildfires until the weather changes and I don't mean global warming. But never the less God bless those firefighters and keep them safe!