According to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change late last month, sequestering carbon dioxide is only one of the crucial climate-regulating attributes inherent to the world’s forests.
According to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change late last month, sequestering carbon dioxide is only one of the crucial climate-regulating attributes inherent to the world’s forests.
So much for claims that the Aberfeldy fire started in the national park. This photo shows the Aberfeldy Range and looks north, the Thompson dam is on the left there and the Baw Baw National Park is the other side of the dam and 15 kms upwind of where it started! This area currently on …
In the high country of Victoria, firefighters are presently battling a large bushfire that is moving through the forests south of Harrietville and past the second highest mountain in Victoria, Mt. Feathertop. It has threatened small communities, hikers, come within 50m of the boundary of the Hotham Heights alpine resort, and – most devastating of …
A recurring theme in Australia’s environmental history is the quest for the Grand National Narrative. The desire to create the universal ‘big picture’ story that is everywhere relevant, everywhere important. This theme dominates many popular environmental histories, from Eric Rolls’ A Million Wild Acres to Tim Flannery’s Future Eaters and Bill Gammage’s recent book, The Biggest Estate on Earth. The quest for over-generality …
A FIREFIGHTERS’ union has called on the Federal Government to take urgent action against climate change, saying that current policy on greenhouse gas emissions would lead to disasters on the scale of the Victorian fires almost every year. In an open letter to the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the Victorian Premier, John Brumby, the …
Dr Chris Taylor has analysed the land areas burnt in the Tassie Peninsular Forcett fires. Dr Taylor also easily discredited claims of parks and unburnt bush being the cause of past Victorian mega-fires. His latest assessment of the Forcett fire shows only 7% of the fire was within conservation areas and the majority of the …
“Indeed I guess there’ll be more CO2 emissions from these fires than there will be from coal-fired power stations for decades.” – acting Opposition leader, Warren Truss, January 9, 2013 On Wednesday, leader of the National Party and acting Opposition Leader, Warren Truss claimed carbon emissions from the current bushfires are equivalent to decades of …
There is extensive knowledge of how plants respond to fire, but little on how fauna respond. Michael Clarke says blanket recommendations of how much land should be burned as hazard reduction are made without any knowledge of how fauna will respond in local areas. He says more work is being done monitoring fauna and studying …
OK – it goes like this – VicForests haven’t made a cracker since they started operations in 2004. In 2008 they put $127 million through their books and the expenses were $132 million = $5M loss. But they were given a $5.7M handout to cut down ash forests in the fire areas (not all this …
Former Victorian Police Commissioner Neil Comrie who has the job of monitoring the response to the Black Saturday Royal Commission, says a target to burn 5% of Victoria’s public land every year must be reconsidered. Neil Comrie is now saying what we have for years – DSE should instead focus on protecting high-risk fire areas …
The largest area of forest since 1991 was burnt by DSE this last season. DSE publicly celebrated a whopping 197,000 ha that they burnt last season out of their 225,000ha target for 2011-12. Wet conditions thankfully slowed down the East Gippsland burns. Next year DSE plans to torch a quarter of a million hectares across …
