As we reported last week, the State Government has asked the Inspector-General for Emergency Management (IGEM) to conduct a review of performance targets for the future bushfire fuel management program on public land. The review will ‘examine a risk-based approach to bushfire fuel management against the existing hectare-based performance target program.’
Submissions to this review will be received up to 5 pm on Friday March 13. They can be sent to
igem.info@justice.vic.gov.au, or to the
Inspector-General for Emergency Management, GPO Box 4356, Melbourne 3001.
FOBIF has made a submission, the main part of which is reprinted below:
Target or Risk Strategy?
For some years we have argued that a fixed target is not a sensible approach to fire protection, that it would be damaging to biodiversity, would distract attention and resources from public safety measures, and that it would soon become an end in itself, separate from anything to do with actual bushfire risk.
From the beginning we were perplexed by the Royal Commission’s recommendation for a fixed target of fuel reduction, arguing, with many other bodies, that it seemed to be quite detached from any precise strategy of community protection, and that it seemed to contradict the idea espoused by the Commission that local knowledge should be valued , and not straitjacketed into a preordained set of priorities.
The Commission did, however, in recommendations 57 and 58, imply that the target could be altered if monitoring of its effects showed that would improve public safety, or biodiversity, or both. Why else have a monitoring system, if you don’t think it’s going to improve your practice where necessary?