WA government steadfast on prescribed burns despite mass tingle tree felling

Australia Broadcast Center

4 days ago

A prescribed burn that is estimated to have felled hundreds of rare trees found only in a pocket on Western Australia's south coast has been labelled a success by the department responsible, despite acknowledging it failed to protect the under-threat trees.
The burn in WA's Valley of the Giants, about 400 kilometres south of Perth, in mid-December drew public attention after it was revealed it killed a tingle tree believed to be about 400 years old.
Red tingles can live for more than 500 years, reaching heights of 75 metres, and only grow in a narrow 60-square-kilometre envelope in WA's South West, making them a popular attraction for visitors in the region.
But conservationists and academics who assessed the site say the fire burned beyond guidelines set by the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA), which manages WA's prescribed burning program.
It is now estimated the fire felled or damaged hundreds of trees listed as near threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Prescribed burning is the government's primary method of reducing bushfires in fire-prone forests across the state, with a particular focus on heavily forested land in the South West and Great Southern.
Internal DBCA documents, obtained by the ABC under Freedom of Information (FOI), show no post-burn actions had been completed at the Giants Block site as of April 23, four months later.
The burn closure and evaluation summary, including post-burn actions, burn evaluation summary, lessons learnt, and post-burn checklist, were blank or all listed as incomplete.
DBCA initially declined to release of the documents, saying the process took "many months" to complete, but was compelled to release them under FOI laws.
Responding to subsequent ABC enquiries, a DBCA spokesperson said an assessment was completed a month later, on May 30.
Two weeks after the December burn, members of the Walpole-Nornalup National Park Association (WNNPA) and the WA Forest Alliance (WAFA) assessed the damage.
Uralla Luscomb-Pedro compiled the group's findings into a report.
"After the burn, I went into the burn site and counted the fire-felled trees over an area of around 28 hectares … I counted 60 fire-felled trees."
WNNPA and WAFA have long opposed prescribed burns in the area, arguing the practice causes more environmental damage than it protects.
But conservationists said the department had turned a blind eye to the damage.
"There's been a very strong, continued public push to try and get this issue acknowledged by the department, and that hasn't happened," Ms Luscomb-Pedro said.
"They have been perhaps brick-walling us and not acknowledging the issue."
The DBCA spokesperson said the burn met three criteria for a successful burn, including burning a minimum of 80 per cent of the area, and defoliating no more than 10 per cent of mature tingle and karri canopy.
But they conceded the burn scorched more than the targeted 40 per cent of acceptable karri and tingle tree crowns.
A report following a trial burn of the same plot in 1997, conducted by the then Department of Conservation and Land Management, stated 10 trees per 100 hectares was the highest acceptable loss.
DBCA's criteria appear to place no cap on felling of trees during burns.
As part of the burn program, a research collaboration between DBCA and Perth-based research institutions has been launched to look at the effect of fire on the state's biodiversity.
Murdoch University ecologist Joe Fontaine is managing the flora evaluation and challenged the department's findings.
"How DBCA are structured, in terms of the resources they have, there's not currently invested in doing post-burn monitoring," Dr Fontaine said.
"There's monitoring to make sure [the fires] are not going to escape or it's not still burning, but there's no regular monitoring program in terms of fire effects on plants and animals."
Dr Fontaine said an assessment completed by his team found hundreds of trees had been felled in the fire, and scorching of canopies went beyond department guidelines.
Dr Fontaine said for decades, the department knew tingle forests were susceptible to fire damage, but resisted calls to reform the practice for fear it would impact on burning in other areas.
"If you let one thing go, then you're going to have to start letting other stuff go, and it's going to unravel the whole system."
DBCA's 2023–24 annual report shows over 100,000 hectares of forest in the department's three south-west forest regions were burnt as part of its prescribed burning program.
A further 5,000,000-plus-hectares were managed under prescribed burning conditions in the Kimberley, Pilbara, Goldfields, Midwest, Wheatbelt and South Coast.
Dr Fontaine said prescribed burning had proven to be an effective tool in some parts of the state, including jarrah-rich forests, but was less practical in tingle-rich areas where the mitigation benefits were fewer.
"In the late 90s, there was an exploration of [prescribed burning] and the recommendation was no more than 10 trees per 100 hectares," he said.
"In this case, depending on how you calculate it, it's over 100 trees per hectare."
Minister for the Great Southern Reece Whitby, who was environment minister when the burn took place, defended the department's approach.
But he conceded a better balance was needed.
"There have been some devastating fires in this part of the world that have actually claimed lives in recent years, so there needs to be that balance between keeping the community safe but also protecting the natural environment," he said.
"DBCA, through its mitigating program, is also investing and getting involved with universities to research what the right balance is."
However, Dr Fontaine said there was a political element to the government's decision making.
"It's fascinating to me that DBCA haven't quite grasped that they could just let this one go.
"They could say, 'You know what, we're going to let red tingle go through to the keeper and stop burning it'.
'The amount of political goodwill they would get from that would be massive.
"But this is the hill they're going to die on."