“The expression of truth is simplicity”
Seneca the Younger 4BC-65AD
David Jefford Ward, April 2022
The late Professor John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was a well known fiction writer, one of his books being ‘Lord of the Rings’.1 Yet some have complained that a film made in New Zealand based on this book over simplified his ideas, which have a deeper side, based on ancient Saxon, Welsh and Norse thinking. In his imagined ‘middle-earth’, somewhere between heaven and hell, he suggested an interesting ‘moral geography’. Modifying this idea, we might imagine two axes of human thought, perpendicular to each other, one running from simple to complex, the other from true to false. As well as many other uses, this truth and simplicity chart may be a useful tool for assessing academic ideas submitted for publication in journals of both science and humanities.
Browsing on YouTube, I found a video by A/Professor Philip Zylstra, of Curtin University.2 As he talked, at some length, about his ideas on Australian bushfire management, he made me think of ‘moral geography’. I recommend that those interested in bushfire watch the video, using ‘moral geography’ to evaluate it.
Zylstra’s ideas on bushfire management have, quite recently (2022), been published in ‘Environmental Research Letters’ with two co-authors, both zoologists.3 I note that the letter was partly funded by the San Diego Zoo and Botanical Garden, through the Australian Network for Plant Conservation. I also note, from the website of ‘Environmental Research Letters’, that its publication fee for a letter with three coloured figures is over $4,000 AUD. I wonder why, for a very Australian matter, funding and publication were sought overseas. Was the letter rejected in Australia?
One of Zylstra’s core beliefs is that withholding fire from south-west Australian eucalypt forests for at least four decades will make those forests less flammable, even in a warming climate. This idea must bring joy to those who have long claimed that frequent, deliberate (prescribed) burning is ‘harmful to biodiversity’.
However, experienced fire fighters and managers will wonder how summer fire, even if due to lightning alone, can be totally excluded from eucalypt forests for four decades or more, in the well known presence, every hot day in summer, of a cloud of highly flammable terpene (cineole) gas around eucalypt crowns, and nests of dead leaves, bark and sticks perched within tree crotches as kindling.
Professor Zylstra and his colleagues and supporters, given their opinions on climate warming, should be aware that the flash point of terpene gas, at least in a closed space (inside a hollow tree?), is only 48˚C. Imagine the situation if hot days in forests eventually reach such temperatures in some parts of the south-west? The hot areas of forest will spontaneously ignite from crown to ground, and the heavier the accumulated ground fuel, the hotter the fire will be. As a further worry, some of us have long known that dry bark on a tree can carry a summer lightning strike down the stem to ignite dry bark, leaves and sticks shed on the ground in previous years.
Competent ecologists might wonder how native plants that need fire or smoke for germination can be conserved indefinitely without fire; and especially how the nitrogen supply of eucalypt forests can be maintained during a decline in soil nitrogen fixation from bacteria in the roots of plants such as legumes4 and cycads.5 These last two papers show that most nitrogen fixation from these plants is maintained for only 3-4 years after fire.
I have no doubt people will answer these questions in different ways, depending on their grasp of forest ecology and history; how much practical bushfire experience they have had; their socially learnt forest management ideology; and their insight into the reliability, or unreliability, of some ‘refereed bushfire science’. I hope ‘moral geography’ will help them. Some answers may be true and simple, some false and complicated. Even the other two possibilities may pop up.
A small book I have recently published in Australia,6 without funding from overseas, offers some clear historical evidence that Noongar people in south-west Australia have a long history of deliberate burning, with common fire intervals of only 2-4 years in the jarrah/marri , tuart, and wandoo forests, and some heathlands. Other evidence which may help is in my doctoral thesis,7 available freely online.
Other views on Professor Zylstra’s ideas have already come from two CSIRO bushfire scientists, Dr Miguel Cruz and Dr Andrew Sullivan.8 I wonder how they would rate Zylstra’s ‘moral geography’ ?
I have sent an earlier version of this article to Professor Zylstra for his comments, but have so far received no reply. I am puzzled, and welcome comments from anybody with significant practical bushfire experience; scientific knowledge of bushfire behaviour and ecology; and genuine interest in how these mesh, or fail to mesh, with historical and archaeological evidence of past frequent and widespread burning of grasses, shrubs, heaths and forests by Noongar people in south-west Australia.6
This article relates to the ongoing debate on ARR.News about Bushfires, Logging, Burns and Forest Management.
References
1. Tolkien, R.J.J. (1955) Lord of the Rings. Allen & Unwin.
2. Zylstra, Philip, J. YouTube video: Q & A with A/Prof. Phil Zylstra – National Fire Fuels Science Webinar: The science of hazard reduction.
3. Zylstra, P.J., Bradshaw, S. Don, and Lindenmayer, David B. (2022). Self-thinning forest understoreys reduce wildfire risk, even in a warming climate. Environ. Res. Lett. 17 044022, IOP Publishing Ltd., USA.
4. Hansen, A.P., Stoneman, G. and Bell, D.T. (1988) Potential inputs of nitrogen by seeder legumes to the jarrah ecosystem. Australian Forestry 51(4): 26-231.
5. Grove, T.S., O’Connell, A.M. and Malajcuk, N. (1980) Effects of fire on the growth, nutrient content and the rate of nitrogen fixation of the cycad Macrozamia riedlii. Australian J of Botany 28: 271-81.
6. Ward, David Jefford (2022). Our Dangerous Friend: Bushfire Philosophy in south-west Australia. Published by Leschenault Press, Australia. Available on Amazon (Australia, USA, and UK), Booktopia etc.
7. Ward, David Jefford (2010). People, Fire, Forest and Water in Wungong Catchment. PhD thesis, Curtin University. Search online at [ward+wungong+bushfire].
8. Cruz, M. & Sullivan, A. (2016). Memo: Comments on the Forest Flammability Model (FFM) of Zylstra (2011) and the contents of Zylstra et. al. (2016). CSIRO Land and Water Flagship.
