The Hon. Beverley McArthur, Member for Western Victoria Region, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Road Safety (Vic), 10 November 2023
Dear Editor,
In Parliament, I paid tribute to leading bushfire and forestry scientist, Dr Kevin Tolhurst AM, who died recently, and conveyed to his family our sympathy and gratitude for his life and work.
In my adjournment matter, I encouraged the Minister for Emergency Services to delve more deeply into Dr Tolhurst’s life’s work and consider his recommendation that bushfire management should have a greater focus on fuel load reduction.
Dr Tolhurst repeatedly pointed out the folly in prioritising expensive and difficult suppression of fire, instead of fuel load management.
We cannot control the weather, so reducing fuel load is the land manager’s best hope of mitigating bushfire.
He powerfully argued against an influential Climate Council factsheet, which had concluded “no amount of hazard reduction will protect human lives, animals and properties from catastrophic fires” – pointing out that analysing the extent of burned areas, rather than the severity of the fire, is misleading.
He said, “the recovery of plants, animals, nutrients and habitat after low-intensity fire is much quicker than after high-intensity wildfire.”
He looked at the total system result, not selective evidence to justify preconceived standpoints.
He wrote, “we need to consider all variables. This includes increased ecosystem resilience, mitigation of wildfire number, impact on human health, economic value, social impact, Traditional Owner culture, and more.”
These conclusions came from his experiences of the results of fire, the demonstrably successful Western Australian approach to fuel load reduction, and his understanding traditional Indigenous land-management in Australia.
Mitigation matters as we cannot be absolutist and prevent all fire, nor all-powerful and put it all out. We have to work with it.
Kevin’s last message, to a community forum at Mallacoota just hours before he died, was that with appropriate fuel reduction before the Black Summer bushfire, Mallacoota would not have burned.
I asked the Minister to rebalance Victoria’s bushfire planning and management towards the fuel load reduction approach that Kevin did so much to prove superior.
Bev McArthur MP
