Common sense at last for native vegetation management

Source: Sykes Media Release

The easing of native vegetation management regulations to allow fuel reduction around homes has been welcomed by Nationals Member for Benalla, Bill Sykes.

Dr Sykes said, “At last we have signs of the Brumby Government applying some common sense to the management of native vegetation.”

The new regulations revealed in The Age on Saturday, 1 August 2009, include

* residents to be allowed to clear trees within 10 metres of their homes without a permit;
* shrubs and scrub up to 30 metres from houses will also be able to be cleared; and
* collecting fallen trees on roadsides to use as firewood will be made easier.

Dr Sykes continued, “As always, the devil will be in the detail but at least this is a step in the right direction.

“It is now essential that the Brumby Government extends this common sense approach to native vegetation management to broad acre land holdings and in particular, along fence lines between private land and Crown land.

“The stupidity of the current regulations has frustrated many land holders trying to re-fence after the Black Saturday fires.

“Land holders have only been allowed to clear a strip of 3-4 metres wide even though large trees beyond this cleared strip will inevitably fall on the new fence lines, possibly even during construction.

“This stupidity puts lives at risk and damages fences causing considerable expense, extra work and frustration for fire affected land holders who already have more than enough on their plates.”

The timing of the Brumby Government’s announcement is intriguing according to Dr Sykes who said it is only a couple of weeks before the Royal Commission hands down its first report. It follows on from a range of announcements regarding building requirement changes and more recently communication system improvements.

“So rather than have one complete package of announcements after the Royal Commission report, we have a progression of disjointed, often poorly thought through announcements by a Government trying to ‘spin out it’s “good news” stories’. Sadly, as is often the case it’s not all good news.

For example, the building requirements in some high fire risk siituations require the use of materials which are not available. And in nearly all cases the cost of replacement buildings has been increased substantially.

“Now that the Brumby Government has finally acknowledged that fire risk can be reduced by prudent removal of nearby trees and shrubs there may be a strong argument to re-visit the building requirements released a few months ago.”

Dr Sykes concluded, “This is a step along the road back to common sense but I won’t ease up on my campaigning until I’ve seen the fine print and achieved a common sense approach across the whole issue of native vegetation management.”