IT looks like rural Victorians are to once more be the sacrificial goats of the Labor and Green voters of the cities.
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Two weeks into a new government the new Premier, Daniel Andrews, and his environment minister Lisa Neville have banned the continuation of the scientific alpine grazing trial in the Wonnangatta Valley.
They have also announced that they intend to drop the bounty on wild dogs.
Ms Neville has based her decision on the report of the alpine grazing taskforce from May 24, 2005.
The taskforce was made up of four Labor MPs, none of them rural, who appeared to have been given a mandate to rid the mountains of grazing and all management.
The Warby Ranges and Mount Buffalo are worth visiting if you want to see a fire bomb waiting for ignition.
The one precious commodity that’s continually overlooked in this debate is water yield.
There is up to 28 per cent more run-off from grazed or slashed country and regrowth from bushfires will soak up another 20-40 per cent for about 30 years.
To remove fuel to abate the fire intensity risk surely makes sense.
If the number of cattle grazing is controlled and managed, cattle can be the best management tool we have for maintaining the balance of large tracts of remote country within our Alps.
Talking to a government wild dog controller a while back, he said the $100 wild-dog bounty had made a huge difference to the dog numbers, at a very cheap cost to the state.
Here are some important facts worth pondering:
- Fuel reduction does lessen fire intensity.
- Fuel reduction heightens water runoff, thus healthier river systems.
- The 2003-2006-07 bushfires continually went out when sections of the fires reached grazed country — aerial pictures support this.
- Under parks management, there has been significant increase in fire, blackberry, other weeds and feral animals.
- The Wonnangatta grazing site is less than 0.025 per cent of the national park.
— NEVILLE WRIGHT,
Bobinawarrah