Bushfires threaten the suburbs of Bendigo

You might say that I write a bit about Victoria, well I do keep an eye on what is going on there because I have family down there.

Anyway, what is happening at the moment in Victoria with the bushfires is truly horrific.  Hundreds of people have died, thousands of buildings destroyed and whole towns have been wiped off the map.   What brings things home to me is that I live in an area of Brisbane not too dissimilar from Kinglake or Marysville.

With trees playing such a big role in bushfires, as people start to look for answers it is inevitable that the role of tree management is raised by the media in response to the tragedy.

And in turn, while the tragedy unfolds politics has reared its ugly head.  There are some very different points of view on the issue.

Liberal MP Wilson Tuckey, a former federal forestry minister, has blamed government policies that have locked up forests and created excessive fuel to stoke the fires, citing that forests now have almost 10 times the number of trees to per hectare.

On  the other extreme, Bob Brown and the Greens points to the severity of the Victorian bushfires as a symbol of global warming, calling for more land to be set aside to offset carbon emmissions.

According to the Wilderness Society there are 21.4 million hectares of forest are in reserves across Victoria alone which absorb about 44 tonnes of carbon dioxide per hectare and around 900 million tonnes in total each year.

But with the fires they have already released over 12 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

From an arborists point of view I don’t want to turn this into an environmental debate because who really knows what environmental effects bushfires of this scale will have  and what the perfect balance is for management of the bush these days.

The destructive Kinglake complex destroyed whole towns on Melbourne's fringe.

Certainly backburning and clearing land around homes are sensible fire prevention methods.  Indigenous Australians have been burning off land this way for thousands of years.  In fact certain Australian tree species rely on fires to propagate and in some areas, particularly around our major cities and towns (like Melbourne).  Ironically these controlled burns don’t happen as often as they should because of the concern for people’s safety.

But when the land is as hot and dry as I’ve seen it in Victoria this summer (the all time record temperature for Melbourne was set at a national record for a capital city – a whopping 46.4 degrees celcius!), combined with high winds, and huge bush areas you can only hope to slow down a fire once it gets going.

The true culprit is not the lightning strikes which start a few big fires each summer.  The sad fact is that the incidence of firebugs is increasing, especially in Sydney and Melbourne.  Their concern is not for the environment or public safety.  Their fires are calculated, deliberate and destructive and give the least warning.  These reckless individuals, not the trees, are the real people to blame in this sad story.  And unfortunately I can’t see the politicians coming up with an effective plan to hunt them down and bring them to justice any time soon.  Then there is the careless people who start fires during total fire bans from something as simple as a cigarette butt.  While the National Security Hotline TV campaigns continue to run throughout the bushfire, the sad fact is that these acts have caused more deaths to Australians than either the Bali Bombings or 9/11.  We have aningrained cultural fascination for fire which civil libertarians would fight tooth and nail for.  Australian’s won’t allow something like the National Arson Prevention Initiative which runs in the USA and where convicted arsonists are required to register in the state or national arson database for life.

The problems include a termite nest, falling branches and invasive root system, but the large amenity tree is apparently worth more to the local area …

A central Queensland town has had its celebratory tree “demonised” with satanic messages, while the Summer Hill community in Brisbane found its Christmas tree deliberately lit on fire.

Cocos palms and their fruits

In the 1980s, the Cocos (Syagrus romanzoffiana) or Queen Palm, originally introduced from Brazil, was arguably Queensland’s most fashionable palm.

Being cheap and quick growing, they literally sprang up everywhere, from backyards to resorts, carparks, office plazas, schools and street trees.

Now, one of our biggest growth services is Cocos palm removal in Brisbane.  You see, because it has recently been declared a weed of national significance.   The fruits attract flying foxes which helps the seeds to spread and become an invasive pest.  It is actually banned in some areas and you can be fined for having them.  Not to mention that their fronds frequently shed and are a nuisance to keep clean and looking good.

They are actually hardy plants and due to their height and rock hard trunk, removal is quite tricky and best done by experts.

So far the effects have been restricted to fig trees and hoop pines.