Yesterday I drove through the Royal National Park, and saw the
result of the bushfires there.
It was clear to me that this had been a hell of a hot fire,
over a large area. A scorched earth. Bare and bald in some
parts, a forest of red leaves - an eerie 'autumn' - in others.
Substantial safety posts beside the road had burnt. I was told
that posts set into the ground on tracks had also burnt. It
takes a lot of heat to achieve that. A localised holocaust.
The flames were hundreds of metres high. The radiated heat
must have been immense.
While I do not regard bushfires as alien to the cycle of
reproduction in Australia, and while I am not in any sense an
expert in fire ecology, it did seem to me that the devastation
was excessive.
I cannot imagine smaller life-forms having much chance of
escape. There were few refuge areas. Is anyone going to accept
responsibility for this loss of life? Will our State managers
and National Parks bureaucrats - coasting towards fat
superannuation payments - please stand up and identify
themselves?
To my way of thinking, these bush fires are a result of State
policy. State policy has excluded First Peoples and their land
management practices from the centre of life in Australia. And
New South Wales was where it all started - where that pattern
of European life in Australia was laid down for other States
to follow.
I doubt very much that fires like took place when those people
were carrying out their fire-stick farming practices. Mosaic
burns would have left some areas of refuge for life seeking
refuge. The timing of burning off would not have been, as in
this case, the worst possible time.
I have heard from several sources that the fires in the Royal
were the result of back-burning which 'got away' from the
fire-fighters - the heroes who saved private property. Can
anyone confirm or deny this? More mis-management?
What is striking is that the NSW Government is conducting an
inquiry into the fires and instead of looking at the role of
its own policy - which denies First Peoples their place in
this country - they are looking overseas at a computerised
system which is the latest word and are also looking at 'new
technologies'.
Rather than looking closer at hand, we are presented with
exotic solutions and things designed to dazzle.
Once again we are being presented with the promise of gee-whiz
magic when what is required is the prevention of the build-up
of the litter which makes these hot fires possible. And the
land management practices of First Peoples are exactly what is
required to achieve this non-gee-whiz down-to-earth result.
Will the NSW Government be able to arrive at a commonsense
answer as a result of its enquiry? Will they recognise First
Peoples as traditional owners of the living country called the
Royal National Park? I doubt it. The State managers are too
compromised to take the necessary action. People power is
required to change things here.
And my guess is that what we have had with the bush fires of
1994 is a taste of things to come - as a result of State
policy. What will the next holocaust be?
The NSW Government is happy to pay Aboriginal people elsewhere
a peppercorn rental of $1 a year for the State's leaseback of
areas of country for National Parks. $1 a year! It costs $7.50
per car to drive through the Royal National Park. A great
little earner given the urban millions next door looking for
sanity.
Is it not time that we insisted that these monuments to
genocide were transformed into respectful meeting places - and
that the relevant First Peoples were paid the rent owning?
I suggest that the Royal National Park - as New South Wales'
and Australia's oldest National Park (and the world's second
oldest after Yellowstone) - is an appropriate place to begin a
campaign for ending heartless State policy and for restoring
life's caring managers in Australia's First Peoples.
How? I am not sure. What do you think?
Bruce Reyburn
Monday 31 January 1994