NEW HAZARD REDUCTION RULES: AT LAST THE ENVIRONMENT GETS CONSIDERED
It’s nearly time for that Clarence Valley rite of spring - throwing a match into some ‘rubbish’ year after year and calling it hazard reduction. How many bush paddocks do you know which were burnt off last year and every year before that? If you’ve been around a long time, you might have even noticed a change in the vegetation – more flammable blady grass, less figs and less epiphytes. We all worry about species extinction. Frequent burning is now listed as a key threatening process under the Threatened Species Conservation Act. Habitual firebugs might have to change their ways under the new Bushfire Environmental Assessment Code. It’s heartening that the fire management rules are finally considering the environment. All those studies on the effect of fire regimes on ecosystems are being taken seriously. It took a long time and a lot of pressure. It’s an improvement.
You now need to get a Hazard Reduction Certificate before burning off – not just in permit season but all year round. You can’t get a permit without a certificate. The certificate is free and lasts for 12 months. It’s based on an environmental assessment done by the Rural Fire Service, using the Code. If you don’t have one there’s a big penalty. After burning, you have to report back to the Rural Fire Service. Hopefully they will use the information to build a database capable of showing cumulative impact. We can always dream.
Hazard reduction certificates have to comply with minimum fire intervals for different vegetation communities in strategic fire advantage zones. The intervals are set out locally in the Clarence Valley Bushfire Risk Management Plan. For example, you can burn cleared land every 2 years, and coastal complex woodland every 6 years. Dry forest with rocky outcrops can be burnt every 10 years. You can’t burn rainforest, wetlands or riparian areas at all. Certificate conditions are supposed to address management of sensitive sub-areas like rainforest gullies within a dry forest. Management conditions also have to be set for threatened species. There will be a list of fire-sensitive threatened species for each local government area. We need to make sure the lists are accurate.
So far, it looks like a big improvement. Its worth will depend on how it’s implemented and how it’s enforced. More information at the Environment Centre.
For your convenience you can also click here to view/download 135K .pdf file (Acrobat reader required) of the 'Application form for a BFHR certificate' and here for 281K .pdf file of the 'Application instructions for a BFHR certificate'.