My thoughts are with my friends in Australia tonight, those who have loved ones and friends living in the thick of the smoke and flames, and Scotty who isn't fighting the fires himself, but I'm sure has friends who are.
I'll be the first to say that I'm all for protecting the ecology but I'll never understand the mindset that places the protection of trees over the protection of human life. What we need to be doing is reintroducing the controlled burn-off policies of previous years so as to reduce the fuel loads in some of these areas. Educating the public is one thing but it has its limits because some folks simply don't listen; a better ecological management plan is needed that includes input from fire crews since they're the ones that have to go in and clean up the damn mess. The Australian Aborigines did controlled burn-offs for thousands of years before we white fellas came along but as is typical at times, priorities get mixed up and we don't learn from history.
2 comments:
Thanks, Mary.
I'll be the first to say that I'm all for protecting the ecology but I'll never understand the mindset that places the protection of trees over the protection of human life. What we need to be doing is reintroducing the controlled burn-off policies of previous years so as to reduce the fuel loads in some of these areas. Educating the public is one thing but it has its limits because some folks simply don't listen; a better ecological management plan is needed that includes input from fire crews since they're the ones that have to go in and clean up the damn mess. The Australian Aborigines did controlled burn-offs for thousands of years before we white fellas came along but as is typical at times, priorities get mixed up and we don't learn from history.
It's a senseless waste.
I'm sure you're absolutely right. There's got to be a way to balance human needs and that of the bush.
From here the whole disaster is reminiscent of one of those horrible, unrealistic 1970s movies. The news just keeps getting worse.
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