Tasmania’s most precious environment needs to be better protected and preserved following this year’s devastating bushfires, according to a Senate Inquiry.
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A new Senate report, released on Thursday, looked at January and February’s bushfires in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, how they were responded to and lessons to learn.
The committee found a number of recommendations for both state and federal governments, including an increased recognition of climate change, long-term funding, investigating remote fire fighting and enhanced conservation efforts.
Tasmanian Greens Senator and committee chairman Nick McKim said the report was not about placing blame on any work done in the 2016 bushfires.
“People place their lives at risk every time they respond to wilderness bushfires and it’s important that we give them the resources that they need to do their job efficiently and effectively,” Senator McKim said.
“We heard that in most vegetation types in the Tasmania’s World Heritage Area, the fire modelling simply was either non-existent or didn’t adequately model the behaviour of fires in those vegetation types.
“The best way to respond to remote area and wilderness fires it to hit them early and to hit them hard.”
The report also focused on climate change, saying it will have a major impact on Tasmania’s bushfire season with a harsher and more intense fire season, and increases in temperature predicted.
While the government accepted many of the recommendations, it did not accept that the Australian government should report annually to the World Heritage Committee on the state of conservation in the TWWHA.
“State of conservation reporting is a formal process which is only required where the World Heritage Committee has serious concerns about the state of a particular World Heritage property,” Tasmanian Senators said in a dissenting report.
Environment Minister Matthew Groom said the government had taken action in the wake of the bushfires.
“The government invested $250,000 for a research project to investigate bushfire risk in Tasmania’s wilderness areas, and to strengthen our wilderness firefighting techniques,” Mr Groom said.
“We will now closely consider the recommendations from the Senator report.”
The Wilderness Society’s Vica Bayley said he welcomed the report’s findings.
