The Australian
government
outlaws or
restricts actions
by property owners
who want to
clear bush
to protect their
own property
from bush fires !
Aboriginal
bushmen
of Australia,
before westerners
arrived, understood
the importance of
controlled burns
controlled burns
to reduce the
severity of
inevitable
bush fires.
That lesson
seems to have
been lost.
Destructive
bush / forest fires
are very common
in nature, and
that certainly
includes Australia.
Placing the blame
on climate change
is avoiding reality.
The Australian
Institute of
Criminology
lists laws titled
“Illegal native
vegetation clearing”,
and the associated
penalties.
The Scope
and Definition
section states:
“Up until the
last couple
of decades,
land and hence
native vegetation
clearance was a
conventional and
legally-condoned
practice,
largely committed
to open up land
for agriculture
but standard
for any private
landowner
wishing to modify
the environment.
In Australia,
with an
historically
-sanctioned
economic
dependence
on agriculture,
there has been
a valuation
of the land
mostly founded
on the profit
it can turn and
often at the
expense of its
ecological worth.
Agriculture
and grazing
still account
for a great deal of
native vegetation
clearance
occurring today
but development
of land for
other purposes
is a significant
culprit."
"Definitions of clearing
and native vegetation
differ between the
Australian states
and territories
Native vegetation
clearing, however,
generally refers to
any act that
removes, disfigures
or kills vegetation
deemed indigenous
to the region.
Illegal clearance,
then, is any such
vegetative removal
or destruction,
or clearance
that takes place
without due
authorisation.”