PARK WATCH Article December 2024 |

FFMV are creating a scorched future for our widlife and natural areas, says Ben Gill, Nature Conservation Campaigner

The quietness strikes you first. The once voluminous sounds of nesting birds now all but silent. We stand on the site of a planned burn, home to several threatened plants and animals. The forest floor, so recently a thriving foraging ground for Brush-tailed Phascogales (Phascogale tapoatafa), is littered with charred logs and ash. Flames have reached into the canopy, scarring the crowns.

Earlier this year, our citizen science program discovered a healthy population of Brush-tailed Phascogales in this spot in the Wombat Forest. The area, unburnt since the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires, was a prime example of a maturing forest. With hollow-bearing trees, low shrub density, and few fallen trees, it was the perfect for ground-foragers who rely on clear sightlines to detect predators.

After the burn, invasive bracken – a pioneer plant – will likely dominate the forest floor, outcompeting native plants and raising future fuel loads. Despite our discovery of the phascogales and our request for mitigations, Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMV) proceeded with the burn. Their desktop fuel load assessment said the area was an ‘extreme’ risk. The on-ground reality showed starkly different conditions.

FFMV promised a cool, patchy mosaic burn. What they did was far from that. Many hollow-bearing trees that had survived Ash Wednesday collapsed. Logs that once nourished the forest floor have turned to ash, and the spring breeding season for forest birds disrupted. It feels like a cruel game, repeatedly stifling the forest’s ability to recover until one day, it simply won’t.

Our only option now is to monitor the effects on Brush-tailed Phascogales and other wildlife. In Enfield State Park, 70 kilometres west, a recent burn reduced from 545 hectares to 55 still resulted in widespread crown scorch, hollow tree collapse, and the destruction of the wildflower-rich forest floor. The once lively forest is eerily silent, disturbed only by the angry squawks of cockatoos.

Sensitivity not quotas

Despite the reduced area, FFMV push on to meet burn quotas, disregarding any long-term consequences on the state’s natural web of life. The effects of these burns – fine fuel growth, disrupted forest structure, repeatedly resetting soil profiles – demand robust discussion and considered reform.

We must put the health of the nature we all depend on at the core. The culture wars over land management must be set aside to foster understanding and sensitivity, before our forests are degraded beyond repair, lost forever.

Give Brush-tailed Phascogales a chance!

Carnivorous and cryptic with a dramatic love life – Brush-tailed Phascogales sure are interesting little marsupials.

They live in tree hollows. They like open, dry forests. And they have big bushy tails. Like Antechinus, the males spend the mating season in a fornicating frenzy. They spend so much of their energy spreading their genetics around that they die soon after. It’s definitely live fast, die young for these frisky phascogales.

In Victoria, they’re Vulnerable to extinction. They’re up against habitat destruction from fire and loophole logging. But we can help protect them. Add your voice and give our phascogales a chance.