The historical thinking about FRB

Until 1839-41, when Angus McMillan explored Gippsland looking for drought free pastures for sheep and cattle, the country was open grassland with many trees interspersed through these grassy plains. History tells us that McMillan didn't find a forest.

After claims were made to the land, not just in Gippsland, settlers erected fences, ran their sheep and cattle and reduced or stopped the traditional fire usages of the aboriginal population.

This resulted in an unprecedented growth of trees and bushes that had previously been held in check by frequent fires that had burned forest fuels, dead grasses and other dead foliage. It also burned the surplus saplings that were germinated by previous fires. The weak went, the strong remained. It was a process of natural selection.

These fires were ignited, either through natural causes or at the hands of the indigenous people.

A lack of regular fire encourages forest mulch to occur. The ensuing mulch holds moisture, to the great discomfort of eucalypts. They, in good health, are not favoured by the bugs, borers, lerps, loopers, sawflies and parasites, such a mistletoe, which thrive on sick trees.

The mulch also held back the growth of native grasses which need the removal of dead grasses to thrive. The same applies to native flowers. There is a need with many fragile flowers to remove the dead vegetable matter before they can flourish. The Alpine Marsh Marigold is a good example of this.

Alfred Howitt, in his 1890 'Eucalypts of Gippsland' address to the Royal Society of Victoria says that "around 1863-4 I observed that a belt of Red-gums which extended across the plains between Sale, Maffra and Stratford were beginning to die.' He went on "Later, probably about 1878 I observed the Red-gum forests of the Mitchell River Valley to be dying ."

He went on to explain that his investigations found that the infested trees had "myriads of the larvae of some of the nocturnal Lepidoptera. These devoured the upper and lower epidermis of the leaves, thus asphyxiating the tree. Some 75% of the forest died that year and subsequently almost all of the surviving trees died also." Also, in 1890, Howitt reported that "Twenty-five years ago I noticed that during the course of three years, all the White-gums E. Viminalis, in part of the Omeo district died . "

I'm being very fair dinkum when I state categorically that we cannot afford to ignore Mother Nature. Tamper with the golden rules and expect a catastrophe. It happened in Northern Africa in the days of the Roman Empire, it still happens today.

Please don't leave it to someone else to complain about this. I believe that, on November 25th, we have to tell the Parliamentarians that, in future, their management of our remote regions must be as close to Mother Nature's rules as we can make it.

The Greens cannot alter their mindset, so they must be kicked out if all of those little animals are to have a chance to survive. (Why can't you brainwash a greenie?)