Book Review: The Still-Burning Bush

By: Stephen Pyne (Melbourne: Scribe Short Books, 2006. vii + 137. Paper AU$22.00.)

Stephen Pyne needs no introduction to environmental historians. His many histories of fire have made his name one of the most recognized in the discipline.1
      This extended essay or “short book” resulted from a return visit to Australia, a month at the Australian National University. Divided into four parts, the first two summarize the main ground covered by Pyne’s previous Australian book, Burning Bush. Part 1 outlines the use of the firestick by Aborigines and then by European colonists. Part 2 discusses the debates and practices among foresters in various parts of the world, notably the United States until about World War II, concerning the exclusion of fire or its use as a management tool. The principal issue was whether to exclude fire from the land, or to use periodic fires for hazard reduction. This debate was essentially settled in Australia after the devastating 1939 fires in the southeastern states. In the United States the practice took much longer to be accepted. However, hazard reduction burning concerned some environmentalists, who feared it might change patterns of floral and faunal distribution.2
      Parts 3 and 4 are an update, outlining the main developments since 1983 in Australian fire history. Again contrasting Australia with the United States, Pyne examines some of the complex issues that have arisen, particularly since another round of severe bushfires near Canberra and in eastern Victoria in early 2003. A great deal of political recrimination followed, and heated debate among those with different approaches to using fire to manage the land. Notably, Pyne outlines a debate between “foresters” who promoted hazard reduction fires, and “greenies” who advocated exclusion in order to avoid damaging remnant forest ecosystems.3
      I admire Pyne’s earlier works, but it has to be said that this is not his best. My main concerns are twofold and related. The first is the impression that Pyne’s sympathies are with those he calls foresters, and the second is the depth of contrast he draws between foresters and greenies. The choice of terminology itself is value-laden for Australian readers. “Foresters” (not as often used in Australia as America) arguably carries connotations of an educated, professional group. “Greenies,” by contrast, is often used as a term of abuse to infer unwashed extreme environmentalists. I doubt Pyne intended those implications, but his terminology infers greater sympathy toward those who use fire principally for anthropocentric hazard reduction and for whom ecological concerns are secondary.4
      Pyne’s depiction of the environmental perspective is arguably exaggerated: “In practice, greenies, like imperial foresters before them, saw a landscape overrun with fires they didn’t like … and the beloved precautionary principle argued for snuffing out as much as possible, doing the proper research, and then, if and as if needed, grasping a gentler, greener firestick. … Environmentalists argued that they were the repository of ecological understanding, and because they knew best how to care for the land, they knew best what to do about fire. Specifically, they denounced forestry’s burning as unneeded, unwise and ecologically unwelcome” (p. 89).5
      In Australia, the issue has really moved on from such a dichotomy and has centered on a more complex political and scientific debate. Rather than a dichotomy, I would argue that there is a continuum of opinion running from the deep greens, who would like to exclude all fire (perhaps until we have a better understanding of its impact), through various environmentalists, ecologists, fire scientists, forest scientists, biologists, and firefighters who accept a mixture of cautious hazard burning and ecologically informed burning such as mosaic burning, to a range of old-style “foresters,” firefighters, and people in the timber industry for whom hazard reduction for anthropocentric purposes is uppermost. As well, there are various overlays of political and economic interests, and diversely informed social and cultural opinions.6
      This debate has a long way to go. While there are remnant old-growth forests and national parks bordering pastoral, agricultural, and other commercial interests, and while suburban fringes continue to creep into bushland, there will be advocates of extensive hazard reduction. While ecosystems degrade and disappear because of human activities, there will be those who advocate the need for wiser approaches and a degree of caution until we have done sufficient research—and all the shades in between. Pyne has done us a service with this summary of the debate, but I am not convinced that his visit was of sufficient duration to master the complexity of the issues.7

Don Garden is associate professor at the University of Melbourne and recently published Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific: An Environmental History (ABC-CLIO, 2005). He is currently working on a history of El Niño and La Niña events in Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific 1865–1903.

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