i put a post up yesterday saying: Raise your voice for honesty and truth... i sent this to The Greens today! To Whom It May Concern: I am writing to you as a concerned rates payer and property owner of 2500m2 of pristine bushland at Island Beach, Kangaroo Island, SA. KI Council recently sent out a huge number of “Bushfire Prevention Notice 105F” and have demanded I reduce fire risk with a 5m barrier around the entire perimeter of my property and I’ve been given three weeks to achieve this impossible task or pay approximately $1250-$3750 to have a contractor, on the Island to do it for me. Personally my partner and I are not capable of clearing this amount of vegetation with a very real possibility of this task producing close to 125 trailer loads of debris, before the end of next Winter 2014, let alone within three weeks of this notice. They request that I trim all branches off trees up to 2m and reduce all bushes to 1m within this zone totally 700m2. By the time I’ve ‘reduced’ (cleared!!!!) this amount of vegetation it will leave me with a 16m strip up the middle of my land of pristine native bushland. The damage this could do to the Sand Dunes that my plants grow in is unknown and I’m concerned the Whirlies that visit my property regularly especially throughout summertime will demolish the compromised vegetation as 90% of my trees would be less than 3m in height. I am passionate about the natural order of life and in my 54 years have witnessed, men especially, create lots of laws that become extremely destructive when it comes to the fragility of nature. Then those men move on and are replaced by new men who make more bad decisions yet none of them are held accountable for the devastation they leave behind. Even more distressing is to be threatened with an inaccurate fee of $1000 for contractors to stomp all over my pristine bushland destroying everything because they are often not careful when carrying out such tasks. For my partner and I to undertake such as task will cost us more than one ferry fare of $520 so I’m feeling very backed into a corner and disempowered at this time. I’ve spoken with many people in the past couple of weeks and have been informed that many landowners at Island Beach are also very distressed about this situation and that the 5m fuel break which usually applies to blocks over 1/2 hectare is now being designated to our blocks which are under an acre. In addition KI Council are threatening to inflict further fines of $5000 if we don’t comply. I find this incredibly unprofessional and unacceptable and believe it’s time things are changed on many, many levels especially in government! In a nutshell Kangaroo Island Council expects us as civilians to achieve something even their infrastructure cannot support. Furthermore they are threatening to replace the overworked contractors on the Island with contractors from the mainland at our expense! How can this be legal? Also many of the residents at Island Beach are being given conflicting information re: fuel reduction and it seems that even some council members don’t know the difference between a bush and a tree. One resident despite the fact that he has the appropriate clearing around his home with a sprinkler system on his house and shed has stated that if he reduces anymore he won’t have any pristine bushland left. Another resident received his notice demanding that he clear to the ground level. He has an area cleared in the middle of his land ready for a house and states if he clears anymore he also won’t have any pristine bushland left. In my case I lived on the Island for two years and followed the directions given to me by voluntary workers for the CFS in Penneshaw and I heaved more than three tonne of dead wood, approximately 90% of the debris, throughout my property into the centre and burnt it reducing the amount of fuel, which could intensify a bushfire. I grieved at burning the homes of huntsman spiders and many more creatures whilst doing the ‘right thing’ and now I’m being asked to destroy more! A 5m perimeter around every block will destroy 30% of Island Beach, that’s a 10m fuel break every 16 metres. We are talking about pristine coastal bushland Home to thousands of Wallabies, Kangaroos, Echidnas, Monitors and amazing birdlife all of which will become displaced and compromised because of a really bad plan that won’t stop or prevent a bushfire from racing through the entire place in half an hour. Kangaroo Island was never meant to be lived on, the indigenous people went there to die. Apart from that the number of animals and birds killed by motoring tourists and locals is disastrous. Maybe it’s time to clear the island of humans and allow it to return to its original state if it’s becoming so dangerous for humans to live there without destroying its natural state. I was informed by the Natural Resources Management Board, KI, the KI Council was considering rolling this out about a year ago but recognised it would be too difficult to enforce. What changed in the last 12 months? The landowners/guardians haven’t turned into a super human force able to cope with this amount of vegetation and it can’t be left lying around for summer. As I’m no longer a resident it will cost me $520 for one trip over by ferry and this action will take more than one day to complete, several days in fact for responsible burning off. The expectation put on the landowners at Island Beach to achieve this fuel reduction within 21 days of the Notice is extremely unreasonable. The landowners should’ve been notified of this 12 months ago. At this time in our evolution, with all the statements released by our Environmentalists in our country I believe this needs to be reviewed before it is set in motion. I put forward that this Law and its application needs serious review. I am not alone in understanding this kind of change needed to be rolled out over a couple of years with at least 12 months written notice to landowners. Not in the form of a brochure but a formal letter clearly outlining Councils new expectations for the management and prevention of bushfires at Island Beach and the upcoming fines if we don’t comply. I question the effectiveness of these fuel breaks and I want to know who will be held responsible for these choices in the future when the sand dunes suffer severe erosion? When you ‘reduce’ trees the way you are instructing, they will die, blow over and the natural cycle of evolution of our pristine bushland will become an environmental issue in the future. I spent an incredible number of weeks at my land in the first 18 months and I learnt about the winds and watched how the land has been carved into the beautiful bowls throughout the dunes. During the Summer months I witnessed and experienced regular whirlies that had their own paths through the dunes. If you start cutting the limbs off trees to 2m and reducing shrubs to 1m the whirlies will tear it all apart. This is more important than a few holiday homes. On the scale you are demanding there will be little left of the natural bushland and this is not intelligence. In the end the Wallabies and Kangaroos came to die on my land because they felt so safe and these councillors think they have the right to destroy the animals rights to live in harmony with nature. This demands a massive rethink at this crucial time in our evolution. When people buy land at Island Beach in the future there needs to be an encumbrance clearly stating the landowners responsibility in maintaining their land and perhaps they will think twice about adding that purchase to their already stressed and busy lives. I want to be shown where in the Law it entitles Human Beings to make up laws that constantly jeopardise our planet. We are fully aware of the impact farming has had on the changes in weather patterns as well as global warming and yes there is going to be an increase in bushfires because of hundreds of years of poor planning! So instead of cutting more of the pristine bushland down and destroying more homes of the beautiful Native Flora and Fauna perhaps it’s time to stop selling this particular land off for people to live on. Perhaps in future the Local Government Department such as the one on Kangaroo Island ought to be responsibly releasing land for subdivision that already has a level of fuel reduction in place to be maintained by Land owners. KI Council is responsible for setting the example not threatening us with fines if we don’t comply within 21 days of notifying landowners of a change in a law enforced five years previously. It seems to me Local, State and Federal governments forgot a long time ago that they are in the positions they’re in because they are supposed to be representing their people not threatening them! We humans inflict shocking damage onto nature all the time, NOW is the time to start making more enlightened plans because history shows cutting nature down is always detrimental. It’s time to change the bad habits of imposing more laws that will not prevent or stop bushfires. I have lived in tune with nature all my life. I haven’t been contaminated with dusty old history books, which have led us into this mess. It’s time for the people in government responsible for these laws to be answerable to their citizens and turn this society into the Democracy it is meant to be. People are raising theirs voices all over the world against the insanity inflicted upon indigenous peoples, women and children and other human beings, animals, plants and sea fairing creatures to stop! Yet no one is really influencing the change we need so desperately to happen now! Personally I have lost faith in every aspect of our government. As a citizen I don’t feel I have a voice, or a choice, or any rights. Our country appears to be at the mercy of a few very greedy liberal people who seem to have far too much say in the laws being passed on a daily basis. My partner and I recently moved to a remote fishing town far away from the toxicity of our society because we’ve had enough of listening to all the atrocities inflicted against peoples and nature across the world. I’ve have had enough of being bullied by your institutions, by doctors and by the police in our society. It feels like we are fast becoming a society kept in line with a police force no longer interested in our welfare and more interested in penalising and fining us to keep us quiet and obedient. When I spent the first week ringing around trying to find someone to help me with this issue, every single department told me it’s the law you have to do it. So it seems all the so called avenues, even the ombudsman’s office, that is supposed to be there for the people in actual fact aren’t there for the people at all, just another office to impose itself on us when we try to speak out on behalf of those who cannot, like nature. We are facing dire consequences for our greedy lifestyles over the past 100 years and instead of learning from our mistakes we continue to make the same ones. We have learned that clearing only makes things worse in the long run and we are still being ordered to clear! When are we going to truly rise above mundane thinking and begin to embrace all life on this planet as sacred and stop chopping it down, stop mining it and stop polluting it. Enough is enough. We’ve had enough and so have millions of Australians. There was a glimmer of hope when we had an intelligent Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, obviously way before her time, as was Gough Whitlam. Now that hope has been lost for the next three years as we citizens are watching in horror as more powerful people like Gina Rhinehart swoop in to consume more of our precious planet with her greedy insatiable hunger for power, control and money. This is not representing the people of Australia. This is only serving a few. This is not democracy. This is not governing your people well at all. This has always been about money greed and power and it’s time for the corruption to stop. So start here and protect the pristine bushland at Island Beach and then the rest of Kangaroo Island. Then perhaps start planning to move all those people living too close to the coast in the rest of Australia, further inland, away from rising sea levels instead of inflicting more damage onto our already severely compromised planet before it’s too late. People are complaining that they’ll lose their homes in the next 30 years because of global warming. I say you’ve enjoyed the cream of your lifestyles in these amazing coastal areas and now its time to move. Simple. And don’t get me started on renewable energy. It is a crime to be aware of the amazing possibilities of alternative renewable energy and not use it. It’s a sin to be dictated to by the greed of a few instead of representing all Australians. When did we ever give you the right to make inexcusable mistakes on our behalf? And don’t bore me with we elected you. We live on the most magnificent planet in our universe and we do not seem to respect this in any way. Gai Waterlow A very concerned Citizen of Australia I have sent in my letter of appeal to KI Council as requested by Chris Martin, Chief Fire Prevention Commander, CFS, Mt Barker to hault this process. I am hoping for an extension until the end of Winter 2014 instead of three weeks because using chainsaws in the middle of summer will be an extreme fire risk. However I would prefer not to clear anymore of my land.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 23:57:16 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015