ENVIRONMENT 

TREE PLANTING AND PROTECTION

The Australian community has seen many devastating fires in recent years. This has seen some of our old growth forests destroyed, and so it is right to recover what was lost and to protect both the remaining forests and the newly planted forests. Devastation of a forest by fire happens when extremely high heat fires attack the forests, for not only are the trees potentially killed in such fires but also the vegetation within the soil can be destroyed. Such destruction can take many decades for natural recovery but we can commence a rehabilitation plan to bring recovery forward. This is made possible by replanting native species in the devastated area and to aid this, tax incentives to plant such trees need to be established.

To prevent the horror of devastation by fire we must protect our bush land by effective and timely firebreaks, as well as effective hazard reduction campaigns with due diligence in all of our bush areas.

Policy:

  • Encourage all Australians to plant at least one native tree per year with a 150% tax rebate for planting of native trees in fire – devastated areas when more than 5 trees are planted per year.
  • Empower local Land Care groups to manage such plantings and to maintain the care for the new plantings until self-sustaining.

  • A systematic hazard reductions campaign must be stepped up in all bush and forest lands in Australia.
  • Fire breaks and hazard reduction to be completed each year before the onset of the fire danger months – Local councils to be encouraged to manage the compliance.

  • We note that forests that have full and compact vegetation covering can have a lot of dead and short vegetation on the forest floor with a very high moisture content and as such would not not be consideed as as fire hazard and would need to be treated differently.

  • Unauthorised setting of destructive fires in the bushland and forests will have increased penalties for those found responsible.