Watched the ABC's 730 Report last night; it was all devoted to interviews with those more or less directly involved. It included a bit of the predictable "conservationist bashing". Part was from a farmer complaining about the fact that farmers were no longer allowed to cut firewood from the roadside verges "thus increasing the fuel available to the fires." That argument sidesteps the fact that, in most parts of SE Oz that have been cleared for agriculture, all the privately owned land has been cleared, leaving only the roadside verges and cemeteries with anything like the original vegetation components or habitat (trees with nesting hollows for birds and logs with hollows for bandicoots etc) to act as wildlife corridors and revegetation banks. Tricky to find and acceptable (Let alone the "right) balance.

The other I first met when he was a new lecturer and a bit wet behind the ears and the paint on his PhD hadn't yet dried. He described himself as a "plant ecologist" (as I do) and I'm quite certain he can tell you all the details of the movement of phosphorus through various ecosystems (rather important in Oz soils) and the productivity of second-rotation crops of Pinus radiata (aka Monterey pine and a valuable 'weed' in Oz) but he had a considerable disregard for those of us researching plant sociology, succession and fire behaviour the last time I heard him before this interview.

It'll get worse before it gets better.

Cheers, Rowan