Living With the Bush

AT A packed public lecture on the bushfires at Melbourne University in April, Kevin Tolhurst clearly stated that, in the extreme conditions of days like Black Saturday, the weather is the driver of the fire behaviour, not the forest ''fuel''. This is the same Dr Tolhurst who produced the predictive map of the path of the fire that destroyed Kinglake and Marysville, but to whom no one was listening.

No doubt Dr Tolhurst and others will present detailed scientific evidence to the royal commission on this. If those in the State Government were actually fulfilling their proper role, they would wait until all the evidence was tabled and then review vegetation laws based on this.

Instead it seems that, with one eye on marginal seats, it has been listening to the clamour on talkback radio and made an ad hoc decision with enormous consequences for the future of this state and all the species that live in it.

Ralph Judd, Blackburn North

The Age, Letters, 8th September 2009