LAST year the Wilderness Society published a six-point action plan to "reduce bushfire risks and help to protect people, property, wildlife and their habitat". The society asserted that a "massive increase in hazard reduction burning and firebreaks is destroying nature, pushing wildlife closer to extinction and in many cases increasing the fire risk to people and properties by making areas more fire prone".

In fact there has been no massive increase in prescribed burning; statistics demonstrate that this practice has declined since the 1980s right across southern Australia. And no species of wildlife in Australia can be said to be on the brink of extinction because of prescribed burning.

As we saw last weekend in Victoria, the real threat to wildlife is killer
bushfires, which are a consequence of insufficient prescribed burning.

The trouble with the society's action plan to reduce the risk of bushfires
is that it won't work, and it is worth going through point by point because it reflects the views of too many government decision-makers.

Its key recommendations are:
* Improve aerial fire detection.
* Ramp-up hi-tech suppression forces, including more Helitak copters.
* Do more research into fire behaviour and the impacts of fire on wildlife.
* Around towns and urban areas, carry out fuel reduction burning and have fire breaks.
* Give priority to wildlife and its habitat in remote areas and national
parks.
* Make forests resistant to mega-fires by protecting them from woodchipping and logging.