Dear Mr Thwaites,
Friends of the Grampians Gariwerd would like to thank your Government for the support given to the Beyond Smoke Festival which is proving to be very successful and engaging many members of the communities affected by the fire very positively.
We would also like to raise our concerns over the funding for the Grampians National Park. We agree with the recent findings of the bipartisan Senate Report which has recommended a significant boost in federal and state funding for National Parks.
Our first concern is the lack of funding to support the biodiversity interests within the Park. There is a severe lack of funding to support ongoing monitoring and management of ecosystems within the Park. This is of particular concern with the increased pressure to carry out prescribed burns on public land while we don’t yet know the affect on the biodiversity of the most recent fire in the Park. There is insufficient funding to carry out the necessary research to determine the effects of fire.
Our second concern is that we believe a decision has been taken to discontinue funding casual fire recovery positions. This seems to us to be a very short sighted decision when there is still so much fire recovery work to be done to even approach the level of infrastructure existing prior to the fire.
The walking track crew has developed into a skilled work team that has done excellent work on tracks such as the Pinnacle track. It seems a crime to loose this talent when there are still so many tracks which need to be rehabilitated.
This decision is not only going to be bad for tourism in the area but is going to result in greater costs as more people start to use the damaged tracks. Multiple tracks are inevitably created, causing greater erosion, biodiversity damage and safety hazards.Permanent staff who are already overworked and suffering from the strain that the fire has placed on everyone connected to the Park will have increased workload due to the loss of other fire recovery casual staff who have become skilled and knowledgeable in volunteer support and coordination, interpretation and admin duties.
What is the future for National Parks when their management cannot be properly funded, even in such good economic times?
We request that you urgently reconsider the decision to cease funding the casual fire recovery staff at this time and undertake a review of the staffing of the Park particularly in light of the Senates recent recommendations.
Yours sincerely
Prue Pyke
President FOGGs
We received an answer to this letter from Rocky Barca, the acting Regional manager, agreeing that the work achieved had been first rate, expecting that there would be money for the completion of a Fire Ecology strategy for the park, and stating that they were clarifying the allocation of resources for the new financial year. However, this clarification was not in time to save the casual fire recovery positions. Some very valuable staff have had to go.