Australia battles bushfires as drought scars land
Pastor Dale Morgan
Friday October 13, 2:03 PM Reuters
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Australia battles bushfires as drought scars land*
By Michael Perry
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Firefighters in four Australian states battled some
300 bushfires fanned by soaring temperatures and strong winds on Friday,
as worsening drought pitched bone-dry rural Australia into recession,
its riverbeds cracked and empty.
Firefighters said Australia was facing an extreme fire danger a month
before the start of summer, with hundreds of blazes in New South Wales,
Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia.
Scientists warned on Friday of an increasing threat of bushfires for
decades to come as climate change brings more frequent higher
temperatures in Australia and less rainfall.
"The frequency of days of very high fire danger are increasing 20 to 30
percent over the next few decades," said Penny Whetton from the
country's leading scientific body, the Commonwealth Scientific and
Industrial Research Organisation.
An El Nino weather pattern was now bringing warm dry conditions to
Australia and poor water management was wasting dwindling water
resources as dams dried up, scientists said.
Evaporation saw the equivalent of the water content of Sydney Harbour
being lost in one dam alone in New South Wales.
Without rain many already shrinking rivers, including Australia's food
basket, the Murray-Darling river system, would run dry, warned the
National Climate Centre.
Prime Minister John Howard said the drought was the worst in 100 years
and would eat into the country's economic growth.
"It's the worst in a century," he said. "I would expect this drought to
leave a very big impression on the Australian psyche."
The National Climate Centre said Australia had yet to recover from the
last El Nino in 2002-03, leaving many farmers facing five straight years
of drought.
Crop losses now stretch across the country, 92 percent of economically
dominant New South Wales is in drought, and farmers have started
off-loading stock before the hot, dry summer when they would be forced
to buy feed and water.
Saleyard volumes in Victoria are up 60 percent on last year and sheep
sales in New South Wales are up 70 percent. A record 67,000 sheep were
sold in one day at one saleyard last week.
The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics last week
slashed its winter crop forecast by more than a third and its 2006/07
crop forecast by 17 percent because of drought.
As wheat prices in Chicago soared to 10-year highs this week, fuelled
largely by this big crop shortfall, wheat exporter AWB suspended exports
from eastern Australia to meet domestic demand.
"It's a rural recession," Treasurer Peter Costello told Australian radio
on Thursday.
Australia's government said it would provide financial aid to
drought-hit farmers, but there are calls for better land and water
management to combat the drought.
A national audit of water resources released on Friday found vital water
supplies were being wasted despite six major cities, including Sydney,
imposing water restrictions.
The report warned the tapping of bore water to substitute for fresh
water might be draining rivers and there was no agreement on how to buy
back water allocations from irrigators to save rivers.
"With the likely scenario that the Murray-Darling basin will have no
water storage by April ... we have to face the fact that the way we do
agriculture in some places will have to change," said Greens Senator
Rachel Siewert. "We have over-allocated our water resources and it needs
to be addressed now."
But the rural crisis is not merely environmental and financial. With
many farmers debt-laden and being forced off the land, there are
concerns that rural suicides may rise.
"We can expect a lot of pressure, particularly on rural families as they
juggle drought and debt," said Christopher Pyne, parliamentary secretary
for health and ageing.
"So suicide is going to be very much an important issue in the months
and years ahead," Pyne told reporters this week.