Why do our national parks burn?

In my last post, I looked at the breakdown of staff in the DECCW. Now it's time to look at how they spend their budget.

The DECCW has a capital works program for the next few years of $309 million.

$6.4 million is being spent on buying up perpetual crown leases.

$7 million on satellite imagery.

$6.8 million on spatial data.

$19 million on establishing Brigalow/Nandewar (presumably a new park)

$69 million on land purchases

$23 million on establishing new parks

$45 million on rivers environmental restoration.

Improving fire, feral animal and weed control will get $993,000 in 2012-13.

$3.295 million was spent last year on bushfire management. For an agency that controls 11% of the state.

$3 million.

They probably spent most of it on consultant's reports, rather than actually making their properties more fire resistant.

In the section on the major achievements of the executive, I did find this:

Completed fire management strategies for all parks and reserves, and finished 59,202 hectares of hazard reduction burning which is the highest total ever completed by the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

Let's see - they have over 6 million hectares under their management. 59,202 hectares is 0.98% of the total. At this rate, it will only take them a century or so to get all that hazardous undergrowth cleared out.