Opinion – Let’s talk about forests this winter

Whenever we have a spate of forest fires, the issue of forest protection and forest firefighting comes back to the fore.

Texts are written, proposals are submitted, the opinion of experts is sought, government initiatives are announced, the pages of newspapers and the internet are filled with analyses, but also the television programs are inundated with interventions, and  controversy erupts among political parties.

It is almost like a summer tradition, interrupted only in the years when we do not have many fires.

And then comes winter.

And no one dabbles in forest protection and forest firefighting anymore.

Neither the channels nor the printed media nor the websites deal with the issue. And no one is looking to talk to experts. Nor do the parties consider this to be an appropriate issue for controversy.

At best, if we have a flood, some will remember that the great floods are augmented by the great forest fires.

And then the time passes and spring comes, the weather brightens and everything smells like summer.

And usually somewhere then, just before the big surge of tourism, the necessary interview is given to the co-responsible ministers who rush to assure the people that all the measures have been taken for this year’s fire season and the whole state mechanism is “on a war footing, so as to be able to protect the forest and the environment.

But shortly after, the difficulties begin.

And it turns out that we were probably not so well prepared. That the operational plans were insufficient or were just “plans on paper”. That requests for more staff and equipment met “fiscal discipline” requirements. That there was no systematic planning for the new condition created by climate change.

That is when we end up with “we did what we could have done, but the conditions were…”.

Only along the way we have counted burned property, destroyed forests and sometimes human casualties.

That is why I say that this year I do not want to discuss forest protection now.

I do not want to talk about it now, to calm down, to submit proposals that will be swept away by the summer breeze.

I want to talk about all this in the winter.

I want this winter for us to think about the summer and summer fires.

I want this winter to be constantly updated on measures taken, on projects done, on equipment purchased, on staff hired and appointed in order not to relive what we experienced this summer.

And then I will be more optimistic.