DELWP has been active in Kalimna Park preparing for its proposed Autumn management burn. Works include vegetation clearance on the eastern margins of the tourist road, and the creation of an earth break on the north side of the golf course.
‘Mineral earth break’ on the north side of the town golf course: crude breaks like this can become serious erosion risks.
The earth break in question is designed to isolate from the fire a section of Eltham Copper Butterfly habitat, and populations of Bitter Cryptandra and Casuarina in the same area. [It’s the western ‘bulge’ in the north section of the fire zone–see our map].
FOBIF doesn’t object to reasonable fire protection works, but we’ve had serious reservations in the past about crude breaks which inevitably end up as trail bike tracks and in the short term are serious erosion risks. The break in question is on a significant slope, and at the moment is pulverised dust. A heavy fall of rain would wash it away in minutes. We’ll push for the quick rehabilitation of this break.
The works on the tourist road are also depressing. These are evidently to increase the road’s effectiveness as a fire break. They’re not as bad as 2015’s scalping of the Fryers Ridge road, but they continue the inexorable degradation of this road as an amenity. Any pretensions this bleak track once had to picturesqueness have long faded.
Kalimna Tourist road: it gets wider every year, and recent fire preparations have added to the trend.
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Click on image for info/order page
