Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

A proposal is currently being developed to put a mountain bike track in the Hancock pine plantation on the western side of Mount Alexander.

FOBIF is not opposed to this idea. Mountain biking  is an activity with many health benefits, and there is some potential–as yet undefined–for economic spin offs in the form of tourism to the Harcourt area.

Mount Alexander, west side: illegal mountain bike use on these slopes could cause serious erosion problems

We are, however, keen that any track design should minimise the possibility that the activity will spill over into the present boundaries of the Mt Alexander Regional Park. Photos are in circulation suggesting that a track in the plantation could be linked to the Leanganook picnic area. And some illegal riding takes place already: videos can be seen on Youtube of riders using walking tracks on the Mount. Such riding is capable of causing serious erosion on the steep western slopes, and of straying onto precious moss beds on the eastern side.

We understand that the plantation will be added to the Regional Park in 2015. We’ve written to Parks Victoria ranger in charge David Major on the subject. He informed us to our surprise that Parks is not represented on the committee developing the MTB proposal, but said: ‘Some years ago Parks Victoria looked at the feasibility of mountain bike access to Mount Alexander, and was able to identify that existing tracks around Leanganook could possibly be used by mountain bikes for cross country riding, but the use of downhill mountain bikes was not suited to the area and would not be permitted…Parks Victoria is looking to stop [illegal downhill use] and rehabilitate track damage.’

FOBIF is keen to be engaged in any plans which might have an effect on the Mount. At present the concept development for the plantation, led by Goldfields Tourism, seems to be in capable hands: but this mountain, being one of the most beautiful and dramatic natural features in the region, could be put under pressure if this project is pushed through without all appropriate knowledge, care and resources.

Nothing is as simple as it seems.

Here’s a new perspective on rubbish: when Parks Victoria ranger Noel Muller was rearranging a trailer full of rubbish at Golden Point after clean up day on Sunday, he noticed something unexpected sticking out of the side of one of his collection of decrepit mattresses, collected earlier on the edge of Kalimna Park.

It was the head of a phascogale, rather surprised to find its comfortable accommodation bounced around so much.

As we’ve reported in a previous post, the phascogale is a pretty opportunistic creature: it’s been found in filing boxes and coat pockets before. It’s a bit unsettling to find it settling into a mouldy mattress, however.

Noel took the mattress back to where it was collected, to give the phascogale a chance to collect its wits.

The goal of good land management is to create new, resilient landscapes, not to restore ‘original vegetation’, Ian Lunt told Connecting Country’s first public meeting for 2014 in Newstead on Sunday.

140 people turned up to hear Professor Lunt talk about natural regeneration, a phenomenon which has created much more native vegetation than any deliberate restoration programs. He cited several examples of this, including the figure that in the Heathcote Graytown area, native regrowth is covering an extra 1800 hectares every decade.

Natural regeneration: barely noticeable in the short term, but a major feature of landscape change in the last 60 years.

This process is partly the result of the decline of grazing on marginal land, and the growth of the ‘amenity landscape’, in which farming is being displaced by smaller blocks of land managed for recreational or other purposes.

Where do land restoration advocates fit into this picture? Professor Lunt urged his listeners not to entertain dreams of bringing back some kind of ideal landscape, but rather to embrace the ‘human landscape’ we have inherited from the recent past, and work with it.

The goal should be to ‘create resilient connected landscapes, not restore original vegetation.’ The ideal landscape would consist of areas in production, integrated with regrowth areas, remnant vegetation and areas planted out with native vegetation for specific reasons.

Those working on improving landscapes, he argued, should be aiming to fill biodiversity gaps [in totally cleared areas, for example], to fast track desirable changes, and to add features missing from the landscape, like habitat hollows. In agriculturally productive areas, small corridor projects are appropriate.

His ideal is a ‘pluralism’ or ‘complementarity’ of approaches to land: ‘This is creating landscapes we haven’t had before: we have to create totally new ways of thinking and talking about these unimagined landscapes.’

Professor Lunt’s talk was the first in Connecting Country’s workshop series, ‘Improve biodiversity on your property.’

Vegetation ecologist Ian Lunt is Associate Professor in the School of Environmental Science at Charles Sturt University. His brilliant blog can be found at http://ianluntecology.com/

A CSIRO fire management report on Aboriginal burning in the Great Western Woodlands of south western WA has revealed some interesting facts about traditional approaches to fire in the woodlands.

The report was written to document the Ngadju people’s knowledge of fire. Its key findings include:

·‘The extensive old growth woodlands were rarely burnt deliberately, because they take hundreds of years to recover.

·‘The extensive sandplain shrublands were only occasionally burnt with planned fire. Mostly they burnt naturally by wildfires that were allowed to take their course.

·‘Rather, Ngadju used fire as a cultural tool for keeping the country clear around rockholes, for encouraging grasses in open grasslands and mallee, and to smoke out animals when hunting. These fires were often small, around 1 ha.

·‘They also used fire to protect important cultural sites and special plants such as water trees; and to maintain access along walking tracks and in coastal shrublands.

·‘Other activities such as firewood collecting around the edges of woodlands and rockholes, and sweeping and scraping up litter around individual trees, were undertaken to help control wildfire.

·‘Ultimately these activities would have led to a fine-scale fire mosaic over the top of the natural vegetation mosaic.’

This summary of the findings is taken from John Morgan’s Plant Ecology Blog. Morgan comments, ‘As a land management tool, fire obviously has a more select role in Ngadju country than in other regions of Australia such as the tropical savannah and spinifex country where large parts of the landscape are frequently burnt.’

The moral of this story, from our point of view, is that different country requires different treatment. This is a common sense idea, the antithesis of the Victorian policy of burning five per cent of public land, irrespective of its ecological needs. The five per cent target never had credibility ecologically. Its effectiveness as a public safety measure has been questioned by the Royal Commission Implementation Monitor. Now, in the wake of large grass fires this summer, the Fire Services Commissioner, Craig Lapsley, has stated that a move away from the crude target is ‘most certainly being considered.’

The CSIRO report can be found here

Wombat Forestcare is a community group dedicated to protecting and enhancing the natural ecosystems of the Wombat Forest and surrounding areas. They publish a regular online-newletter full of interesting articles about the forest, their activities and biodiversity issues. Contributions to the newsletter are lengthy, well-research and accompanied by high quality photos.

The ten-page December issue, for example, includes the following articles: ‘Nooks and Grannies – The Wombat’s Woody Elders (Alison Pouliot);  ‘Who is eating the truffles?’ (John Walter); Camera Project Update (Gayle Osborne);  Trevor’s Bird Page (Trevor Speirs); Sprung (a humorous article by Alison Pouliot about dumped mattresses in the bush) and Growing up in the Wombat (Judy Weatherhead). Click on the banner above to view this issue.

If you would like to be contacted when a new issue is published you can be included on an email list by contacting Gayle Osborne (info@wombatforestcare.org.au) or just check the Wombat Forestcare Inc website from time to time.

More than 60 people attended a summit on  6 February organised by the Bendigo District Environmental Council to promote the preservation of the Wellsford State Forest through upgrading its status. 

The forest is 6,478 ha of Box-Ironbark forest and has special biodiversity conservation values recognised by the Environment Conservation Council in its 2001 report. The then government’s dictated terms of reference required a balance of social, ecological and economic demands so it was not included in the Greater Bendigo National Park because at the time it was being logged.

Wellsford Forest in Spring, courtesy Dr John Bardsley

But times have changed and, after listening to the speakers outline the values of the Wellsford Forest, there was unanimous agreement from the summit attendees that a committee should be formed and a campaign planned to raise public and political awareness of the benefits of upgrading the forest from its current State Forest status to one that provides protection from all the threats of overuse and abuse.

We’ll keep you posted on how the campaign goes …….

Alison in the field.

Alison Pouliot  lives in Central Victoria and Switzerland. She has been running fungi and environmental photography workshops in Central Victoria and surrounds for a number of years. She also runs workshops in Europe. Examples of her stunning photographs and past projects can be found on her website.

This year’s program has two new seminar/workshop topics: Saviours of the Soil – Understanding the Role of Fungi in Terrestrial Ecosystems and The Secret Lives of Eucalypts – The Importance of Beneficial Fungi. She describes of the second workshop as follows:

Eucalypts are a defining part of Australian landscapes. The quintessential gum tree is deeply embedded in Australian culture, identity and life. Although highly resilient and adapted to the extremes of Australia’s climate, large numbers of eucalypts in rural areas are in decline.

While some fungi can be problematic for eucalypts under certain conditions, many fungi support eucalypts through beneficial symbioses and protection from soil pathogens. Other fungi provide vital nutrients for eucalypts via the decomposition of organic matter. This workshop will examine the role of fungi in soils and their interdependencies with eucalypts. It will address the importance of encouraging relationships between beneficial fungi and eucalypts in local forests, farms and remnant vegetation. Participants are encouraged to bring along fungus specimens to the workshop. (A. Pouliot website)

This workshop which should be of interest to FOBIF members is free. It will take place on the evening of 8 April at Lockwood South. All the fungi workshop topics, dates and times as well as booking details and costs can be found here. Environmental photography workshop details can be found here.

Collections of fungi. Photos by Alison Pouliot.

On 16 February 2014  there will be a free Sweet Bursaria Seed Collection & Propagation Workshop in the Castlemaine Botanic Gardens between 9.30 and 11am. The workshop has been organised by McKenzies Hill Action & Landcare Group and supported by a grant from the Victorian Government’s Communities for Nature program.

More about this workshop and a second one in June can be found here and you can find out about the Eltham Copper Butterfly’s amazing relationship with Sweet Bursaria (Bursaria spinosa) and a genus of ants called Notoncus on the Connecting Country website.

The Victorian Government announced today that it was expanding ‘existing prospecting and gem hunting areas in National Parks.’

In a quite extraordinary piece of logical acrobatics, Environment Minister Ryan Smith declared that the decision ‘supports recommendations made to the Victorian Coalition Government by the State’s independent environmental assessment body, the VEAC.’

In fact, as readers of our earlier post know, the Government directed VEAC to find new areas for prospectors in National Parks. VEAC was not permitted to conduct an independent examination of the question: should there be additional areas for prospecting?

To imply that the Government was accepting recommendations out of an independent enquiry is simple dishonesty.

Prospecting damage, German Gully: VEAC’s report was critical of the lack of data surrounding this activity, in spite of past government promises of monitoring. The Council made three strong recommendations for monitoring, supervision and research: it remains to be seen how seriously they’ll be taken.

In fact, the Council was clearly reluctant to bend to the Government’s will. VEAC’s report on this matter was severe about the environmental impacts of prospecting, even when properly pursued. Its report stated baldly, ‘This activity should not be introduced in additional parks if sufficient resources are not available for management.’ On page 47 of its report the Council made three clear, detailed recommendations for proper supervision,  research and monitoring.

All that the Government says about this is: ‘the response will be monitored during the first year of introduction.’

The previous government also promised monitoring of prospecting when it was permitted in the Castlemaine Diggings NHP in 2002. No monitoring took place.We’ll see how this one goes.

Floods are probably the last thing on anyone’s mind as we endure another heat wave–but it’s a sure thing that they’ll happen again some day. The North Central Catchment Management Authority is looking for ways to soften the blow when it does come, and has run a public meeting and a number of consultations to gauge community feeling about how the three Castlemaine creeks [Barkers, Forest and Campbells] should be managed.

Barkers Creek, January 2014: Even when it’s justified, creek clearance can cause public angst. There’s no evidence that clearance of native vegetation does anything to reduce flood levels.

Here’s a list of ideas thrown up in discussion so far:

–Clear out the creeks (particularly Barker’s creek between Walkers Street and Gaulton Street)

–Levees (particularly investigation of existing levees around the bowls club and National School Lane but also a suggestion to add a levee along the north side of Forest Creek alongside the caravan park from Barker St bridge to the railway;

–Improve local drainage (a large number of suggestions relate to this);

–Retarding basin in Happy Valley to reduce magnitude of flash flooding in urban area;

–Increase vegetation where appropriate to reduce flows entering creeks and to slow runoff divert water to natural retention basins through catchment ‘contour channels;

–Raise houses;

–Flood warning systems; and

–Planning controls to restrict development on floodplains.

All of these ideas present challenges or problems in one way or another. For example:

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