Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

A new study examining plant and animal species after the Black Summer fire season found greater biodiversity loss in areas subject to frequent burning. You can view two articles on the study here, one from The Conversation and one from the ABC.

One of the arguments often put forward to support fuel reduction  burning is that it can prevent or reduce the severity of larger bushfires. The argument goes that even if planned burning causes some impacts, it is less than what would occur during a larger bushfire. However, it is interesting to note that this study found otherwise, that the frequency of fire (e.g. planned burning followed by bushfire rather than bushfire alone) may cause greater harm and “condemns many plants and animals to large, potentially catastrophic declines in the next bushfire”.

The endangered Mountain Skink Liopholis montana needs your help to ensure its future. Wombat Forestcare, a community conservation group with over 200 members based in the Wombat State Forest, Victoria, is seeking donations to contract a reptile scientist to undertake surveys, establish long-term monitoring sites and collect genetic samples.

See https://chuffed.org/project/113833-be-a-champion-for-nature-lets-protect-our-mountain-skink

Up until four years ago, the Mountain Skink was thought to only inhabit high altitude alpine areas from the ACT to Yea in Victoria and only at a limited number of locations. In 2020 a group of herpetologists discovered a family of Mountain Skinks in the Wombat Forest, and at a much lower altitude.

This very exciting discovery led to scientists and Wombat Forestcare locating other populations of this secretive skink.

Research partly funded by Wombat Forestcare demonstrated that the newly discovered Wombat Forest population of Mountain Skinks contained higher levels of genetic diversity and lower levels of inbreeding when compared to the other populations of Mountain Skinks. 

Climate change will threaten the capacity of many alpine creatures to survive, and the Wombat Forest population will be of critical conservation importance should a captive breeding program be undertaken.

Mountain Skinks are also under threat from fuel reduction burns that are regularly undertaken in the Wombat Forest as well as salvage logging and firewood collection. 

In order to protect Mountain Skinks from these activities we need to know where they are located in the Wombat Forest. 

Readers may be interested in this article from The Guardian, which documents how a planned burn proposed for an area of Box Ironbark Forest at Whroo (near Rushworth) has been cancelled following a community-led ecological survey. The planned burn was scheduled to take place in autumn 2025, however the survey, which was commissioned by Kinglake Friends of the Forest, found that the burn area contained the only known site for the endangered Bald-tip Beard-orchid (Calochilus richiae). There are less than 10 plants remaining of this species, and the survey ecologist considered the burn to have a high likelihood of causing its extinction: link to article

FOBIF have been advocating for more sensible fuel reduction burning in our region for many years and are very concerned by the impacts caused to our precious flora and fauna. Over the years we have seen resources for biodiversity monitoring and survey dwindle, and the lack of due diligence, surveys and database checks prior to planned burns is a major issue. In 2019, Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMV) planned to burn a large area of Kalimna Park to the east of Castlemaine, however it took another community-led survey to show that several areas within the planned burn area supported the endangered Eltham Copper Butterfly.

We will continue to advocate for FFMV to do their own background work to ensure that sensitive species are excluded from planned burns. If the community can do it, then so can they.

There is currently a planned burn scheduled for the Maldon Historic Reserve for 2025, and we note that one of the regions most endangered plant species, Lanky Buttons (Leptorhynchos elongatus) has previously been recorded within the proposed burn area. We will be writing to FFMV to determine if any surveys have been undertaken to ensure this species is not impacted.