More contributions to Fobif turns 25 show

Posted on 30 December, 2022 by fobif

Jeremy Holland and Jane Rusden have sent these photos and accompanying text for our Fobif turns 25 exhibition. There is is a few weeks to go if you would like to be part of this project. Check out the details here.

Jeremy Holland

Tarilta Creek

For me one of the most endearing features of our bush is its generally open nature.

This allows for relatively easy and enjoyable walking away from roads and tracks following natural features such as ridge-lines, spurs, creeks and gullies.

It is such a pleasure to be able to plan out a route and then proceed with it and thoroughly explore an area.

One of my favourite areas for this is around Tarilta Creek with its beautiful grassy flats interspersed with steep cliffs and interesting side gullies, sometimes with an occasional waterfall.

Jane Rusden

Crested Shrike-tits live along side us on our bush block, particularly in spring, they can be easily seen on a day basis which is a huge treat. The gully is full of Greybox and Whitebox, it’s a dry grassy woodland EVC. Often I hear them tearing bark as they search for an insect meal, which is how their presence is commonly discovered. I love their black crest, which looks like a Mohawk with a good dose of attitude. Their splash of vivid yellow is a welcome sight during cold grey days, which never fails to light my spirit.

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New Biodiversity Council

Posted on 23 December, 2022 by fobif

This news arrived last Tuesday and could be worth following to see how the huge environmental problems we all face can be successfully tackled …

Welcome to the first Biodiversity Council news!  

Biodiversity Council

The Australian Government’s response to Graeme Samuel’s 2020 review of our Federal environmental laws promises substantial advances. Minister Plibersek has announced an independent Federal Environmental Protection Agency, strong national standards including for forests (which are currently exempted from close scrutiny through Regional Forest Agreements), and regional planning to ensure …

Right now, Australia’s biodiversity is seeing catastrophic declines. This presents a major threat to all of us.

To make a difference, leading experts including Indigenous knowledge holders have united with philanthropists and 11 universities to form a new, independent council to bring forward the key issues facing our biodiversity and the solutions needed to halt its decline.

Our vision is that Australia’s biodiversity is recognised and valued nationally and globally as a priceless heritage, a foundation for our life and a defining feature of our country, and its future is recovered or secured.

Many solutions exist, and we can find others. But making these a reality requires working together.

So we’re working with communities, Traditional Owners, government, farmers and industries to solve Australia’s biodiversity crisis.

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FOBIF turns 25 show

Posted on 13 December, 2022 by fobif

Patrick Kavanagh’s contribution to the FOBIF turns 25 show. 

The first sound we heard when we first walked onto our place in 1994 was the haunting call of White-winged Choughs, Mooyin-unkil in Dja Dja Wurrung. They are such a presence in our bush at Strangways that we really imagine them as the landlords and landladies. They delight us constantly with their antics, especially when they are building their wonderful mud nests and come into our bird baths covered with mud from their labours.

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FOBIF turns 25

Posted on 12 December, 2022 by fobif

This is Bernard Slattery’s contribution to the FOBIF turns 25 show.

Disaster chic

Bushland reserves are often blocks of land left over after being thoroughly thrashed: having been exploited to the hilt, they’re rather flatteringly named ‘reserves’ and left to a kind of benign neglect. Battered though they are, some of them are amazing biodiversity reserves.

There are quite a few in this region, and I used to have a compulsion to cycle around the country checking them out. One of the most striking is the disused mine and quarry workings at the south end of Blanket Gully road: Guildford Bushland Reserve.

What can you say about this amazing place? It’s hard not to be horrified by the impression that some monster has torn through it in a fury, then left without a backward look. In a way this is true: the site seems to be a relic of times when miners weren’t obliged to rehabilitate their works.

On the other hand, there’s something mesmerising about the place: the colours, the extraordinary scars torn through the landscape, the heroic efforts of the vegetation to re-establish itself—all this tells a dramatic story, and, what’s more, a story which has a way to go.

And there’s a certain embarrassment in the site, as well. We may choose to be disapproving of past practices, but there’s a bit of truth in the aggressive bumper sticker proclaiming that ‘everything you own, wear, use, and eat has been cut down or dug up from the ground’. This site is challenge: ‘you don’t like it? Well, do better.’

As explained in a previous post all contributions to the FOBIF turns 25 exhibition are welcome and will be posted on this site. A selection will be chosen for display in at the Arts Hub, which will run between 25 February to 13 March 2023. You can see the current contributions here.

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Fuel breaks: the story so far

Posted on 28 November, 2022 by fobif

Local enviro groups have been briefed on the progress of Strategic Fuel Breaks in the region. As with most things to do with fire and biodiversity management, the picture so far is patchy and its final effects hard to assess.

On the one hand, the quality of DELWP consultation on the project has been unusually good, and every attempt seems to have been made to adjust works to local conditions.

On the other, we have to face the fact that, like every state wide project, this one has a kind of juggernaut effect: lines have been drawn on maps, and local adjustments to these lines—if any adjustments are possible—are going to have to be hard fought.

FOBIF’s immediate concerns include the following:

  • The fuel breaks proposed for the Fryers Ridge and Porcupine Ridge. We have been told that works in these areas will not be started for at least 12 months, but the prospect of their going ahead at all brings no joy to anyone interested in local biodiversity. Although we are fully aware of the importance of firefighter access and safety in these areas, we’re not convinced that it’s best achieved by mowing down the bush. FOBIF has suggested alternatives to slashing and mulching in sensitive areas: these seem to have gone nowhere
  • Monitoring: We believe that baseline monitoring of Break sites, and ongoing monitoring of works, are essential. Recent discussions suggest that these will not be as rigorously implemented as we’d like. We’re not sure if these works are governed by the transparency requirements of the Code of Practice for Bushfire Management. They should be…but on the other hand, the Code is not always followed.
  • Methods: Experimental use of brushcutters to manage vegetation along Bells Lane track in the Muckleford forest suggests that this method is as effective as tractor mounted machinery, and less damaging in terms of soil disturbance and weed growth. We’re interested in seeing it as the preferred method.

FOBIF has repeatedly made it clear we are not opposed to fire breaks close to settlements. As to more remote forested areas, we still have concerns on a number of levels, mainly to do with the thorny problem of reconciling safety and biodiversity concerns. Are these two objectives irreconcilable? We are occasionally invited to believe so  by  hard heads in land management, and it’s sobering to read in IGEM’s report into the 2019-20 fire season the suggestion that people should be prepared to ‘create safety by navigating complex trade-offs between irreconcilable goals.’ The same report, however, suggests that greater resourcing for land management might get better results all round. We’d agree with that.

We’ve been informed that this region has been a bit of a pilot project for fuel breaks, and that future works may not be as rigorously considered and implemented as they have so far in this area. That’s a very disturbing thought. We’ll see. We believe that any hope of getting a half way decent result on the ‘irreconcilable goals’ requires more, not less, attention to detail.

In the meantime, we hope that consultations on these and other matters can continue.

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