Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Travellers on the Pyrenees Highway east of Newstead will have noticed that work is under way on Vicroads’ wire rope project. A last minute series of meetings between local residents and road engineers has failed to bring any further modification to the project, which will involve significant vegetation removal.

Discussions are ongoing on possible speed reduction changes on this winding stretch of the highway, notable for animal crossings. Vicroads, as in the past, is curiously reluctant to reduce speed limits on its roads. We thought we’d just offer another reason to take the matter more seriously.

The photo below shows an Australian Common Longnecked turtle rescued from the road in Strangways. The mud on the shell suggests that the turtle had just come out of a local dam and was perhaps looking for a better refuge nearer the Loddon.

Australian common longnecked turtle (Chelodina longicollis), Strangways, March 10: these creatures undertake perilous journeys in search of better water body refuges

The Bendigo Field Naturalists’ excellent Frogs and Reptiles of the Bendigo district says of this species, ‘It can live in semi-permanent waterholes and survive summer drought by digging into soil or leaf litter of drying water bodies and aestivating. Alternatively they go in search of a better water body, a behaviour that leads to them being killed on roads and trapped by fences.’

In this case the driver was able to avoid the turtle because he was travelling relatively slowly. As we’ve pointed out before, the animal carnage on our roads is eloquently present in the form of many corpses, most visibly of kangaroos and wallabies. Smaller animals aren’t so obvious, but they are there.

Another reason for slowing down, especially on minor roads.

In 2018 the Midland Express published a series of ‘Landcare stories’ as part of Connecting Country’s ‘Nature News’ series. These stories are now available to read in electronic format (as pdf file), or as a printed booklet. Click here to download the file, or drop in to the Connecting Country office for a hard copy. Continue reading →

This Silver Banksia, Banksia marginata, was photographed recently on the Campbells Creek Trail. The species was virtually wiped out in this region in the nineteenth century. The many healthy trees along the creek are testament to the work of Friends Campbells Creek Landcare.

Banksia marginata. Photo by Bernard Slattery, 13 February 2019

There has also been successful plantings in the Sutton Grange region. The Banksia marginata cones below were gathered to collect seeds from remaining local species.  

Photo by Ann-Marie Monda

You can check out more local nature photos on the FOBIF Instagram site and the FOBIF Flickr site.  

FOBIF now has an Instagram feed and we would like invite members and supporters to send their local nature photos to info@fobif.org.au so we can include them on the site. To have a look at the site select the new Instagram button on the FOBIF website or search in Instagram for ‘boxironbarkforests’.

Vicroads engineers met again with residents in Newstead last week to go over objections to tree removals along the Pyrenees Highway [see our previous posts]. Numerous objections to the basis of the project were raised. Some were accepted as legitimate—statistics regarding traffic flow and accident occurrence, for example, were found to be flawed. Nevertheless, none of these objections were enough to change the nature of the project. Engineers present made it plain that in their view it will go on as planned, sooner or later, further consultations notwithstanding.

The crux of the matter, it seems to us, is that Vicroads is focused on one side of the accident equation. As we reported last week, road authorities attribute the rate of serious injury to two factors: likelihood of a crash, and impact if the crash occurs. Residents’ proposals have centred on the first: avoiding crashes altogether, by reducing speed limits and installing new signage with various road surface improvements. Vicroads works from the assumption that crashes will happen anyway, and we should work to soften their effects. Of course if a car veers off the road a wire rope barrier will soften the impact of the accident. But what if, owing to its lower speed, the car was not to leave the road at all? The two sides of the argument bounce off each other with no result other than the inevitable: the project will proceed…

One revealing moment in last week’s discussion: engineers claimed that for every request they have for a speed limit reduction, there are ten objections to it. We’re pretty cautious about this claim, which sounds a little self serving. We remember that we were offered the same reasoning ten years ago when we asked for a reduction on the Castlemaine Elphinstone road…and a few years after that, the limit was reduced, with little or no community objection…

Residents have sought the assistance of the Minister and the Member for Bendigo West, Maree Edwards, who has been co operative, so far. Consultations are ongoing.