Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Parks Victoria is currently undertaking landscaping works around the Garfield Wheel in the Castlemaine Diggings NHP. These have changed the nature of the signage in the area, and therefore affect the directions we have given for Walk 8 in our book, 20 walks in the Mount Alexander region.

New landscaping around the Garfield Wheel foundations: though unfinished, they’re already an improvement to the precinct…and will be even better if they eliminate weeds in the area.

As at August 7, the directions to proceed from the wheel towards the Welsh Village in this walk are as follows: take your bearings from the Goldfields Track sign (pictured). Walk forward (direction Castlemaine) about a hundred metres to the yellow topped walk post. Disregard it, and take the track about 10 metres to its right, currently marked by dark posts, with no signage. This is the Dirty Dicks track. It takes you past various mining works, and is marked by grey posts.

As the works around the wheel and on Dirty Dick’s track are completed, we are assuming that this track away from the wheel will be more clearly signposted.

The works around the Wheel are part of a project to improve access to the Welsh Village. So far, they’re looking good. We have hopes that before they’re finished, Parks will have eliminated the Bridal Creeper infestations in the precinct.

Australia’s State of the Environment report 2021 was belatedly released last week. The report’s grim findings have been widely publicised, and we won’t repeat what will be already widely known. It’s worth pointing out, however, that the report is peppered with words and phrases emphasising the need for ‘greater community awareness’, to ‘rethink’, ‘redesign’, ‘be more conscious’, ‘to build better, greener, more resilient’. This is in line with virtually every other Enviro report we’ve seen: the need to change the way we live is pretty basic. Maybe that’s why such reports are political dynamite.  Everyone wants a better environment. How many want the changes necessary to bring that about?

An example of ‘disregard’ for environmental values? Gazanias for sale: ‘Gazania (Gazania linearis) is regarded as an environmental weed in Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia and as an emerging or potential environmental weed in parts of Western Australia and New South Wales. This species invades coastal habitats, as well as grasslands and open woodlands in inland areas. It can severely alter the vegetation structure in plant communities by replacing and suppressing native plants.’ –Lucid Central.

Coincidentally, the North Central Catchment Management Authority has released its Regional Catchment strategy 2021-27. This document contains the following blunt statement: ‘A general lack of understanding or regard for legislation designed to protect biodiversity, as well as cultural heritage,  has been identified as a concern across the region’(our emphasis).

How can this ‘general lack of understanding or regard’ be changed? This strategy underlines the importance of engagement with ‘Rural landholders, associated community-based NRM groups, volunteers and the broader community…government, non-government, industry and research organisations’ (our emphasis), but isn’t very specific about how this engagement might happen.

On this one, we have a modest idea: more Park Rangers circulating in our protected areas, engaging face to face with holiday makers and travellers, cheerfully and passionately promoting the values of biodiversity? Oh, that would cost money…Maybe a reduction in the number of moronic TV campaigns promoting silly and destructive attitudes to the environment? That would be cheap.

Here are a few details from the SOE report, relevant to our own region:

1. Paying attention to good on ground management matters.

If you ever wonder whether Landcare is worth the effort, or if weed and feral animal control matters, check this table:

2. Amazing news—it’s getting dryer!

‘Infrastructure Australia’s 2019 audit found that the reduction in average winter rainfall in south-western Australia has caused a 50% reduction in urban run-off over the past 50 years, leading to declining streamflows across the southern and south-eastern regions.’

3. Urban design matters, and so does the greening of our towns and cities

‘Because of the increasing ratio of building area to land area on lots, the space for trees, plants and outdoor recreation at both the front and rear of dwellings has declined. This change in urban form is not only changing the physical form and character of existing and greenfield neighbourhoods, but the ability to manage heat, improve walkability and thereby the livability or our urban environments. It is also reducing the extent of urban biodiversity by decreasing tree canopy cover and garden space… Research has found that private sector residential development in the past 20 years has less tree cover than in previous decades…

‘… To manage urban heat and increase our safety and wellbeing, we will be looking to re-establish more natural environments within our urban environment, empower Indigenous peoples and their knowledge, create new programs of tree planting, reintroduce biodiversity, renaturalise our waterways and use biomaterials to construct our built environment. This must occur concurrent with our reduction in energy consumption and as we reconnect our green and blue urban infrastructure into a quality network for people and urban biodiversity.’

4. Guess what: offsets may not be such a great idea…

‘The growing dependency on offsets to protect matters of national environmental significance from the impacts of development is risky, given the lack of demonstrated successful outcomes, and inadequate monitoring and oversight.’ [FOBIF emphasis]

5. Settling people in fire prone environments has big consequences

‘In a post-pandemic digital era, modern settlement patterns are likely to proliferate across rural and regional Australia as more people are less tied to working in large cities … Managing a more distributed network of people with exacerbated fire weather across whole landscapes is likely to have significant negative consequences for vulnerable biodiversity and ecosystems, with flow-on impacts to natural capital and diminished resilience of local communities. Local communities will need to revisit the objectives of their fire management strategies to balance the potential human impacts with natural capital values they wish to maintain.’

6. Way to go: indigenous solutions

An interesting feature of this report is its heavy emphasis on the need to pay attention to indigenous ways of thinking and managing. It is extremely positive about the increasing engagement of indigenous people in land management, but offers the following sober reality check:

‘Indigenous people are rich in land assets and poor in terms of access to finance and other critical support to manage Country. The Indigenous estate has grown through native title determinations and other means. However, recognition of Indigenous ownership or land-use agreements does not automatically translate to Traditional Custodians accessing, actively managing and realising wellbeing and economic benefits from their lands.’

7. And here’s a provocative claim

‘Historically, planning regulations have put the protection of people first, the protection of assets second and the protection of the environment third. This has downplayed the wellbeing implications of connections between people and the environment, which has particular implications for Indigenous people’s connections to Country.’

‘Species introduced to Australia from other regions and countries can have a crippling effect on economies and further impact the health and wellbeing of local communities. The cost to Australia of managing problem species over the past 50 years is in the order of hundreds of billions of dollars. These costs are borne both by the economy and the environment…

Bridal Creeper and Blackberry infestation on the Vaughan to Glenluce water race track, July 2022. Infestation along this stretch of the Loddon has doubled in size in 12 months.

‘There are 2,383 introduced species with at least one occurrence record in the Atlas of Living Australia based on observations up to and including 2020 (Table 9). The actual number of introduced species in Australia is expected to be much higher, because many occurrence datasets are not publicly available due to sensitivities, or are not aggregated in one place. For example, there are known to be more introduced plant species (27,500) in Australia than native species, of which around 2,800 have naturalised . As a general rule, around 10% of those that have naturalised in the wild are thought to become impactful invasive species.’