Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

The FOBIF Annual General Meeting will be held at the Ray Bradfield Rooms on Monday July 11 at 7.30 p.m.

Our guest speaker will be Martin Scuffins from the Leigh Valley Hawk and Owl Sanctuary. This impressive organisation has a two-part focus:

The Sanctuary offers mobile raptor displays with an elite team of trained birds of prey. Presentations are conducted by highly trained staff with an established track record in environmental science and teaching. Our programs are offered within the Central Highlands and south-western regions of Victoria. We also rehabilitate injured birds of prey under our Department of Environment, Land, Water and  Planning shelter permit.

Some images from The Sanctuary website

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A motion will be moved to update the FOBIF statement of aims, which is now ten years old. The proposed new statement of aims is set out below. [For comparison, the current statement of aims is in the ‘About us’ section of this site].

More details on the meeting agenda will be published on this site in the coming weeks.

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Here’s the proposed new statement of aims:

Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests (Mt Alexander Region) was formed in 1998 by people in the local community interested in working towards highlighting the significance of the Box-Ironbark Forests and Woodlands. There are over 100 members with a committee elected yearly at the Annual General Meeting.

We believe that the health of the land is intimately linked to its vegetation cover and the wildlife it sustains: that forests, soil and water are ‘an inseparable trinity.’ That’s why we work to encourage and support sound land management practices, on private and public land.

The Friends Exist . . .

To promote respect for Indigenous culture and understanding of Indigenous land management practices.

To work towards a common community approach to a healthy, sustainable and productive landscape through conservation of natural vegetation on public and private land in the Mount Alexander Region and in particular to:

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The Dja Dja Wurrung Aboriginal Corporation has produced a Country Plan, Dhelkunya Dja [Healing Country], outlining management objectives for local Indigenous people to the year 2034. The document can be found here.

According to the Plan, ‘Eighty-seven per cent of Dja Dja Wurrung country is privately owned, with sixty-five per cent of this used for agriculture. The rest of our Country is a combination of parks, forests and reserves, six of which are Aboriginal Title lands that have been leased back to the Victorian Government under Aboriginal joint management.

‘Along with two freehold parcels granted under our Regional Settlement Agreement, a total of 2.8 per cent of Dja Dja Wurrung Country is owned by Dja Dja Wurrung Aboriginal Corporation.

‘The population of the Dja Dja Wurrung region has been estimated at 120,000 of which it is believed that the Indigenous population is approximately 1,300.’

Dja Dja Wurrung country

The plan is an important document, especially in the light of a recent independent report offering a glowing assessment of the value of indigenous protected areas elsewhere in Australia. The report, commissioned by the Department of Prime Minister and cabinet, found huge benefits in investment in these projects. According to the Guardian,

‘The report found that between the 2009 and 2015 financial years, an investment of $35.2m from government and third parties generated $96.5m worth of social, economic, cultural and environmental outcomes, and that 28 of 35 program outcomes directly aligned with government strategic priorities.

‘IPAs and ranger programs were “effectively overcoming barriers to addressing Indigenous disadvantage and engaging Indigenous Australians on country in meaningful employment to achieve large-scale conservation outcomes,” the report said.’

Oh: and don’t forget to drop into the Castlemaine library to look over the excellent Reconciliation Week display in the foyer–this week only.

The May 24 information session was followed by a briefing by researchers who produced the Box Ironbark mosaic burning project [see our Posts here, here and here].

As we reported last week, possibly the biggest question raised by this project is that it simply is not enough: a project run over only two years—and two unusually wet years at that—necessarily has limitations. This problem was raised at the information session, and we were told that DELWP workers would continue some of the project’s monitoring. This is better than nothing, but is obviously not the same as continuing a rigorously designed and managed research program of the kind that could form a reliable foundation for fire managers in the future.

One encouraging thing to emerge from the session, however, was the statement by fire managers present that the research project [in which they had been involved] had been a ‘learning experience’ for them. There’s an interesting idea: that fire operations should be integrated with ecological research, and should always have ecological outcomes in mind.

The opening of our Trees of the Mount Alexander Shire photo show at the Newstead Railway Arts Hub will take place next Saturday (4 June) at 10.30.

Bernard Slattery will open the show and Julie Patey from The Hub is bringing along home made scones. As well, Andrew Skeoch from Listening Earth, will play sound recordings of local birdsong during the opening and at other viewing times.

Everyone is welcome to the opening. More details and sample images from the exhibition can be found here and here.

The exhibition was recently displayed at TOGS cafe in Castlemaine. At the Newstead show there will also be a slide show of tree photos that people sent into FOBIF after our ‘call for photos’ in January this year.

One of the photos from the exhibition: Red Box (Eucalyptus polyanthemos) Golden Point. Photo by Bernard Slattery, August 2015

Noel Young sent these photos to us after we we had posted our walks article.  They provide a terrific record of the walk so we decided to post them in the gallery below. We are not one hundred percent sure of the identification of the fungi in the first photo. If anyone thinks our identification is incorrect please let us know. Click on the thumbnail image to enlarge.

Click to enlarge.

The FOBIF exhibition, Trees in the Mount Alexander Region, is being held in 2 locations this year, TOGS and the new Newstead Railway Arts Hub. The TOGS show which finished recently was a great success with lots of positive responses and sales of photos. Now it’s time for the move to Newstead.

The show in Newstead will run throughout June. It will include the photos from the TOGS show and a slide show which will have at least one image from people who sent in photos for our Flickr site.

The Gallery will be open at weekends and the Queens Birthday holiday on Monday 13 June. Opening hours are 10am to 4 pm. The address is Dundas Street, Newstead (directly across from Railway Hotel). If you would like to view the exhibition outside these days/hours, or help with staffing the show, contact Bronwyn Silver on 5475 1089

The opening will be at 10.30 on Saturday 4 June. There will be refreshments and everyone is welcome. Bernard Slattery from FOBIF will open the show.