Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Engage Victoria is running another community survey, this time on Loddon Mallee biodiversity. As we’ve suggested before, these ‘public engagement’ exercises can be seen either as praiseworthy efforts to get the public onside, or time wasting exercises whose only result is to tell us what we know already.

The survey can be found here.

Do the questions engage, or just enrage? Are the results going to be stunning revelations? You be the judge. Here are the questions:

‘What areas of Loddon Mallee are of biodiversity value to you?

‘Why are these areas important?

‘Are you aware of any priority species in these areas?

‘Are you aware of any threats to these species or biodiversity areas?

‘Please list your top 5 areas in order of priority

‘Is your organisation or group carrying out works in any of these areas?

‘Where?

‘Are you aware of other groups in the region that are carrying out works in these areas?

‘Are there any challenges in relation to volunteering in your region?

‘How can the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning support groups volunteering in the region?’

The consultation closes on June 1.

Signs: what do they mean? And, especially, what does it mean that a lot of the signs around our parks are pretty decrepit?

We posed this question a couple of years ago when we published this photo of a sign on Poverty Gully:

Poverty Gully sign, July 2018: on its way out…

We’re still not sure of the answer to the question, but we can offer a progress report on the sign:

The same sign, April 2020: going, going…

The detached bit has completely disappeared. In short, the sign’s on its way to total oblivion, replaced, for the moment, by a beer bottle.

There’s increasing discussion about how Australia is going to recover from the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 attack. In this context we think it’s worth thinking about a proposal submitted to the Prime Minister by the Australian Conservation Foundation, the National Farmers Federation, Landcare Australia and many other farming and conservation groups. The full proposal can be found here. The gist of the proposal is that ‘During the period of economic recovery, there is scope for tens of thousands of skilled and unskilled workers to be employed in the conservation and land management sector’ in roles that are:

View from the Nuggety Ranges: Farmer, Landcare and Conservation groups have argued that restoration of land health should be a priority in future economic recovery programs.

‘ – practical and labour intensive;

‘- located in both regional and metropolitan areas;

‘- appropriate for repurposing existing workforces which are under pressure, including tradespeople and workers in the tourism, fisheries and forestry sectors; and,

‘- will not create long-term structural commitments in the budget.’

The proposal is costed at about $4 billion. It proposes investment in the following areas:

• a surge in weed control efforts, focussed on containment and preventing cross-tenure spread;
• river and wetland restoration, including fencing, revegetation and erosion control;
• national park infrastructure, track maintenance and park management (fire, weeds, feral animals);
• bushfire recovery and resilience activities, including infrastructure repairs and habitat restoration;

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And amidst the gloom, let’s not forget that things are happening out there:

Acacia genistifolia, Kalimna Park, April 12: this wattle flowers for most of the year. Do we take it for granted?