Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

FOBIF members are cordially invited to the 2014 AGM, which will be held at the Castlemaine Continuing Education Centre in Templeton Street, at 7.30 pm on Monday August 11.

Elections will be held for positions on the FOBIF committee: President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and ordinary members. Financial members wishing to nominate should forward their signed nomination, countersigned by a mover and a seconder, both financial FOBIF members, before the above date.

On Saturday May 30 the Friends of Kalimna Park were given a Certificate of Appreciation by Parks Victoria for 30 years of dedicated work for the Park. Friends of Kalimna Park began in 1971 as the Kalimna Park Preservation Committee. Since then the group has monitored the Park and assisted with its maintenance and protection, including weeding and revegetation and numerous advocacy, monitoring and educational activities.

In Victoria , nearly 220 000 hours of work was undertaken by Parks Victoria volunteers in 180 parks and reserves across the state in 2012/13. This equates to nearly 30 000 volunteer days and is the equivalent of 123 full time staff for a year.

Bendigo environmentalists are campaigning to have the status of the Wellsford forest upgraded to give it a chance to recover from long term over exploitation. The Wellsford Forest Conservation Alliance has widespread community support: their recent Big Trees Walk attracted 109 participants!
For a look at their terrific Facebook page, illustrated by some eloquent photos, go to https://www.facebook.com/wellsfordconservation

To keep abreast of how things are in the wetter forests to the south of our area you can’t do better than check on the activities of Wombat Forestcare at http://www.wombatforestcare.org.au/

The website gives access to the group’s fantastically informative and entertaining newsletter, the latest edition of which is devoted to fungi of the Wombat.

FOBIF’s submission on the proposed Tarran Valley development near Maldon can be found here. It is a more detailed statement of the case summarised in our April 29 posts on this matter.

Further submissions by the developer to the panel concentrate the proposed housing, and move it further from surrounding bushland: this altered proposal seems to have weakened reservations about the fire risk by the CFA and DEPI. The latter, however, in its latest submission, repeats what it said, confusingly, before:

‘It is DEPI’s experience however that at some time in the future residents of the subdivision would expect DEPI to undertake greater levels of fire management within the adjoining [Maldon Historic] reserve if inconsistent defendable space is imposed within the subject land.’

It’s not clear what the Department means by ‘inconsistent defendable space.’

The panel will bring down its decision within a month.

 

Starting and finishing at the Oak Forest, Doug Ralph led the group of about 20 around the western flanks of Mt Alexander, taking in 2 or 3 disused granite quarries. Doug related some interesting stories from the history of these quarries, and Prof. Julian Hollis gave us a brief synopsis of his current geological research into a mineralogical relationship between the granite of Mt Alexander and volcanic rocks which have been drawn from deep in the crust and ejected at Mt Franklin.

Along the way we came across Echidna diggings and eventually caught one of the perpetrators in the act.  Many birds were about, including Australian Raven, Magpie, Crimson Rosella, Currawongs, Galahs, Red Wattlebird, Superb Blue Wrens, Grey Shrike-thrush, White-eared Honeyeater and Thornbills.

 

It was a balmy autumn day, and though a relatively tough walk (some of it was off track) it was enjoyed by all who participated.

Noel Young contributed this account of the walk and the photos.

The FOBIF publication, Mosses of Dry Forests in South Eastern Australia, will be launched by Frances Cincotta on 31 May. The launch invitation can be downloaded here. Everyone is welcome to attend.

An order form which includes a sample page from the book can be downloaded here.