Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

It’s spring! Wildflowers are a bit slow to emerge this year, but there are signs–plenty of orchids, for example. And we can always hope, though it’s been dry, and doesn’t look like it’s going to improve. Here’s the Bureau of Meteorology predictions on the chances of above average rainfall to November:

The recent VEAC Central West report puts it this way: ‘As with most of Victoria, the Central West Investigation area has already experienced some effects of climate change. For example, since the 1950s average annual rainfall in the investigation area has declined by 100 to 200 millimetres and average temperatures have increased by approximately 1.2 to 1.4 degrees. These trends are projected to continue with more hot days, increased fire weather and more frequent extreme weather events.’

So, dry or not, it’s still Spring, the time to get out and see what our bush can do.

And, of course, we know that our forest managers are aware of the severe conditions, and keen to do everything they can to maintain resilience in the face of these conditions. Right?

Maybe not.

Those visiting one of our wildflower hotspots had better brace themselves for yet another experience of land managers’ road upgrades.

Typical section of Morgan’s track, September 2: This is not ‘keeping within the track footprint.’

Morgan’s Track has well and truly got the treatment from the grader: gouging of track edges, numerous scalped areas where machines have turned around, a tendency to widen the track, plus some intriguing vegetation removal. It’s not always clear what this last is for. We are often told by managers that crews are instructed to ‘stay inside the track footprint.’ This has now become a bit of a joke.

Here’s a question: if road maintenance crews are given the job of cleaning the gutters in Swanston Street, would they think it a good idea to gouge a few inches, or a few feet, out of the footpath? Possibly not: but DELWP has traditionally, it seems, considered the verges of bush tracks to be pretty flexible. A gouge here, a scalp there: it’ll all come back OK.

Maybe: but in increasingly severe climatic conditions, managers’ responsibility is to improve natural resilience, not scrape away at it…or at least, you’d think so…

The Victorian Environment Assessment Council has recommended that a significant part of the Wombat forest be included in a new Wombat-Lerderderg National Park.

The recommendation comes in VEAC’s draft report on its Central West Investigation.

Also included in the report is a recommendation that the western part of the Wellsford State Forest be absorbed into the Bendigo Regional Park, and the eastern and northern section of the forest be created as a nature reserve.

The main impact of these latter changes would be the protection of the Wellsford from logging. Readers will remember that Vicforests was proposing renewed logging in this magnificent box ironbark area.

VEAC has clearly bent over backwards to accommodate conflicting demands for the Wellsford. The recommended changes would exclude logging: but regional parks are managed primarily for recreation, and allow practically all recreational activities apart from hunting. This latter is seen, logically enough, to ‘[conflict] with use by large numbers of other recreational users.’  The nature reserve section of the forest would be managed along the lines of a national park.

‘The intention of these draft recommendations is to focus protection of key natural values in the recommended nature reserve and recreational activities in the recommended regional park.’

There are many other recommendations in the VEAC draft report, which can be found here. Though it concerns areas outside the Mount Alexander region, it is of absorbing interest to anyone interested in the wider Central/West central Victorian region. We’ll go into some of the issues it deals with in future posts.

The VEAC investigation was characterised by some pretty strange lobbying by  recreational interests, some of whom seemed to think it is an infringement of their liberty to be obliged to drive their car on a road. The council’s attempt at a balanced compromise is probably going to cop some flak, so those interested in the proper management of our neighbouring regions are encouraged to check the draft, and make a submission.

Written submissions close on Wednesday 31 October 2018.

Ian Higgins, well known local landcarer and co-founder of Friends of Campbells Creek Landcare, will be our speaker at the upcoming FOBIF AGM on August 27.

In an article about Ian after he received the Australian Government Individual Landcarer Award in 2017, the Victorian Landcare Magazine wrote:

Higgins’ early interest in native plants has continued through his life. He developed a remarkable knowledge of indigenous flora species, their propagation and revegetation, leading to a 30-year professional career during which he has contributed significantly to revegetation and environmental planning in Victoria, in both professional and voluntary capacities.

You can find out about Ian’s history of involvement in environmental projects here.

Topics he will cover in his FOBIF speech will include:

• Changes in our landscape and vegetation since colonisation, including the profound local impacts of gold mining and the consequences of a European mindset
• A short history of rehabilitation efforts, including the contribution of landcare groups
• Is aiming for something more like the pre-European condition viable?  Given that we’ve already lost many components of the ecosystem, together with massive invasions of exotic species and climate change, what should our local landscape and vegetation management goals be?  

The meeting will start at 7.30 in the Ray Bradfield Room, Castlemaine (next to Mostyn Street IGA supermarket). Information on how to nominate for the FOBIF Committee can be found here. All welcome and supper will be served. 

Fires have ravaged Greece, and are still burning California. Gippsland has had a large bushfire in the dead of winter, and NSW has had its earliest ever total fire ban day. We’re bracing for another serious fire season.

If you have the nerve, a bit context on this contentious issue can be found in ‘California burning’, a long and provocative article in the New York Review of Books. The article can be found here. Familiar themes abound in the international story: poor forest management, climate change, arson, flammable weeds, unwise urban development at the forest interface, poor understanding of fire ecology. Here’s a sample:

‘In the United States, exurban and rural property development in the wildland-urban interface has been, perhaps, the final straw—or at least another lighted match tossed on the pile. Most wildfires that threaten or damage communities are caused by humans. Campfires, barbecues, sparks from chainsaws, lawnmowers, power lines, cars, motorcycles, cigarettes—the modes of inadvertent ignition in a bone-dry landscape are effectively limitless. Let’s say nothing of arson. Houses and other structures become wildfire fuel, and vulnerable communities hugely complicate forest management and disaster planning. In his panoramic 2017 book Megafire, the journalist (and former firefighter) Michael Kodas observes pithily that “during the century in which the nation attempted to exclude fire from forests, [those forests] filled with homes.”’

Interestingly, the article suggests that old growth forest is more resilient to fire than the even aged stands resulting from clear felling, and notes that the current US administration’s policy is to respond to fire with more logging, ‘which may well result in less resilient forests and, of all things, more fire.