Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

A healthy crowd of 35 people turned up to the FOBIF AGM on a bitter winter night last week to hear Brian Bainbridge talk on revegetation of Melbourne’s Merri Creek. Brian’s presentation was a model ecological narrative, focusing on efforts to reestablish local populations of Matted Flax Lily and Plains Yam Daisy. A feature of his talk was the account of increased community involvement connected to the revegetation efforts; and the audience was greatly intrigued and entertained by details of the involvement of the Blue Banded Bee in the process, and the construction of bee hotels to enhance this involvement.

The FOBIF committee was reelected, as follows:

President: Marie Jones; Vice President: Neville Cooper; Secretary: Naomi Raftery [on leave]; Treasurer: Lynette Amaterstein; Committee members: Frank Panter, Jeremy Holland, Bronwyn Silver, Bernard Slattery

Acting secretary Bernard Slattery reminded members that committee meetings are open to all members, and that FOBIF is pretty keen to see new participants in meetings. All meetings will from now on be advertised on this site a week in advance.

Fourteen heroic walkers braved bitter winds to do a 7 kilometre circuit in Faraday for FOBIF’s July walk on Sunday. The walk covered a section of the Coliban water race and adjacent lanes. Features included some magnificent Candlebarks and a large population of Narrow-leaved Peppermints, as well as cultural heritage in the form of interesting granite structures from the 19th century race.

Candlebarks along Burgoyne’s Lane, Faraday: vegetation corridors like this offer a sometimes provocative contrast to the surrounding paddocks.

Noel Young took the photos above. Click on each to enlarge.

August’s walk will be led by Richard Piesse through the Poverty Gully area. Check the walks section of this site for details.

…But we think it’s worth drawing attention to the upcoming Castlemaine Documentary film festival. The program can be found here.

In particular, The salt of the earth, Wim Wenders’ film about Brazilian photographer Sebastiano Salgado, is worth anyone’s attention. It’s on this coming Saturday afternoon. Salgado isn’t just a great photographer: he has serious environmental credentials. The trailer for the film can be found here.

What is four metres square, alive, and can reduce as much air pollution as 275 trees?

Answer: a Citytree,  ‘a vertical structure filled with moss cultures and other vascular plants that clean pollution from the air. The structure also contains sensors that are able to control all the moss cultures in real time, to let operators know if they have enough of water, nutrients and salt.’ Citytrees are being installed in Berlin and other places as part of a range of solutions to air pollution.

We don’t have them in Castlemaine, but we do have plenty of moss on our streets, at least in the cooler part of the year.

Street Moss is the subject of an exhibition about to open at Falkner Gallery, 35 Templeton Street, Castlemaine this week. The exhibition opening is on this Saturday (22 July) between 2 and 4 pm and the show runs from 20 July to 3 September 2017. 

Moss Grid, Castlemaine. Bernard Slattery, 2017

Templeton Street gutter, Castlemaine. Photo by Bronwyn Silver, 2016

Parker Street footpath, Castlemaine. Photo by Bronwyn Silver 2016

As we’ve previously reported, Vicforests is keen to open some forests on the margins of our area to renewed logging, including the Wellsford, a magnificent Ironbark forest north of Bendigo, and the Wombat, to our south.

An analysis of Vicforests’ proposal can be found here.

For a comment about logging the Wombat, see Gayle Osborne’s article in the latest Wombat Forestcare newsletter.

At first sight, plans to extend logging in the Wellsford seem to lack sense. A campaign to give this bush National Park status has been going on for some years, and has wide community support, including from the City of Greater Bendigo.

In the Wellsford forest: it’s too good to be open to low grade logging. Photo: Geoff Lacey

Written submissions will be accepted until 21 August 2017.

Community drop-in sessions are being held in regional locations during the submission period. Come and find out about the investigation and talk to VEAC about public land in and around the Wellsford forest, Wombat forest-Macedon Ranges, Hepburn area, Cobaw forest, and Mount Cole and the Pyrenees Range.

You are welcome to arrive and leave at any stage during the listed times.  Prior registration is not required. The nearest drop-in sessions to our region are:

Bendigo Library
Tuesday 18 July 2017, 3pm – 7pm
251-259 Hargreaves Street, Bendigo

Woodend Community Centre
Thursday 27 July 2017, 3pm – 7pm
High Street and Forest Street, Woodend

Daylesford Neighbourhood Centre
Tuesday 1 August 2017, 3pm – 7pm
13 Camp Road, Daylesford

The 2017 FOBIF AGM is on at 7.30, 10 July 2017 in the Ray Bradfield Rooms. Guest speaker will be Brian Bainbridge from the Merri Creek Management Committee. All are welcome and you can find out all about it here. 

If you would like to join our committee, forms are available here.

The selection criteria are very broad for this year’s TOGS Cafe exhibition, Mountains and Waterways. All photos submitted that are taken around water and mountains in our region will be included on our Flickr site and considered for the exhibition. The closing date for photos is 1 August 2017. To find out more, see our earlier post or contact Bronwyn on 54751089.

We have included some sample photos below.

Black-fronted Dotterel. Cairn Curran. Photo by Geoff Park, 29 October 2014

Picnic Point, Cairn Curran. Photo by Geoff Park, 28 Feb 2017

Columbine Creek. Photo by Bronwyn Silver, 21 January 2017

Mount Alexander. Photo by Bernard Slattery, 26 July 2012

As outlined in a previous post, this year’s FOBIF AGM will be held at 7.30, July 10 in the Ray Bradfield Rooms. Details including how to nominate for the FOBIF Committee can be found here. Supper will be served and everyone is welcome.

Our speaker will be Brian Bainbridge, Ecological Restoration Planner, Merri Creek Management Committee. His topic will be Single species – many outcomes.

Single species conservation projects can have wide-ranging benefits when pursued in a holistic manner. Projects to secure local populations of Matted Flax Lily and Plains Yam Daisy have led Merri Creek Management Committee to build a deeper understanding of the Merri Creek’s changing ecology and the potential for landscape-scale conservation.  The projects have stimulated fresh approaches to engaging with community. 

Plains Yam Daisy