Julie Hurley giving an outline of the Victoria Gully project.

Twenty five walkers did the stroll from Clinkers Hill Reserve deep into the Poverty Gully area on last Sunday’s monthly FOBIF walk.

Walkers got a briefing from Julie Hurley on weed clearing and restoration work in the reserve by the Victoria Gully Group. Victoria gully runs through the Reserve down to Forest Creek at Tute’s cottage.

Although degraded like many other waterways in this district, the gully has great potential as a public asset, and the work done by the residents’ group has already enhanced the little known but very pretty reserve.

Pyronema fungus in fire ash: it weirdly resembles the glowing fire out of which it came.

Highlights of the walk included sighting of an echidna snoozing in a tree bole, and a series of weirdly spectacular fungi outgrowths from DSE’s autumn management burn. The fungus, Pyronema omphalodes, flourishes in fire ash, and bears an irresistible and intriguing resemblance to a glowing fire.

By taking an off track route up and down nameless gullies and ridge tops, Sunday’s walk showed how you can get a pretty remote feeling in our local bush–less than a kilometre from the town edge. And we got the chance to look over three contiguous DSE management burns: 2009, 2012 and 2013.

Some of Sunday's walkers at lunch.

What is most striking about the government’s press release [printed in full below] is the  absence of any detailed notion of what, exactly, has been achieved in this welter of burning: the statistic is everything.

'To reduce the risk of bushfires on our parks and native animals': Ashby Track area, six months after a management burn, 2012.

Readers will remember that FOBIF wrote to the responsible ministers last year asking whether serious consideration had been given to the Royal Commission Implementation Monitor’s recommendation that the five per cent burning target be revised. The Monitor suggested that the rush to burn lots of country might be compromising public safety by encouraging burns in remote areas.

Although the responsible minister, Peter Ryan, had said that the government would ‘consider’ the monitor’s view, all we got from his spokesman (and from the Environment Minister Ryan Smith] was a lot of patronising generalities about fire. At the time we took this to mean: ‘No, we’re not paying any attention to what the Monitor says.’ The latest press release confirms this view.

There are interesting research projects under way on the effects of frequent burning on bushland in various habitats. There’s no evidence that these projects are influencing government policy, though it’s clear that many DSE officers are concerned about the likelihood that these practices will radically alter bush environments for the worse. It’s a bit like deliberately burning down your own house, while carefully researching the effect of fire on residential amenity.

The Government’s press release, dated May 9, reads in full as follows:

Coalition Government’s planned burning program reaches major milestone

The Victorian Coalition Government has hit a milestone with more than 200,000 hectares of planned burning already carried out on public land this financial year and more to come as weather conditions remain stable.

Minister for Environment and Climate Change Ryan Smith said reaching the 200,000 hectare mark was a significant achievement and reflected the hard work of fire crews from the Department of Environment and Primary Industries (DEPI) and Parks Victoria.

“Despite a prolonged bushfire season followed by significant rain, planned burning has been carried out on almost 220,000 hectares of public land. This is 22,000 hectares more than was accomplished last year,” Mr Smith said.

“Our crews have done an amazing job and have been able to seamlessly switch from fighting some of the largest bushfires in the past several decades to preparing and undertaking the largest planned burning program in the last 20 years.

“We still have a good window of mild, stable weather conditions ahead of us and we’ll take every opportunity to carry out more planned burns to further reduce the risk of bushfires on our parks and native animals, as well as Victorian communities, people and property.”

Mr Smith said this year’s bushfires reinforced the need for an extensive strategic planned burning program.

“This is a reminder of why we need to increase the amount of planned burning we do on public land, and why we need both large burns in areas like East Gippsland, as well as the smaller asset protection burns around areas like Melbourne,” Mr Smith said.

“We’ve also done a lot of other work to reduce fuel loads including slashing, mowing and clearing in high-risk areas such as the Dandenong Ranges.”

The Coalition Government announced in Tuesday’s State Budget it would invest a further $33.7 million to increase its planned burning program over the next two years.

“Scaling up the state’s planned burning program is a big challenge, one that has not been attempted at this magnitude before,” Mr Smith said.

“This additional funding will allow DEPI to make further improvements to expand the planned burning program.

“This stands in stark contrast to the previous Labor Government, which in 2005-2006 only managed to burn 49,000 hectares and repeatedly failed to even reach the 100,000 hectare mark.”

Fire crews from DEPI and Parks Victoria will take advantage of stable weather conditions to carry out planned burns across the state over the coming week.

To find out where and when planned burns are happening visit www.depi.vic.gov.au/burns, call the Victorian Bushfire Information Line on1800 240 667, or listen to your local radio station.

The FireReady smartphone application also shows planned burns ignited today, on a map.

Media contact: James Martin 0400 744 913 james.martin@minstaff.vic.gov.au

Muckleford: the Future Directions Paper emphasises the importance of keeping a viable agriculture in the shire.

A combination of drought, relatively poor land and small acreage [among many other factors] has put some agriculturalists in our area under pressure. FOBIF has made a submission to the paper, which reads in part as follows:

‘We do not have an opinion about the viability of agriculture in the shire, leaving this matter to those with expertise in the area. We do believe, however, that any proposals to rezone farm land should have environmental stewardship as a major aim, possibly through extension of the use of Rural Conservation Zones and an encouragement to implement Trust for Nature covenants… Any rezoning should take account of the status of the vegetation communities involved, and should perhaps be informed by the kind of landscape restoration [encouraged by] Connecting Country.

‘We note the listing of ‘bushfire hazard and associated safety provisions’ as a factor in ‘Issues for rural living.’ We would like to register our opposition to any proposal which involves zoning for housing close to areas of bushland which would inevitably have to be cleared for safety reasons as a result of  development.’

We also urged that any rezoning proposal include strict control over the construction of ornamental/amenity dams. Water authorities have estimated that such dams, which have no productive use, capture about 31% of inflows into the Eppalock catchment.

The Coliban at the Metcalfe road bridge, Taradale, May 7: Coliban Water started a small environmental release from Malmsbury reservoir into the river last week, and it makes a (small) difference.

Four megalitres isn’t much, but the river, sometimes called ‘the forgotten river’, definitely looks the better for it. Details on Coliban Water storages and flows from its reservoirs can be found on the authority’s website: http://www.coliban.com.au/water_security/reservoirs.asp

In spite of the frequent contention that environmental flows mean less water for people, common sense suggests that they’re as important for communities as they are for ‘the environment’. As the newly constituted Department of the Environment and Primary Industries puts it:

‘Scientists today understand that the way in which water flows in a river system is vital to maintaining its physical, chemical and biological health – and, therefore, the communities that rely on it.’

The same post in which this statement occurs also contains the following statement:

‘Victoria is expanding the water it sources from non rainfall-reliant supplies by pursuing innovative water sources such as desalination and recycling as well as stormwater and grey water use.’

For numerous reasons this is a very puzzling claim–but we’ll leave readers to work out how it fits with Victorian realities.

At first sight a moderate mosaic burn seems to have been achieved, as the first photo shows. Further, the Eltham Copper Butterfly and endangered spider orchid areas were avoided.

Arthur's Tk burn: a moderate mosaic, with protection for areas where endangered species are known.

On the other hand, we were faced with a puzzle which we’ve often faced before: although relatively few trees were brought down in the fire, some of the ones which did come down were among the biggest in the area:

Peppermint gum felled by DSE fire. This tree, like one of equal size near it which was also brought down, was next to an administration track. It's baffling that it could not have been identified and protected.

We can’t see any fire protection gain in the destruction of such trees, and the ecological loss, in an area with few big trees, is obvious. We will be pursuing with DSE the possibility of getting a more reliable method of identifying and protecting such trees.

Julian Hollis

On a perfect Autumn day, geologist Julian Hollis recently led fourteen walkers on the second FOBIF walk of the year, through Kalimna Park. We were lucky to be accompanied by Julian, who is often seen walking in the area and has studied it for some years.

Kalimna is well known for its variety of native vegetation, and particularly its spring wildflowers. It is less well known for its 400 to 450 million years of geological history, but Julian’s explanations brought that history to life for the walkers.

On the way to Kalimna we stopped at the cutting on the north-east corner of the intersection of Campbell and Hargreaves Street. There, Julian explained that the cutting was created in the 1850s so that horses would not be faced with such steep inclines. Two interesting geological features of the cutting were the quartz reef and anticline shown in the photos below. 

Quartz reef and Anticline on the corner of Campbell and Hargreaves Streets

Heading towards the Tourist Road we stopped to take in the view to the south, where Mount Franklin and other peaks could easily be seen.

View over Castlemaine and beyond from Kalimna

In the couple of hours that followed we walked on tracks to the north-east of the Park and then back to the Mount Alexander Golf Course. Julian discussed the large anticline on the Tourist Road, as well as some intriguing tube-like holes in a rock face, and he pointed out evidence of early miners’ cottages. We now know that some of those miners were unlucky, because we saw a shaft in excess of 35 metres, in which no gold at all was found. 

Anticline on the Tourist Road (left). Looking into the deep mine shaft (right).

Many will have driven over the Tourist Road but fewer would know that its original gravel surface came from quarries in Muckleford. 

We also saw evidence of a little known geological ‘shear’, and Julian showed how rocks can be dated according to the impressions left by graptolites known to have lived at particular times.

Thanks to Julian for leading another informative and authoritative walk in our local area.

Dominique Lavie has sent us some extra photos which highlight the stunning colour and texture of the many rock formations we viewed. Her photos can be found here.

This is a source of concern for a number of reasons. One is that it has delayed the start of activities for the FOBIF moss group, which is preparing the publication of a field guide for later this year.

One advantage of such a field guide is that it would enable readers to see through  criminals trying to disguise themselves as moss. You may think this is a bizarre idea, but a couple of years ago an ambitious burglar disguised as a lump of moss tried to break into a museum in Oregon. You never know where the next threat is coming from.

Breutelia affinis and Triquetrella papillata, Mount Alexander: we don't recommend these as disguises for bank robbers. We're not sure about appropriate dress for moss superheroes.

Our source for this story is the New York Post. It’s a Murdoch publication described recently as having ‘long since given up on being a real newspaper’, but we’re prepared to believe this story. The thief was caught when bitten by a police dog which saw through the disguise. The Post’s sub editors were thus unable to resist the headline ‘A Peat Offender: Thief makes a moss of it.’ Not terribly scientific, but what can you expect of the Post?

Moss isn’t only an aid to criminals. David Meagher has revealed in the Australian Bryological Newsletter that there is a super hero called Moss Man. Since we suspect our readers are not well informed on super heroes, we offer David’s in depth research here:

“Yes indeedly, as Ned Flanders would say. In the 1980s a superhero named Moss Man appeared in the Masters of the Universe (MOTU) cartoon series and accompanying line of action figures. Although originally a minor superhero, he was recast as one of the greatest when the series was relaunched in the 2000s. Despite his gorilla-like body covered in fur-like ‘moss’, he was a peaceful superhero who guarded planet Eternia’s flora. His ability to become any sort of plant (and thus camouflage himself perfectly to spy on evil-doers, or rescue others by becoming a handily placed dangling vine, etc.) along with the power to communicate with plants, made him very useful to the Masters of the Universe. In fact, in one episode he saves the entire cohort of Masters from the dastardly Skeletor’s cleverest trap. His main adversary, however, was Stinkor— no guesses what his great power was—whose action figure smelt like patchouli (Moss Man smelt like pine). If you are keen to pick up a Moss Man action figure (I’m not!) there are many advertised on the various online stores and auction sites. Recent prices ranged from AU$8 to AU$340.”

Murray Goldfields Fire Manager Simon Brown has revealed that the Kalimna Park burns will be delayed till next year. These will involve the area around Kalimna Point and almost the whole of the rest of the Park, on both sides of the tourist road.

The problem is that there’s been little rain since October and practically none this year. The Catchment Management Authority is aware of the problem, and is planning a small environmental release from the Malmsbury reservoir in the near future.

The Coliban at Taradale. An environmental release is planned to give the river a break: but maybe the Coliban would be in better shape if water wasted in the Poverty Gully channel in January had been put into the river instead..

There’s an interesting dimension to this problem. The water in the Malmsbury/Upper Coliban dams is managed by the Coliban Water Authority, mostly for community and licence holder use.. The CMA is entitled to a very small amount of this water for environmental flows into the river system.

The problem is that some of the water released to licence holders seems to be blatantly wasted. As an example: in January water was released into the notoriously leaky Poverty Gully water race. Although it’s hard to get a figure on it, Coliban water has conceded that a relatively small proportion of the water released at Malmsbury actually makes it through to Castlemaine. Sources at the authority tell us that they’d like to take the race out of commission–but for some reason or other they haven’t taken the necessary steps to do this.

The water released into Poverty Gully is relatively small, in the grand scheme of things: but when the Coliban river is sick, it would seem to be a better idea to give it a hand, rather than toss precious water into the air.

The CMA welcomes community feedback on river quality: write to info@nccma.vic.gov.au

Chris has maintained a strong interest in natural history since his childhood. Brought up in central Victoria, he has a particular passion for and knowledge of woodland and wetland ecosystems, particularly birds.

In 2005 Chris authored a comprehensive book on birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians of our local area titled, “Wildlife of the Box-Ironbark Country”.  The nature soundscape CD that comes with the book was recorded by Andrew Skeoch, a member of Newstead Landcare.

“I’m currently employed with BirdLife Australia” said Chris. “I co-coordinate a major woodland bird conservation project throughout Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania”.

Grey-crowned Babblers photographed by Chris Tzaros

Everyone is welcome to Newstead Community Centre next Thursday evening to learn how Chris gets the amazing shots that he produces. The presentation will go for about an hour and will be followed by supper. A gold coin donation from attendees helps the group cover costs.

On the following Saturday Chris Tzaros and Geoff Park will run a workshop on bird photography, but that booked out very soon after it was advertised on Geoff’s “Natural Newstead” blog.  Another talented member of Newstead Landcare, Geoff has been photographing nature and writing about it on-line since December 2008 and you can read and subscribe to this informative nature diary by clicking here.