Category Archives: News

Geological tour of Castlemaine

On our second FOBIF walk for the year on Easter Sunday local geologist, Clive Willman, led a group of 16 through Castlemaine streets and up to the Burke and Wills monument. Along the way he discussed the type and source of rocks … Continue reading

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Roads aren’t just roads [2]

The reason we started the last post by stating the obvious is that, maybe, the obvious is not so obvious. On glancing through 1998 Roadsides Management Strategy we came across this sentence, referring to machinery working on roadsides: ‘Blades on slashers … Continue reading

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Get onto these

Local cartographer Mal ‘Jase’ Haysom has just released the latest in his series of excellent maps, this one being of the Muckleford Forest. The map can be found at the website of Cartography Community Services, along with others in the … Continue reading

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Biodiversity [1]: add this one to your collection

Victoria has a new biodiversity plan. Protecting Victoria’s Environment—Biodiversity 2037 was launched last week by the State Government. It can be found here. Readers may remember that FOBIF made a brief submission to the process of developing this paper last … Continue reading

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Biodiversity [2]: guess what the key is?

Having registered this depressing fact, we need to look at the current document, and ask: what does it add up to? It adds up to money. Here’s a key passage: ‘The degraded health of Victoria’s biodiversity is the result of … Continue reading

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Biodiversity [3]: here are some challenges

The document is full of praiseworthy but often vague aspirations, but on occasions it does get specific, as in this: ‘Estimate of relative area required to deliver statewide targets [by 2037]: 4 million hectares of control of pest herbivores (e.g. … Continue reading

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Biodiversity [4]: provocations

Here are some interestingly provocative quotes from Biodiversity 2037: ‘Native plants and animals have an intrinsic right to exist, thrive and flourish.’ But elsewhere in the document we read: ‘Human-induced changes to the environment have, in some situations, led to … Continue reading

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Check this out

The March edition of the VNPA’s Parkwatch magazine is now out, and can be found online here. It contains, among much else, informative stuff about Crusoe Reservoir, between Castlemaine and Bendigo; plans to log the wonderful Wellsford Forest, north of Bendigo; and … Continue reading

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Small group of walkers braved the heat

Despite the unseasonably warm weather a small but select group of nine kicked off the 2017 walks season by visiting Mt Alexander. Starting from Coopers Lane we climbed to Roxanne Pass, then off track we contoured above Laytons Quarry and up … Continue reading

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Connecting Country events for 2017 – It’s going to be big!

FOBIF thought it would be good to share the work of local group Connecting Country who continues to bring informative and inspiring events to our local community this year. In the past their education and engagement program has been a fantastic … Continue reading

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