Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

 FOBIF was told at the July 15 briefing in Bendigo that if a development of fifty houses or more is placed within 300 metres of public bushland, that bush will be rezoned to Zone 1, Asset Protection.

This information is relevant for a proposed 39 lot development in Happy Valley, near the eastern side of Kalimna Park. This section of the Park is currently zoned 2. An additional 39 houses could well lift the number of houses in this area to 50.

Spring wildflowers, east side of Kalimna Park: a more severe burning regime would have serious implications for this section of the park.

The township side of Kalimna Park is already classed Zone 1, Asset Protection. DEPI is faced with a serious and complicated challenge here: to manage the fuel load in an area close to houses, without destroying a precious and much used public resource.

A rezoning of the rest of the Park to Asset Protection would have severe environmental consequences: managers have more or less conceded that the frequency and severity of burning in these zones can be ecologically damaging.

This is not a simple matter. The Bushfire Royal Commission expressed the problem like this:

‘In the context of bushfires, ensuring the protection of human life means that sometimes compromises need to be made with people’s freedom to choose where they want to live, or the existence of pristine environments close to townships.’

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Twenty five walkers led by Jelsje Veenstra took on a cold and misty Mount Tarrengower on Sunday the 21st. They missed out on some great views because of the limited visibility, but got a good look at the Mountain’s heritage qualities.

FOBIF walkers on a wintry Tarrengower: what the mountain loses in views, it gains in atmosphere. DEPI has changed its burning regime on the south side of the Mount to 'maintain species resilience'.

This section of the mountain is scheduled to be burned by DEPI next autumn. In last year’s Fire Operations Plan the whole of the summit area and surrounds was zoned 1, Asset Protection, to protect the township of Maldon. In our response to the Fire Operations plan last year we argued as follows:

‘This is a very large parcel for a Zone 1 burn—as far as we can see, more than double the area of any other Zone 1 in our district. It’s very hard to see why it has been zoned in this way. While it is clear that bushland abutting the town needs careful fuel management, it’s by no means clear why the south side of the Mount needs high intensive fuel reduction, especially since the area around the Tower was burned in 2009.’

In the draft Plan tabled at the July 15 information session in Bendigo the Mountain has in fact been rezoned to ‘ensure that the more ecologically sensitive eastern slopes of Mt Tarrengower are preserved from frequent fuel reduction burning to maintain species resilience.’ FOBIF has not seen the maps of the rezoned sections yet.

The Annual General Meeting of the Friends of the Box Ironbark Forests will be held at the Castlemaine Continuing Education Centre, Templeton St Castlemaine, at 7.30 pm on Monday August 12. Guest speaker Ian O’Halloran will speak on the land restoration project under way at Post Office Hill Chewton. This fascinating 22 hectare site between the Post Office and the railway line is full of surprises, and the work of the Post Office Hill Action Group is a model for groups anywhere wanting to give a little corner of the planet a better chance.

Ian O'Halloran talks to the POHAG troops at Post Office Hill: the area is of interest geologically, and for its signs of Aboriginal and gold era history, as well as for a surprising wealth of plant species.

Members wishing to stand for positions on the FOBIF committee should forward nominations signed by two members of the Friends to Box 322 Castlemaine before that date.

A section of PO Hill after the gorse groomer has been through, with new plantings in the background.

FOBIF has once again questioned Parks Victoria about its track maintenance policy, after complaints from members about track works in the Fryers Flora Reserve and the Diggings Park. Complaints centred around the tonnes of blue metal put on some of the tracks, and the relentless widening of some roads.

Parks has advised us that recent works are mainly part of flood recovery works. The blue metal on the roads will be gradually packed into the surface. It’s visually not great, but may perform some useful function. More important is the fact that tracks seem to get wider every time work is done on them. This time, the work was done by contractors from Melbourne, who appear to have been given no briefing about how to handle road verges.

Near Tk: the apparently unanswerable question seems to be, how wide does a track need to be?

FOBIF has no problem with roads and tracks being maintained for important purposes, like fire management. Our problem is that over the years we have tried without success to get an answer to a very  simple question: what is the maximum width of a bush track? Given that we’ve measured some of them as wider than the Pyrenees Highway, it seems to be, Pretty Wide.

It’s hard to put figures on the problem, but it seems that rubbish dumping on public land is increasing. The latest outrage is on the Doveton St extension in Kalimna Park, where a collection of mouldy armchairs has been deposited, in an exercise which can only be seen as thumbing the nose at Park managers. It’s clear that those who think of the bush as their private tip believe that there are so few rangers that the chances of their being caught are minimal.

Yeah, very funny: mouldy furniture dumped a hundred metres from houses in Kalimna Park--clear evidence that dumpers have no fear of being caught. Victoria's parks make millions for the state, but ranger numbers are being cut.

Parks Victoria is in the process of cutting ten percent of its workforce. This measure is surrounded by the usual double speak that accompanies service cut backs: we are told that ‘any staff with roles in critical service delivery functions’ will be ineligible for a redundancy package. This kind of comical jargon seems to suggest that before this year, ten per cent of Parks staff were sitting around doing nothing. In fact, it tells the public that staffing in research or education will continue to be savaged, because these functions are not ‘front line’: but it’s clear that with these cuts, even ‘front line’ rangers will go.

Here are some facts about Parks:

–A Senate enquiry in 2007 found that our reserves are drastically understaffed by world standards: ‘staffing numbers for protected area management in Australia are much lower than in other countries. The global mean staffing levels for protected areas is 27 people per 100,000 hectares, with an average of 26.9 people per 100,000 hectares in developed countries. At the time the IUCN report was released, only 6 people per 100,000 hectares were employed to manage the protected areas in Australia.‘

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Striped Greenhood (Pterostylus striata). Photo by Noel Young

Twenty walkers led by Barbara Guerin and Lionel Jenkins took on a ten kilometre circuit around Crocodile Reservoir and Heron’s Reef for FOBIF’s June walk last Sunday.

Highlights included a couple of early orchid sightings—the area is a superb wildflower site in Spring — and exploration of a fascinating cultural landscape centred around water and gold.

Less gratifying was the sight of the bush clearly suffering from a new outbreak of cup moth damage, before it has had a chance to properly recover from the last bout of munching from this creature [see our Post].

Part of the FOBIF group looks down on the Crocodile Reservoir channel. The sparseness of the tree canopy is a symptom of cup moth damage.

This area is the source of many tales from gold rush days, including a classic about Golden Gully [part of the Heron’s Reef area], from the Mount Alexander Mail, 6 April 1855:

‘The finest and most complete nugget of solid gold ever found, has been taken out of an old hole in Golden Gully, Fryer’s Creek.  …it weighs 1022 ounces, and is worth about £4000, completely eclipsing all former nuggets.  It was found in an old pillar in 20 ft sinking, by two young men named Davis and Harris, who have only been out about eight months…  they had offered the hole in the morning for two ounces of gold, but could not sell it…  The owners of the nugget, out of courtesy to our worthy Commissioner, Mr Heron, named it the ‘Heron nugget’…  The place where it was found was turned over very hastily two or three years since, and…there are several pick-marks observable on the nugget…’

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The Victorian Environment Assessment Council has named areas in six National and State Parks where prospecting could be permitted. This is in addition to areas where this activity is already allowed—like State Forests and other tracts of public land (including Castlemaine Diggings NHP).

VEAC had no option but to recommend some extension of the areas available to prospectors [see our Post], but the impression you get from its very interesting Report is that the Council was extremely reluctant to oblige. It’s clear from the

Doug Ralph surveys prospector gouging in Dirty Dick's Gully. It's clear from the VEAC report that supervision and monitoring of prospecting is inadequate or non existent.

Report that prospecting does damage the environment, and that it’s incompatible with the primary purpose of National Parks, which is nature conservation. VEAC was obviously convinced that a significant number of prospectors do not observe their code of practice, and the report contains testimony  from water and heritage bodies that the activity is a threat in both those areas. Even when it is properly done, prospecting is not exactly benign:

‘While the Council considers that prospecting can be carried out in ways that minimise impacts on the natural environment, it is aware that there are also instances of inadvertent disturbance to flora and fauna. Even when holes are immediately and carefully filled in after prospecting, the soil structure and the biota are disturbed in the immediate area.’

Our photos below are an illustration of this fact.  Continue reading →