Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

On Saturday May 30 the Friends of Kalimna Park were given a Certificate of Appreciation by Parks Victoria for 30 years of dedicated work for the Park. Friends of Kalimna Park began in 1971 as the Kalimna Park Preservation Committee. Since then the group has monitored the Park and assisted with its maintenance and protection, including weeding and revegetation and numerous advocacy, monitoring and educational activities.

In Victoria , nearly 220 000 hours of work was undertaken by Parks Victoria volunteers in 180 parks and reserves across the state in 2012/13. This equates to nearly 30 000 volunteer days and is the equivalent of 123 full time staff for a year.

Bendigo environmentalists are campaigning to have the status of the Wellsford forest upgraded to give it a chance to recover from long term over exploitation. The Wellsford Forest Conservation Alliance has widespread community support: their recent Big Trees Walk attracted 109 participants!
For a look at their terrific Facebook page, illustrated by some eloquent photos, go to https://www.facebook.com/wellsfordconservation

To keep abreast of how things are in the wetter forests to the south of our area you can’t do better than check on the activities of Wombat Forestcare at http://www.wombatforestcare.org.au/

The website gives access to the group’s fantastically informative and entertaining newsletter, the latest edition of which is devoted to fungi of the Wombat.

FOBIF’s submission on the proposed Tarran Valley development near Maldon can be found here. It is a more detailed statement of the case summarised in our April 29 posts on this matter.

Further submissions by the developer to the panel concentrate the proposed housing, and move it further from surrounding bushland: this altered proposal seems to have weakened reservations about the fire risk by the CFA and DEPI. The latter, however, in its latest submission, repeats what it said, confusingly, before:

‘It is DEPI’s experience however that at some time in the future residents of the subdivision would expect DEPI to undertake greater levels of fire management within the adjoining [Maldon Historic] reserve if inconsistent defendable space is imposed within the subject land.’

It’s not clear what the Department means by ‘inconsistent defendable space.’

The panel will bring down its decision within a month.

 

Starting and finishing at the Oak Forest, Doug Ralph led the group of about 20 around the western flanks of Mt Alexander, taking in 2 or 3 disused granite quarries. Doug related some interesting stories from the history of these quarries, and Prof. Julian Hollis gave us a brief synopsis of his current geological research into a mineralogical relationship between the granite of Mt Alexander and volcanic rocks which have been drawn from deep in the crust and ejected at Mt Franklin.

Along the way we came across Echidna diggings and eventually caught one of the perpetrators in the act.  Many birds were about, including Australian Raven, Magpie, Crimson Rosella, Currawongs, Galahs, Red Wattlebird, Superb Blue Wrens, Grey Shrike-thrush, White-eared Honeyeater and Thornbills.

 

It was a balmy autumn day, and though a relatively tough walk (some of it was off track) it was enjoyed by all who participated.

Noel Young contributed this account of the walk and the photos.

The FOBIF publication, Mosses of Dry Forests in South Eastern Australia, will be launched by Frances Cincotta on 31 May. The launch invitation can be downloaded here. Everyone is welcome to attend.

An order form which includes a sample page from the book can be downloaded here.

FOBIF has produced an attractive and informative poster about Fungi of the Mount Alexander Region. The A2 poster will be available for sale ($5) at the launch of the FOBIF moss guide on 31 May.

You can also purchase it from

Beth Mellick (Norman Wettenhall Foundation), The Hub, Office 5,
233b Barker St, Castlemaine (Enter glass door on Templeton St)

or the

325 Barker St, Castlemaine

The FOBIF publication, Mosses of Dry Forests in South Eastern Australia, will also be available at these two locations.

The Weekly Times has this week released a leaked DEPI discussion paper which recommends increased use of private contractors to help it achieve its burning targets in the coming year.

The leaked document can be found here. It argues that DEPI should take a more proactive and systematic approach to integrating private contractors into its burning program; that its present use of contractors is inconsistent, ad hoc and not transparent; and the pool of suitably qualified people who could be contracted is shrinking because of the steady decline of the timber industry, a traditional source of skilled, locally available workers.

Whatever the merits of its argument, the problem highlighted by the document is pretty clear—and it’s not disputed by anyone except Government politicians and their DEPI senior spokespeople: the Department’s burning target can’t be achieved with present staffing levels. As the discussion paper puts it:

‘There is a general consensus in the Regions where burns targets are increasing dramatically that delivery will not be able to be met by expanding on current methods of delivery.  DEPI resources have limited capacity to expand to deliver a large increase to the program…Without a large increase in DEPI staff and internal plant numbers, such a delivery model will be unable to meet the expected demand…Government has made it clear that large scale staff increases will not occur…’

The paper is interested in mechanical matters only—construction and maintenance of access tracks, mineral earth breaks, and so on. It doesn’t touch on the Department’s capacity to assess and manage the ecological effects of its burning regime, which has been progressively eroded by ministers of both governments over the last 15 years [including staff cuts of 500+ under the present government].

The  Environment Minister has dismissed the discussion paper as having ‘no status.’ Maybe: but the facts on which it’s based look pretty convincing.

Fifteen people came on the 12 km April walk to Poverty Gully and Eureka Reef. The weather was perfect for walking with the sun shining and a light breeze. We followed the water races for most of the time weaving through the forest.

Marion Letcher was our leader. She has a keen interest in the local history and geography of the Castlemaine Diggings which she shared with the group as we came across many sites of interest.

The group heard about Joseph Brady who in 1865 was the architect of the Coliban Water Supply Scheme to bring water to Castlemaine and Bendigo via a series of channels and aqueducts, some of which we saw along the way.

We stopped for lunch near the Eureka Reef where we took time to take in the amount of excavation and hard work the miners must have done here.

Continue reading →