Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Coincidentally, the Comrie Report on the 2010-11 floods has just been released. Although the report concentrates on the performance of emergency services, it does contain some enlightening remarks which underline Damian Wells’s  argument. For example:

‘It is important to understand that the application of appropriate land use planning controls as part of municipal planning schemes is considered to be an effective means of minimising flood damage. Municipal councils are required to take into account flood risk when considering appropriate development on floodplains.’ [page 6]

Expedition Pass spillway, January 2010. The sheer volume of water guarantees that flood plains will flood. Repeated enquiries have urged tighter building controls on floodplains, to minimise asset damage. Photo: Bernard Slattery

The Comrie report makes reference to a document with which we were not familiar: the 1998 Victoria Flood Management Strategy. This document, currently under revision, is available here

Among other things, the Strategy says

‘Appropriate land use strategies are the most effective means of reducing the growth in flood risk and damages. With the introduction of Victoria Planning Provisions [VPPS], the ability of Victorian councils to carry out their land use planning role will be strengthened. The VPPs provide uniform statewide policy and control for development and works on floodplains. They require that flood risk must be considered in the preparation of planning schemes and in making land use planning decisions, and that land affected by flooding must be shown on planning scheme maps.’ [Page 9]

It seems from the substance of Damian Wells’s talk to the AGM that this has not happened.

The Parliamentary Environment and Natural Resources committee is due to present a report on the floods later in the year.

At the AGM on Monday July 11, Public Officer Chris Morris announced that the following nominations had been received before the meeting:

President: Marie Jones

Vice President: Nev Cooper

Secretary: Bernard Slattery

Treasurer: Bronwyn Silver

Committee Members: Frank Panter, Kylie McIndoe

As the number of nominated candidates equalled the number of positions on the committee, according to the Constitution, the above were declared elected.

The rather sad sign below is a marker on Morgan’s Track Chewton of the Ecological Thinnings Trial conducted by Parks Victoria beginning in 2003.

Despondent sign at Morgan's Track, July 2011: we hope that ongoing research on this trial will prove valuable. We have been assured that the research continues. Photo by Bronwyn Silver

The trial was proposed by the Environment Conservation Council when it recommended the establishment of new Box Ironbark reserves in 2001. The intention is to experimentally aim at the restoration of a pre white settlement forest structure by strategically thinning selected plots in the aim of getting a woodland of more widely spaced, larger trees, and a healthier, more diverse understory. In fact, our woodlands are on the whole gradually thinning themselves as weaker trees die: so the trial is an effort to speed up the work of Nature.

FOBIF did not oppose the trials, even though we thought that in our region they were misconceived, and the money and resources could have been better spent elsewhere—on weed control, for example. We did concede, however, that the accompanying monitoring and research could prove very valuable for our understanding of these ecosystems. For a more detailed account of our views, you can read an item from our 2008 newsletter here.

FOBIF members did a prowl around the Morgan’s site on July 8. This area has always been rich in wildflowers, and it looks like the coming spring will not disappoint. Even in the dead of winter there’s plenty to see, as the pictures show.

Even in the dead of winter, there's plenty to see at Morgan's Track. Photos by Bronwyn Silver, July 2011

And the effect of the trial? Monitoring up to 2008 cautiously suggested that the thinning had up to that point been positive in encouraging understorey diversity.

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We have received a response from the Mount Alexander Shire to our budget submission on the appointment of a ‘Natural resource officer’ [see post June 3  ]. We had expressed concern that the position was a six month only appointment. Council informs us that ‘it is intended that the position will be for at least twelve months and will be reviewed annually during the budget process. There is only provision for six months salary in the Budget for 2011/12 as the position is expected to commence in January 2012.’

Views can be a wonderful experience, but a double edged one: a house may offer a magnificent view of a nearby hill, but a person sitting on that hill may not be pleased by having to look at the house in question.

Aeroplanes offer magnificent views: but people on the ground who have to put up with their intrusiveness and noise possibly won’t be impressed that the passengers in the sky are getting ‘the experience of a lifetime’, as one helicopter company describes its scenic flights over the Port Campbell National Park.

The Strathbogie Shire is facing a different version of this problem, in relation to the largest tract of Box Ironbark bushland in Victoria. Skydive Nagambie, which claims to be ‘Australia’s premier skydiving company’, is proposing to set up an airfield 3 km from the Heathcote-Graytown National Park, in the vicinity of Mount Black.

It’s hard to believe that planes would be dropping parachutists over the park, to fall into trees: but the prospect of up to 20 flights a day on up to 215 days in the year even close to the park is not impressing some local naturalists. Objections to the application have been made by the Trust for Nature and local environmentalists. For more info, the Strathbogie Shire website is at www.strathbogie.vic.gov.au, and local objectors can be contacted via rachelots@hotmail.com

Visitors to local bushlands will have noticed the widespread flowering of our beautiful local Hakea [H. decurrens, or ‘bushy needlewood’—see picture below], which was particularly proliferating in the south end of the Diggings Park visited by our walking group on June 19.

Hakea decurrens, Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park, May 2011. Photo: Bernard Slattery

Hakeas are native only to Australia, though some have found a place as weeds in South Africa and New Zealand. Some Hakeas are weeds in Australia too—and that includes the wonderful Hakea laurina [Pincushion hakea], a native of WA. A patch of this can be found on the east side of the Kalimna Tourist road, almost opposite Kalimna Point [see picture below]. The origin of this patch is obscure. It flourishes in years of good rainfall, and fades in dry seasons. It seems not to have spread very far in the time it has been in the park, though one can never tell when an ‘exotic’ plant may become a pest.

Hakea laurina, Kalimna Park, June 2011: in parts of Victoria it's a pest. Could it become one here? Photo: Bernard Slattery

There are many definitions of ‘weed’, but one useful one is: any plant, no matter how beautiful, which tends to aggressively outcompete indigenous vegetation, creating a relatively boring monoculture. The Australian National Botanic Gardens website, after observing that Hakea laurina has become a pest in parts of Australia, warns: ‘Care should be observed in planting any hakea species and it is recommended that hakeas should not be planted in areas that are close to natural bush.’

Members strolling in Kalimna recently will have noticed that maintenance work on the Tourist road has just been completed. The works were much needed, because wear and tear, plus water damage after heavy rains, had corrugated and rutted the road.

FOBIF is concerned however, that such works inevitably seem to be accompanied by apparently unintentional, and certainly unnecessary road widening, with some gouging into the bush. We have written to the Mount Alexander Shire, asking the following questions:

1. Were workers given a specific direction to widen the road, and if so for what reason?
2. Are workers working on tracks in bushland given any briefing about the value of roadside vegetation?

The Victorian Environment Assessment Council [VEAC], in its recent report on remnant vegetation, raised, among other issues, the matter of care of roadside vegetation. It also recommended special training for workers operating in bushland. One of the objectives of Mount Alexander Shire’s recently launched Environment Strategy is that Council should set an example of good environmental practice in its works.

On the subject of insidious road widening, members are recommended to read the submission of Castlemaine naturalist Ern Perkins to the VEAC enquiry. It contains photos of local roads with observations of changes over the years. It can be read at

http://www.veac.vic.gov.au/submissions/published/6657-Perkins_E.pdf

In the light of the odd angry shot fired earlier this year at conservation works along our creeks, it is interesting to read a letter in the June issue of the Castlemaine Historical Society Newsletter. The letter, dated 25/9/1934, was retrieved from the Forests Commission files, and was written by noted Castlemaine artist A. M. E. Bale. Several of Bale’s works hang now in the Castlemaine gallery.  She had a house in Gingell [now Gaulton] Street, backing onto Barker’s Creek. We reprint the letter courtesy of the Historical Society. It illustrates the fact that creek management controversy didn’t start yesterday:

‘Dear Sir,

‘I have to complain of the over much zeal of the employees of the Commission at Castlemaine. They are carefully removing every scrap of bramble and gorse along Barker’s Creek, regardless of the fact that where there is nothing but “noxious weeds” to bind the banks of the creek together, then it would be best to leave a little of them to carry out that necessary function. So much gorse has been taken from the creek banks just behind my property in Gingell Street and the earth so loosened in consequence that in the last year or two the creek has washed away yards of the bank and the few trees that are scattered along it have in some instances fallen into the creek. Where there was a fence and a footpath (on the creek side of it) beyond the fence of my paddock, the path has gone and the outer fence had to be moved back. Last flood the water was half across my paddock for the first time since I have had it. Next time, as no binding roots whatever are being left, the water will probably take a yard or two more and then be nibbling at my land. It would be much better that your employees should use some judgment and leave some gorse on the creek banks to bind them-in places where native growths have been already destroyed.

Plaque on AME Bale's house in Gaulton Street: her concern was that erosion followed over enthusiastic vegetation clearance.

‘The Town Clerk seems pleased that what the Council have done in the matter of taking out the willows and gums higher up lets the water “get away quickly”. My opinion is the faster it gets away, the more violent it is and the more of the banks it takes with it. I would plant the banks behind my place with tee tree etc., but the cattle would leave none of it. In such a case the only binding force to rely on is one distasteful to cattle-such as gorse and I do not see what harm gorse does in such a position.

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We are likely to have an exceptional few months of orchids this year. Hundreds of Nodding Greenhood rosettes can already be seen.

Nodding Greenhood rosettes in the South Walmer Nature Conservation Reserve. Photo by Bronwyn Silver, 24 June 2011.

An early flowering type is the Tall Greenhood Pterostylis longifolia, pictured here. Photos of other local Greenhoods can be viewed in our photo gallery.

Tall Greenhood, 10 June 2011.