Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Mount Alexander Council budget papers show that $23,000 has been set aside for community education in relation to land management and, we assume, to help with the implementation of the recently adopted Environment Strategy. It seems that the money is to be used to employ a project officer for six months to promote the Shire’s recently released Environment Strategy.

FOBIF supports this initiative, but we believe that it doesn’t go far enough, given the challenges such an officer will face. It seems that it is envisaged that the officer will be involved in producing an information kit, running workshops, promoting community gardens, and possibly being involved in the proposed Roadside Management  Plan review.

The success of the Environment Strategy is dependent on Council being able to employ someone who can communicate sensibly and practically with landholders and other ratepayers about Council’s environment objectives.

Roadside management, with its double objective of preserving biodiversity and keeping consideration of fire safety, is an especially complicated matter which has caused some anxiety in the past. It seems to us that only a properly qualified Council officer with good ability to see all sides of this challenge and communicate in a down to earth matter with residents can bring a proper management program to success.

Such an officer would need more than six months to make any headway with these questions. In addition, it is harder to attract good candidates for jobs which are perceived to have only short term viability.

An additional consideration: if Council community education initiatives only reduce the number of people chucking their rubbish into the bush, the taxpayer would be saved a bit of money.

The plague of rubbish dumping which can be seen all over our bushland has reached the Castlemaine town boundary with the dumping of a pile of junk in Kalimna Park, only a hundred metres from Kalimna Point [and a few metres from the rather sad Bicentennial plaque].

Rubbish near Kalimna Point: time needed to remove such junk is another imposition on Parks Victoria's limited resources.

It’s hard to fathom the mentality of people who apparently don’t notice that they are desecrating valued public space, but one of the factors presumably is the perceived expense of taking rubbish to the tip.

FOBIF raised this question with Council Environment Officer Amy McDonald a couple of weeks ago, and her response was simple: Council can’t afford to give out free tip vouchers because of budgetary problems.

Here’s an interesting question: who is responsible for the removal of ‘hard’ rubbish from our lives?

Council can’t afford it. There appears to be a significant number of citizens who don’t want to take the responsibility of getting rid of it responsibly. So inevitably, Parks Victoria is left with the job of removing it from the bush–which inevitably cuts down the time Parks staff can put into more productive things. In the end, the taxpayer foots the bill, one way or the other.

It’s clear that public education has to have a large role if this unpleasant and unhealthy behaviour is to be reduced. It will be interesting to see if the Council’s Environment Strategy deals with such a mundane but important matter [see above].

Local environment groups will mark World Environment Day this year with an ‘expo’ in the Castlemaine Market building on Sunday June 5 between 10 am  and noon. This is the same day as the Castlemaine Farmers market.

The theme of the displays will be ‘Forests: nature at your service’–the idea that biodiversity is, so to speak, not just a pretty face: it is what underpins our lives. The point is made by Edward O Wilson like this:

‘Recent experimental studies on whole ecosystems support what ecologists have long suspected: The more species that live in an ecosystem, the higher is the productivity and the greater its ability to withstand drought and other kinds of environmental stress.’

FOBIF will be running a display on the day. Members interested in putting in a short time on a table should contact us at the usual addresses.

The Mayor, Cr Janet Cropley, will launch the Shire’s Environment Strategy in the course of the morning.

On April 6 the Victorian Environment Assessment Council released its final report on its ‘Remnant Native Vegetation Investigation.’ As with all VEAC reports, the document is full of useful information and provocative ideas. In spite of its calm and measured tone, it contains at least one implied criticism of land managers.

The focus of the report was on parcels of native vegetation around the state: small reserves, unused road reservations, and patches on private land.

South Walmer Conservation Reserve: small patches of land like this are vital biodiversity reserves

There are tens of thousands of such parcels throughout the state, half of them on private land ‘in patches closely embedded with and abutting those on public land’. It is surprising to read in the report of their importance to biodiversity:

‘Fragmented landscapes still support the majority of Victoria’s biodiversity. Around 40 percent of Victoria’s native land vertebrate species (mammals, bird, amphibians, reptiles and fish not confined to marine or coastal waters) are virtually restricted to fragmented landscapes in Victoria, and a further 45 percent rely on fragmented landscapes across a major part of their distribution in Victoria. That is, only about 15 percent of our land vertebrates are mostly restricted to largely-intact landscapes. Fragmented landscapes are likely to be similarly important for other species: land invertebrates, fungi and plants…’

Not only that, but such patches are important for agriculture:

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As an update to the article below on bridal creeper, the Nuggetty Land Protection Group is inviting interested community members to attend a community workshop at the Bridal Creeper Trial site. This site is immediately behind the Maldon cemetery in the Maldon Historic Reserve. The workshop will be held on Sunday 10 July from 11.00am to 12.30pm and finish with a free sausage sizzle and cupper.

The workshop will exhibit the results of earlier chemical treatment and demonstrate application methods, including making spore water from rust infected plants, chemical gloves, scrunching methods and physical removal.

Ring Ian Grenda on 0412015807 or email iangrenda@live.com for more information and to place orders for free bags of rust which can be picked up on the day.

The May FOBIF walk organised by Deirdre Slattery was through the magnificent Muckleford Gorge on Ian Garsed’s property.  Ian has excluded the gorge from grazing under the Bush Tender system–a good example of what VEAC  has recommended for conservation on private land [see above]

Walking through the gorge, May 19

Everyone on the walk acknowledged how special it was for Ian to allow us access to the gorge to see its natural beauty – the geology coupled with the flora and fauna was fascinating.  It was a very popular event with 55 people attending and an age range from six to the seventies.   Ian gave us an informative overview of the property before we started the walk and also answered questions at the end.  The day was interspersed with people asking questions of those they thought would have some knowledge so there were many conversations based on these questions with other information being added as we walked.

More photos of the Gorge and a detailed description of the walk can be found on the Muckleford Landcare website.

The next walk is on June 19 in the Castlemaine Diggings NHP: check the program for details.

The January floods caused a bit of angst in our community, with some trying to pin blame on Government bodies or current management practices.

At the AGM in July FOBIF members will be able to hear the viewpoint of CEO of the North Central Catchment Management Authority, Damian Wells.

Damian will talk about the challenges of catchment management in the context of the recent floods.

The floods were followed by a spate of calls in Castlemaine for massive vegetation clearance near waterways, as a way of lowering flood levels.

Forest Creek in spate, Castlemaine February 5 2011

Does vegetation near streams raise water levels in flood time? The belief that it does partly arises from the fact that for decades landholders were encouraged to clear streams to ‘improve flow’.  Now when they see vegetation returned to the margins of waterways they assume that this will worsen flooding. In fact the effect is minimal. Readers are referred to an Australian Land and Water publication, Managing the effects of riparian vegetation on flooding at

http://lwa.gov.au/files/products/river-landscapes/px061170/px061170-chapter-5.pdf

Its cautious but clear conclusions include, in part:

‘–Adding or removing large wood (snags) in streams has little effect on the height and duration of large floods.

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