Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Guess what? Long unburnt box ironbark environments are more likely to recover from drought stress than ones which have been recently burned!

This is one of the findings of the ‘Either side of the Big Wet’ research project, the gloomy findings of which were outlined at the Arthur Rylah Institute last Monday.

The project was designed to measure how environments responded to the millennium drought [1997-2010], and their resilience [how they recovered] during the wet years [2010-2011] and after [to 2016]. The findings were pretty depressing, but for those prepared to look, there are lessons in them for land managers.

The research area included 120 transects across the Box Ironbark region from St Arnaud eastwards towards Rushworth, and four important sections of the Murray floodplain from Chowilla in the west to Barmah in the west. ‘Resilience’ was defined as the ability of species to recover after stress.

Monday’s presentations were necessarily heavily statistical in emphasis, but they can be brutally summarised as follows:

–Most bird species were found in fewer transects and were less abundant in 2016 compared to 1997, in spite of a partial recovery in the wet years 2010-2011.

–Plains amphibians were doing even worse, with ‘little evidence of breeding activity’.

–Box ironbark vegetation showed decreases in litter, large trees and higher shrubs and increases in dead saplings and hollows. The wet years weren’t enough to arrest the decline. Sites surrounded by woodlands declined more during the drought, but recovered better. Significantly [from FOBIF’s point of view] vegetation showed higher resilience in long unburnt areas.

–On floodplain vegetation, it was found that the proportion of woodland classified as ‘good’ declined from 60% to 28% over the period. It seems that ‘big wet’ years between droughts are not enough to arrest declines.

Overall, the research seemed to conclude that the legacy of big droughts lives on, that short wet periods don’t bring full recovery, and what recovery they do bring is eroded by subsequent dry spells.

Further, the area in question faces pressure from climate change and expanding human populations, with consequent exploitation of water resources and land for residences.

The project was conducted by researchers from Melbourne and Canberra universities and the ARI.

The photo below shows two out of the three ponds created in Victoria Gully Castlemaine, by the Victoria Gully group. The ponds are designed to take runoff from nearby streets, and are to be planted with rushes and tussock grasses suitable for frog habitat.

Two of the three ponds in Victoria Gully: long term frog prospects are hopeful.

The chain of ponds is designed to be intermittently full, and it will play a small part in reducing runoff to Forest Creek in times of heavy rain. The group has been working in the area for several years attacking broom and gorse infestations, and has created two exclusion plots in the degraded gully. The Vic Gully group is auspiced by FOBIF.

Heavy rain over November 16 and 17 over the town of Castlemaine [falls were localised and variable] made a small dent in an otherwise dry prospect, and filled the ponds to overflowing. Falls this year are significantly below long term averages. Apart from big falls in April [141 mls, a hundred more than the average!], nearly every month has been significantly down, the worst being 6 mls in June, 50 mls below average]. Gloomy prognostications aside, however, we live in hope.

On Monday 11 December Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forest is having a BBQ at Bronwyn Silver’s place in Walmer.

It starts at 6 pm and the address is 1036 Muckleford-Walmer Road, Walmer. 

BYO
*  food to share, including something for the BBQ if you like
*  crockery – plate, cups, cutlery
*  drinks 
*  a chair

All FOBIF members are welcome but please RSVP to Bronwyn: 0448751111 or bsilver@mmnet.com.au 

Gold Dust Wattle and eucalypts reflected in the dam near the BBQ area