FOBIF is running three nature-based events for primary school children in the upcoming school holidays. Places are limited and booking is essential. Information about the program can be found on this FOBIF page.
Get social with fobif…
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Amanda’s Track: Fire’s off
The 409 hectare fuel management burn planned for Amanda’s Track, at the southern end of the Castlemaine Diggings NHP, has been removed from DELWP’s operations plan. It’s been removed ‘based on a values assessment and field checks.’
Moss covered hill near Middeleton Creek, in the Amanda’s Track zone
We’re not exactly sure what the quoted reason means, but it seems like a good decision. This was one of the largest burns planned for this region. FOBIF has always been sceptical of its fire protection value, and extremely nervous about its destructive possibilities. The fire would have covered all the land south of the Wewak Track not already burned in the Department’s extremely severe to disastrous fires in the Tarilta Gorge and Loop Track over the last few years.
This section of the Diggings Park, centred on Brown’s Gully, is one of the jewels of the region, for its relative isolation, heritage value and natural beauty. It’s never been really clear why this [and the adjacent zones] were in the Fire Operations Plan. It’s to be hoped that the State Government quickly adopts the risk management strategy recommended by the Inspector General for Emergency Management; and that under such a strategy management proposals for areas like this can be more transparent and convincing.
Posted in Fire Management
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Grooming Kalimna
As of today, Parks Victoria has started on a program of grooming vegetation in Kalimna Park along the town edge and Moonlight Creek. The program aims at eliminating mainly exotic weeds as a fire protection measure [creating a roughly 50 metre wide border along the town edge], and removing blackberries and other weeds along the creek .
Groomed area near Bull Street: the removal of vegetation is part of a package of fire management actions.
Parks also intends to conduct a fuel reduction burn on Kalimna Point, but we’re not sure when or how this will be done. The Point is a problematic area: to quote from the website of the Friends of the park: ‘Kalimna Point is close to the town and from the early days was a destination for residents to visit as it allowed good views of the district. Between 1903 and the late 1920s the community planted a mix of European and Australian trees around the point and set up benches, a rotunda and a direction finder. Remnants of these avenue plantings and paths still exist.’
The views referred to are now blocked by Sugar Gums and other exotic planted trees. The Point is a bit of a sad relic of its former glory but is not without its charms, a colony of Eltham Copper Butterfly being one: and it’s still very popular with walkers. The Friends group has recently embarked on work on the Rotunda, and there’s definitely potential—with sensitive management—for a site of great recreational and botanical value there. See http://www.kalimnapark.org.au/friends-of-kalimna-park-castlemaine/
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Mt Alex bike track on track, but land status uncertain
The 2015 State budget papers show that the Government’s Regional Infrastructure Fund is to be used to provide money to advance the design and construction of mountain bike tracks on the lower slopes of Mount Alexander.
As we have previously reported, the Mountain Bike Park is to be constructed in the Harcourt plantation, currently under management of Hancock Plantations, but soon to revert to public hands. You can find a map of the proposal here.
Previously, we had been led to believe that the plantation would be incorporated into the adjacent Mount Alexander Regional Park; it now appears that Parks Victoria is not keen on this move, and perhaps for good reasons. Legislation governing these parks includes the aims ‘to preserve, protect and re-establish indigenous flora and fauna in the park’ and to ‘control exotic flora and fauna in the park.’ Given that we’re talking about a pine plantation, integration of the plantation would put park managers in a peculiar situation.
We’re not sure who will end up being responsible for the land–presumably it will be DELWP, once the plantation lease expires. The development proposal involves the construction of 16 trails totalling 34 kilometres, essentially around the contours of the site. We’ve been assured that the tracks will not spill over into the Regional Park. Currently there is some rogue bike riding on the steep upper slopes of the Mount. One of the challenges of track designers [and managers of the Great Dividing Trail] is to devise credible trails to divert riders away from destructive routes: and one of the challenges for Parks Victoria is to make sure the Park is protected effectively.
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Fire planning: safety, yes–AND healthy forests
FOBIF has made a submission to the Department of Environment’s fire planning process. In it, we’ve repeated a few of the concerns we expressed in our 2014 submission. We’ve received a number of assurances about these concerns–mainly to do with large area burns–but still maintain a keen interest in the practical outcomes.
The substance of the submission is set out below:
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Because we live close to bushlands we have an obvious interest in fire safety as a priority, but we do not believe this should be achieved by laying waste to bushlands. Our priorities are the same as those repeated in many DSE/DELWP documents: fire safety and ecological health.
General
- We would like to know how the planned burning program on public land fits with the ‘priority fuel management areas’ referred to in last year’s West Central Risk Landscape management plan, and how it relates to fuel management in the adjacent ‘priority areas’ on private land.
In the Gough’s Range State Forest: FOBIF is taking a close interest in large scale burns planned for this and other remoter areas.
Our concerns of last year remain:
- We believe that the five per cent target is skewing burning operations away from strictly safety concerns towards achievement of burn coverage which has little relevance to safety or ecological health, and may be damaging to both.
- We remain disturbed by the unavailability of burn plans and post burn assessments, in spite of the requirements explicitly set out in the Code of Practice.
- We are particularly concerned about the relatively large area burns zoned LMZ [for example, in the Muckleford/Maldon and Amanda’s Track areas], and would like to see the risk management assessments and specific ecological intentions in these burns.
Specific
- We remain concerned over the Amanda’s Track, Tarilta valley, Tarrengower, Sandon, Taradale, Gough’s Range and Muckleford/Maldon burns. [see our 2014 submission]
Posted in Fire Management, News
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Click on image for info/order page
Click on image for info/order page
