Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

The goal of good land management is to create new, resilient landscapes, not to restore ‘original vegetation’, Ian Lunt told Connecting Country’s first public meeting for 2014 in Newstead on Sunday.

140 people turned up to hear Professor Lunt talk about natural regeneration, a phenomenon which has created much more native vegetation than any deliberate restoration programs. He cited several examples of this, including the figure that in the Heathcote Graytown area, native regrowth is covering an extra 1800 hectares every decade.

Natural regeneration: barely noticeable in the short term, but a major feature of landscape change in the last 60 years.

This process is partly the result of the decline of grazing on marginal land, and the growth of the ‘amenity landscape’, in which farming is being displaced by smaller blocks of land managed for recreational or other purposes.

Where do land restoration advocates fit into this picture? Professor Lunt urged his listeners not to entertain dreams of bringing back some kind of ideal landscape, but rather to embrace the ‘human landscape’ we have inherited from the recent past, and work with it.

The goal should be to ‘create resilient connected landscapes, not restore original vegetation.’ The ideal landscape would consist of areas in production, integrated with regrowth areas, remnant vegetation and areas planted out with native vegetation for specific reasons.

Those working on improving landscapes, he argued, should be aiming to fill biodiversity gaps [in totally cleared areas, for example], to fast track desirable changes, and to add features missing from the landscape, like habitat hollows. In agriculturally productive areas, small corridor projects are appropriate.

His ideal is a ‘pluralism’ or ‘complementarity’ of approaches to land: ‘This is creating landscapes we haven’t had before: we have to create totally new ways of thinking and talking about these unimagined landscapes.’

Professor Lunt’s talk was the first in Connecting Country’s workshop series, ‘Improve biodiversity on your property.’

Vegetation ecologist Ian Lunt is Associate Professor in the School of Environmental Science at Charles Sturt University. His brilliant blog can be found at http://ianluntecology.com/

More than 60 people attended a summit on  6 February organised by the Bendigo District Environmental Council to promote the preservation of the Wellsford State Forest through upgrading its status. 

The forest is 6,478 ha of Box-Ironbark forest and has special biodiversity conservation values recognised by the Environment Conservation Council in its 2001 report. The then government’s dictated terms of reference required a balance of social, ecological and economic demands so it was not included in the Greater Bendigo National Park because at the time it was being logged.

Wellsford Forest in Spring, courtesy Dr John Bardsley

But times have changed and, after listening to the speakers outline the values of the Wellsford Forest, there was unanimous agreement from the summit attendees that a committee should be formed and a campaign planned to raise public and political awareness of the benefits of upgrading the forest from its current State Forest status to one that provides protection from all the threats of overuse and abuse.

We’ll keep you posted on how the campaign goes …….

On 16 February 2014  there will be a free Sweet Bursaria Seed Collection & Propagation Workshop in the Castlemaine Botanic Gardens between 9.30 and 11am. The workshop has been organised by McKenzies Hill Action & Landcare Group and supported by a grant from the Victorian Government’s Communities for Nature program.

More about this workshop and a second one in June can be found here and you can find out about the Eltham Copper Butterfly’s amazing relationship with Sweet Bursaria (Bursaria spinosa) and a genus of ants called Notoncus on the Connecting Country website.

Floods are probably the last thing on anyone’s mind as we endure another heat wave–but it’s a sure thing that they’ll happen again some day. The North Central Catchment Management Authority is looking for ways to soften the blow when it does come, and has run a public meeting and a number of consultations to gauge community feeling about how the three Castlemaine creeks [Barkers, Forest and Campbells] should be managed.

Barkers Creek, January 2014: Even when it’s justified, creek clearance can cause public angst. There’s no evidence that clearance of native vegetation does anything to reduce flood levels.

Here’s a list of ideas thrown up in discussion so far:

–Clear out the creeks (particularly Barker’s creek between Walkers Street and Gaulton Street)

–Levees (particularly investigation of existing levees around the bowls club and National School Lane but also a suggestion to add a levee along the north side of Forest Creek alongside the caravan park from Barker St bridge to the railway;

–Improve local drainage (a large number of suggestions relate to this);

–Retarding basin in Happy Valley to reduce magnitude of flash flooding in urban area;

–Increase vegetation where appropriate to reduce flows entering creeks and to slow runoff divert water to natural retention basins through catchment ‘contour channels;

–Raise houses;

–Flood warning systems; and

–Planning controls to restrict development on floodplains.

All of these ideas present challenges or problems in one way or another. For example:

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