Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

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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The State Government’s Improving our waterways: Victorian waterway management  strategy is now out.

The important background to this document is that Catchment Management Authorities have had staff cutbacks of around 25%, and DEPI hasn’t done much better.

The Strategy is 285 pages long, and contains lots of interesting information, with action ideas to go with it. The question is whether any of the ideas will ever be properly implemented.

The relevant ministers boast in their foreword that they’ve allocated $100 million over four years to river health. This is $25 million a year—half what the Government allocates to the Grand Prix.

The poverty of resources shows in the Strategy: it seems in many cases to have simply abandoned even the pretence that the nice ideas it fields will ever be implemented.

Upper Loddon: this stretch of river is one of the few healthy ones in our region: in North Central and NW Victoria less than ten per cent of streams are in ‘good or excellent condition.’ The State Government is allocating half as much money to river health as it is to the Grand Prix.

A good example is on the matter of recreational activities. When the Draft Strategy was released for consultation in 2012 FOBIF made a submission which read in part as follows:

“On page 77 Policy 7.7 reads: ‘Where recreational activities occur that may impact on water condition, the relevant waterway manager or land manager will identify and manage these risks, where possible.’

“It’s hard to believe such a gormless policy can be seriously proposed in this important document. This amounts to saying, ‘If someone is damaging our waterways, we’ll try to do something if we can. If we can’t, we’ll just identify the problem and watch it get worse.’

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