The Central Victorian Fungi Ecology Workshop Series is running again this coming autumn.
If you would like to know more about this curious kingdom, workshops include interactive displays, illustrated seminars and exciting forest forays deep into our local forests.
Full details are listed at www.alisonpouliot.com
Workshops book up fast so perhaps don’t delay making a reservation if you’d like to attend.
The endearing creature below is a Peron’s Tree Frog, sometimes uncharitably called the Maniacal Cackle Frog, owing to its distinctive ‘machine gun’ cackle. It’s not uncommon for frogs to be seen in household gardens in our district, and for that reason alone North Central Waterwatch’s recent publication Frogs Field Guide is welcome. It contains detailed info on the twelve species of indigenous frogs known in the region, and systematic and helpful advice on how to recognise them.
The little booklet isn’t only informative, it’s very readable as well. Each frog has a double page of info, including notes on habitat, breeding habits, conservation, and an ‘interesting facts’ section. It can be obtained from the Connecting Country office at the Hub, on the corner of Templeton and Barker Streets in Castlemaine–and it’s free.
Peron's Tree Frog in a household garden at Golden Point. Photo: John Ellis, February 2012
The flower below is St John’s Wort [Hypericum perforatum], a pretty plant which has been used for over a thousand years as a herbal remedy. Flowers are sparse, but seeds many at this time of the year on Mount Alexander. [For a picture of the plant in full flower, see the weeds section of our picture gallery].
St John’s Wort was introduced to Australia as an ornamental plant and for medicinal reasons in the 19th century, and is a perfect example of a plant which is virtuous in its native situation and a raging menace when exported: when it becomes dominant it radically alters the vegetation community and destroys important habitat. It currently infests over 200,000 hectares of land in Victoria and NSW, particularly open woodland. It is a noxious weed: if ingested by stock at the wrong time of the year it can weaken the animals and even result in death. About 80% of the infested area is in native woodlands.
A single St John’s Wort plant can produce 30,000 seeds annually, and these can last in the soil for 12 years—so it’s obvious that control is difficult. Even fire, if not used correctly, can increase infestations. The only serious possibility of control is by biological means, and a mite [Aculus hyperici] was released on the Mount some 20 years ago, with initially very encouraging results. It seems however that this weed, like many others, is having a boom year.
Following the release of ANU research showing that current fuel reduction practices are not improving public safety [see our post below], the press has reported that DSE has been burning widely in remote bushland, but has neglected to effectively reduce fuel loads close to settlements identified by the CFA as being at risk from major fire.
The Age reported on January 23 that ‘both Labor and the Coalition adopted the royal commission’s recommendation to burn 5 per cent of public land, or 415,412 hectares annually, by 2013-2014, tripling planned burning across Victoria. But one of Australia’s leading fire experts has told The Age the target has little to do with protecting human life and assets and he would like to see it ”disappear in due course”.
Tarilta Creek, in the Upper Loddon State Forest. DSE is preparing to burn this remote area as part of its current fire operations plan. FOBIF believes that the Department should concentrate its resources on using a variety of methods to reduce fire risk closer to settlements.
‘Melbourne University’s Kevin Tolhurst, one of the commission’s expert panelists, told The Age that while the government’s planned burning program factored in the most fire-prone parts of the state, the target itself was not directly linked to protecting communities.
“The unintended consequences of [the target] will be that prescribed burning is done with minimal benefit to the protection of human life and property. It may reduce the extent and severity of major wildfires, but it may not directly reduce the impact on human life and property,” Dr Tolhurst said.’
Calls for more ‘fuel reduction burns’ have been insistent for years, particularly since the Black Saturday fires which burned over 2,100 homes and killed 173 people. The pressure for more management burns culminated in the Royal Commission’s recommendation that at least 5% of the public land estate be burned every year.
Most conservation organisations, including FOBIF, questioned the value of this policy, accurately predicting that it would force land managers to mindlessly burn vast tracts of country causing significant environmental damage with no improvement to public safety.
Now new research by the Australian National University seems to back up most of this case. Researchers looked at the homes destroyed on Black Saturday and assessed what had been the main factors contributing to their destruction.
The research showed that prescribed burning was only half as effective at protecting houses as clearing vegetation around buildings.
On ABC radio on January 19 ANU’s Dr Philip Gibbons said: ‘Prescribed burning is not the silver bullet that some people suggest it is… When the weather gets up to the extremes that we experienced on Black Saturday then we know that…the effect of prescribed burning becomes diminished…Prescribed burning is typically done distant from houses…The average distance from a house of prescribed burning on Black Saturday was eight kilometres. But we found that at that distance from houses prescribed burning had virtually no effect in terms of protecting houses.’
The researchers also looked at the effects of logging in making forests less flammable.
In Dr Gibbons’ words: ‘We found that indeed a house that is close to forest is at greater risk. But it didn’t matter if that forest was national park or state forest that was managed for logging. In other words logging had no effect in terms of protecting houses on Black Saturday. They take out all the really big logs. They take out the trunks of trees and they leave the leaves on the ground. They leave the fine fuels, okay. So they’re the ones that contribute to the intensity of the fire.
‘And also if you log an area heavily you end up with a young forest that’s very dense and that can also add to the fuel in a forest. It’s like having a big thick layer of shrubs in the forest and the crowns are all connected. ‘
The full ANU research report, ‘Land Management Practices Associated with House Loss in Wildfires’, can be found here.
White Everlasting Daisy (Chrysocephalum baxteri)
Slime Mould
Dunns Reef
Tall Greenhoods
Gnat Orchid
Blue Caladenia
Downy Grevillea (Grevillea alpina)
Coliban river upstream of the Gibbons bridge
Coliban river upstream of the Gibbons bridge.
Coliban river upstream of the Gibbons bridge.
Sailors Gully ruin
Loddon River near Vaughan
Cortinarius archeri
Mycena subgalericulata
Cortinarius rotundisporus
Cortinarius cystidiocatenatus,
Ramaria sp.
Pink Heath
Mount Alexander
Mount Alexander
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Click on image for info/order page
Click on image for info/order page