Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Here’s an exerpt from a DEECA press release dated last Wednesday March 6th:

‘On a day of Total Fire Ban in the South West fire weather district last week, a campfire escaped at the Rocklands Reservoir in the Grampians and while campers managed to contain the fire, it burned 0.1 hectares before Forest Fire Management crews arrived. Three tankers, 10 firefighters, and one air support
crew were required to completely extinguish the fire.

Mount Alexander near the Leanganook campground, January: this potential disaster –caused by a neglected campfire–was headed off by timely intervention by fire fighters.

‘Since 1 January 2024, authorities have detected more than 170 unattended campfires in parks and forests across the state, and with Victoria recently experiencing some of its most dangerous fire days, any unwatched campfire has a significant risk of escaping and spreading rapidly out of control.’ [FOBIF emphasis]

The release goes on to tell people to be careful. Given the above statistics, you would think the Department would show some decisiveness and go for a ban on campfires any time in the fire season. Polite advice doesn’t seem to be working.

Why doesn’t it? Well, our guess is that DEECA has a notion that campfires are some kind of sacred tradition, which can’t be touched. If so, it’s time they showed a bit of gumption, and leadership. The stakes are too high to indulge something that’s no longer necessary.

We’ve had lots of feedback to our post two weeks ago about fires at Leanganook: all confirm that there are too many fires, too many carelessly situated fires, and above all, too many large fires quite out of proportion to what might be needed to keep someone warm. Further, the ground around the camping area has been stripped of timber, including large logs which are not a fire problem and are important habitat.

News flash: the summer season is usually warm…and potentially dangerous. Even in mild or cooler days, fires are not necessary.

This should not be a matter for controversy: sometimes common sense and a bit of gumption make a good combination…but one which is often surprisingly absent.

Our first walk next Sunday (17 March) is a 5 km loop on Mount Mooral which is just outside Maldon. We will have lunch at the Rock of Ages where will be able to take in stunning views of northern plains, Mount Tarrengower and the Maldon township. 

Meet as usual at the Community House at 9.30 am. If you live close to Maldon you can join us at 9.45 am outside the Maldon Post Office (95 High Street). Ring Bronwyn Silver 0448751111 if you need further information.

Looking north in the early morning from the Rock of Ages.

Landscape photography can be a problem. It can have a tendency to prettify nature—the ‘chocolate box’ effect, the one seen too often on calendars; or it can be tempted to ‘disaster chic’, with an emphasis on ruins and devastation.

The goldfields offer pitfalls in both these directions, but Julie Millowick’s current exhibition, Surrounding, avoids both. In so doing, it offers a compelling and powerful insight into our region. Without trying for epic scenes, she presents the beauty of this ‘strangely poignant’ landscape ‘in tumult and recovery’. The photos show the ‘devastating  effects of mining and invasive plants, but also remind us of the interconnectedness that links all parts of this landscape, including its human occupants.’

Clothes hanging on a line, decaying walls, light filtering through trees, scatterings of Cassinia seeds, vegetation colonising mining sites, a small boy standing on a mullock heap, rainsoaked bush…There’s an unpredictable variety in these photos, but every one compels a close look. The poet Les Murray once referred to ‘the commonplace and magnificent roads of our lives.’ Somehow these pictures recall that phrase.

This exhibition captures the real spirit of the goldfields–ruin, abandonment, redemption–and the affection that can be felt for these astonishing landscapes. It’s to be hoped that the proponents of World Heritage listing for our region will come along for a good look.

The exhibition is at the Castlemaine Gallery [open Thursday to Saturday  11 am to 4 pm, Sunday 12 noon to 4 pm] till June 16. Don’t miss it.

FOBIF subscriptions for 2024 are now due. If you haven’t received information in the mail or would like to become a new member you can find the form here. Members who haven’t changed their details can skip filling out the form and deposit their subscription in the FOBIF bank account (include your surname/s). 

Our 2024 walks program is now online and you can read our latest newsletter here.

Over 70 Victorian conservation groups, including FOBIF, signed an open letter to Victorian Premier, Jacinta Allen, late last year, urging better management of Central West forests. The letter was initiated by the VNPA and Wombat Forestcare, and reads as follows:

Congratulations on your recent appointment to Premier.

We celebrated the Victorian Government’s 2021 public commitment to create new protected areas. We applauded the decision to end native forest logging in the east of Victoria by 1 January 2024. In doing so your government acknowledged the incredible natural diversity and cultural importance of these areas.

Yet VicForests has plans to log over 60,000 hectares in the fragmented and cleared landscape of the west. If your agencies continue to log this habitat, plants and animals like Powerful Owls, Brush-tailed Phascogales and Mt Cole Grevillea risk becoming locally extinct.

It’s now time to demonstrate leadership by permanently protecting the surviving wildlife, forests and woodlands of western Victoria. It’s time to look after the complex web of natural life in these forests and restore what we have left. We call on you to immediately:

• Halt the taxpayer-funded destruction of our natural heritage and end native forest logging statewide.
• Legislate the promised Wombat-Lerderderg, Mount Buangor and Pyrenees national parks.
• Cease all firewood harvesting in Wellsford Forest and include it in the Greater Bendigo National Park.
• Enact formal protections promised for the nature-rich Cobaw Conservation Park, and other regional parks and conservation reserves.

This is a rare opportunity to create a profound legacy for future generations and:

• Provide vital habitat for over 370 rare and threatened animals and plants.
• Support First Nations joint management of new parks.
• Help reduce the impacts of climate disruption by trapping millions of tonnes of stored carbon.
• Support rural and regional livelihoods through visitation and nature-based tourism.
• Protect river headwaters that flow from these forests to create water security for farms and communities.
• Help forestry workers to transfer their skills to nature-positive jobs.

Creating new national parks and phasing out destructive native forest logging isn’t only about protecting wildlife and beautiful places. It’s about clean air and water, a liveable climate and people’s livelihoods.