Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

‘Environmental infrastructure’ is one of those phrases that makes the eyes glaze over, but actually, all it means is: things that help you enjoy good places. That is, bush tracks, ways of enjoying parks and gardens, and so on. As we’ve suggested many times, money spent on such things is not a cost, it’s an investment. If COVID 19 has made anything clear, that’s it: healthy natural places are essential for people’s mental and physical wellbeing, and it’s about time government budgets acknowledged this fact.

Castlemaine to Maldon walking track: money spent on providing access to healthy environments is an investment, not a cost.

FOBIF has made a short submission to Parliament’s enquiry into ‘environmental infrastructure.’ The gist of our submission is below:

Given the emphasis on population increase in the terms of reference, we note that the population of Victoria has increased by over a million in the last 12 years. In that time, Parks Victoria’s staffing has remained more or less frozen at 2008 levels.  Though the situation at DELWP is more complex, given its fire control responsibilities, we believe that as far as constructive management of bushland is concerned the situation is similar. We urge the committee to seriously examine the nature of funding of public land management.

Funding for public land managers is a key factor in the quality of environmental infrastructure close to townships, for very simple reasons:

1. Management of tracks and trails has to be more intensive: our observation is that road management by Parks Victoria and DELWP is often crude and destructive of adjacent bushland. We are forced to believe that this is a consequence of using untrained, unsupervised or simply uninformed personnel. Of course, the cure for this is increased funding.
2. Environments near townships need very careful management for fire prevention and mitigation: it’s not possible to light a large area ‘fuel reduction burn’ and let it do its thing inside the fire perimeter, because proximity to houses always poses a risk, and in any case large burned areas are a negative effect on amenity. The solution to this is treatment in much smaller patches…which costs money.
3. Nuisance behaviours like rubbish dumping and rogue trail bike riding are on the increase. Without a more frequent ranger presence these are bound to increase. Ranger numbers are deplorably low.

We have two further points:

1. Landcare groups in Castlemaine and Campbells creek have engaged in ambitious revegetation programs over the last two decades, with spectacularly successful results, including two widely used Creek trails. These groups need support.
2. We support the introduction of indigenous co management into our public lands, and specifically the ‘Walking together’ program designed to reform the management of Kalimna Park, adjacent to Castlemaine.

The September issue of Wombat Forestcare newsletter is now out, and can be found here

As usual, it’s a great read, containing articles about owls, the continuing uncertain status of the Wombat Forest, bird calls, fungi, and a very sobering article on the legacy of mining in the Wombat.

In the light of extensive advertising in the local press of mining exploration in central Victoria, readers may be interested in an online petition run by  Blackwood group No Wombat Gold against mining the Wombat. It can be found here. Recent community action led by comedian Tom Gleeson stopped mining exploration activity in the Macedon Ranges, so these exploration proposals should not be seen as foregone conclusions.

It seems that the lure of gold never weakens. It’s very hard to assess the value of ventures which are periodically launched in this part of the world: all we can say is that many have launched, and many have sunk without trace. That is no cause for complacency.

Community members are being invited to participate in a Zoom workshop session, facilitated by Djandak (Dja Dja Wurrung Enterprises), to discuss values, threats, priorities, and opportunities associated with Kalimna Park- as part of the Walking Together- Balak Kalik Manya Project. The workshop will take place this coming Tuesday, September 29, from 7pm to 9pm.

For more information on the project please see this short video- https://vimeo.com/441201115

Here’s the invitation to the online workshop, from Harley Douglas, Project manager at Djandak:

‘We need the community’s intimate knowledge of Kalimna Park to begin prioritising management recommendations that will be listed within our site-specific management plan. It is unfortunate that we are unable to meet face-to-face given the current restrictions surrounding COVID-19, but we are pressing forward in the form of an online workshop. Through this session, community members will have the opportunity to discuss all things Kalimna Park; including the things they like and dislike, along with any other relevant comments.

‘We will be running our workshop on the 29^th of September with the assistance of Conservation Management. The workshop will commence at 7:00pm- 9:00pm. To be involved you will need to have access to a computer, with an internet connection, in your own home.

‘Here is the link to our online workshop- https://zoom.us/j/93302389412

‘I hope to hear from you and see you at our online workshop!’

The next two FOBIF walks (16 August and 20 September) are cancelled due to reintroduction of government restrictions on the number of people allowed to walk together. Hopefully we will be able to resume our walks on 18 October which will be the last walk for the year. Check out this website for updates. Details of the October walk are on our walks page.

FOBIF’s recommended lockdown reading for this week is a short article on a Golf Course!

The article by Megan Backhouse can be found here.

It’s to do with management of native vegetation on the Royal Melbourne course: ‘The club’s Black Rock golf courses ­… contain some of Melbourne’s best remaining patches of the sand-heathland habitat that once existed on low, coastal plains everywhere from St Kilda to Frankston.’ This vegetation is carefully managed to coexist with the sport of golf.

The club’s horticulture manager Jim Moodie has to work to get golfers to see what he’s doing: not all players appreciate native vegetation. Some, in fact, don’t even see it. One player told journalist Megan Backhouse, without rancour, that ‘there aren’t any plants’ in one carefully signposted area. Clearly, the management program needs an educational component.

Among other methods used by Jim Moodie , is ‘a tight schedule of ecological burns. The fires are conducted in March and April, with each area burned no more than once every eight years to give time for plants to re-establish and to return a good seed bank to the soil.’ Each burn ‘lasts for about 20 minutes.’

‘After the fire, shrubs such as Leptospermum myrsinoides, which had become old and woody, re-shoot from the base or from seeds in the soil and take on a more wispy habit. With the height knocked back, more light is allowed in, which gives small grasses, sundews and other low-lying wildflowers a chance to thrive. The burning also stimulates the germination of seeds in the soil and helps to regenerate orchids, with some starting to flower more prolifically and, sometimes, previously unseen ones reappearing.’

A twenty minute fire! Now, that’s serious micro management, accompanied by impressive attention to detail…and over areas that are tiny compared to DELWP’s smallest burn area.

We shouldn’t forget that Royal Melbourne has lots of money, and can afford to be enlightened.

DELWP and Parks Victoria, by contrast, manage vast areas, and are cash strapped. They can plead that it’s impossible to manage public land like that . True—up to a point. Yet we should expect some level of attention to detail from them, and some level of careful organisation and informed management.

All of the above seem to have been lacking in last month’s catastrophic Maldon land grooming exercise.