Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Last days of FOBIF exhibition (11-13 March)

Posted on 6 March, 2023 by fobif

The FOBIF exhibition at Newstead Arts Hub will be running this Saturday, Sunday and Monday (Labour Day). The opening hours for Saturday and Sunday are 10 am to 4 pm. On Monday we will begin taking down the show at 2.30 pm to allow for people to pick up purchased photos. We will contact people before Monday to let them know if their photo will be ready by this time..

Our new book Responding to Country: Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests 1998-2023 will be available for sale at the Hub. This 70 page catalogue has 25 photos with accompanying text by members and supporters, historical and geology sections, children’s art, and an essay by Alex Panelli, Of people and a forest – some personal reflections. The first few paragraphs of Alex’s essay can be viewed here and the book’s contents page here.

Sample page from the book.

You can order Responding to Country on this site through Paypal or bank transfer for $15 plus $3 postage. It is also available at Stoneman’s Bookroom, the Castlemaine Visitor Information Centre and Bookish in Bendigo.

Posted in FOBIF turns 25, News | Comments Off

What a difference a decade makes

Posted on 4 March, 2023 by fobif

Check out the two photos below, taken at the same point on the Porcupine Ridge road, 11 years apart:

The top photo was taken in August 2012, at the height of a Cup Moth infestation. The bottom photo was taken last week. Notice the difference?

In 2012 the charmingly attractive and very unpleasant Cup Moth (Doratifera sp) was laying waste to our bushlands, and especially the Red Stringybark eucalypts. The bush was pretty dismal, and it wasn’t hard to find people wondering if the forest was actually going to die.

As you can see from the above photos, predictions of doom were at least premature. Tree recovery has been good. You can still, however, see signs of the past crisis, in the number of trees which have only partly recovered, and the number which didn’t survive the attack.

Porcupine Ridge Road, February 2023: skeletal branches and dead trees are reminders of insect attack ten years ago, but forest recovery has been good.

These observations are necessarily crude. What we’d really like is to see the detailed monitoring done by managers over the last 20 years as part of their fuel reduction program. This forest has weathered a long drought, serious insect infestations and management fire over this period. What has been the result, in detail? We don’t know, because we haven’t seen the abovementioned monitoring, if it exists.

The bush on the right of the photos above is scheduled for a management burn in the next couple of years [see our posts here and here].

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New name, new…er…

Posted on 4 March, 2023 by fobif

In case you’re confused, DELWP has changed its name: it’s now the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action.

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New FOBIF book!

Posted on 27 February, 2023 by fobif

FOBIF has just published a catalogue of our current exhibition at the Newstead Arts Hub. This 70 page book, Responding to Country: Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests 1998-2023, includes:

Photos with accompanying words by 25 members and supporters,
Drawings by Chewton Primary School students,
A geology section with text written by Clive Willman,
Photos of FOBIF walks going back more than ten years,
An essay by Alex Panelli, Of People and a Forest – some personal reflections,
Articles about two FOBIF founding members, Ern Perkins and Doug Ralph,
Two articles on the founding of FOBIF and its history by Phil Ingamells and Bernard Slattery.

You can buy the book for $15 plus $3 postage on this site. It is now available at Stoneman’s Bookroom and the Visitors Information Centre in Castlemaine and Bookish in Bendigo.

Sample page

Posted in FOBIF turns 25, News | Comments Off

Celebrating attention to country

Posted on 27 February, 2023 by fobif

Well over 120 people overflowed the Newstead Arts Hub on Saturday for the launch of the FOBIF turns 25 exhibition.

FOBIF president Marie Jones in the pink shirt introducing the event.

Friends President Marie Jones gave a brief run down on the group’s 25 year history, from its beginning in the lounge room of the late Ern Perkins, and paid tribute to the many members who have contributed to its ongoing success. She made special mention of Bronwyn Silver, the creator of this exhibition. Phil Ingamells followed with a tribute to founding president Doug Ralph, a man whose gentle inclusiveness was a remarkable leadership quality, and whose knowledge of the country came from walking it with quiet attention to the details of the landscape.

Alison Pouliot then opened the exhibition with some eloquent words echoing Phil’s theme. Quoting from the exhibiting artists, she emphasised the importance of beauty in understanding landscape, and especially the appreciation of the tiniest living things. Her talk will be published on this site in the coming weeks.

The exhibition, Responding to Country: Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests 1998-2023 will run on the next two weekends (March 4 & 5, 11 & 12) and Labour Day (March 13). Gallery opening hours are 10am to 4pm.