Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

A dump of snow on Saturday night changed the face of Mount Alexander, and attracted numerous sightseers on Sunday. The snow had essentially retreated by Sunday afternoon.

At the Mount Alexander Summit, Sunday morning: the snow was spectacular, but short lived

Below the summit: granite rocks were dusted with snow, and tree branches weighted down…

On a less poetic note: FOBIF has asked Parks Victoria for the rationale of the extensive vegetation removal along Joseph Young drive on Mount Alexander. Of course, safety is an obvious explanation, but we’re still a bit befuddled as to the logic of the particular removals. The simple fact is that the only way to make this road (or any similar road) safe in violent winds is to remove every tree within thirty metres, which would completely destroy the environment of the area and remove most of the reason for going there. Is the road safer now than it was before the removals? We’re not sure. We’ll let you know when–or if–we find out the criteria for removals.

Trees have been removed along the length of Joseph Young Drive, on Mount Alexander. It’s hard to see why some have been taken and not others…or in fact to understand the rationale at all.

Community responses have revealed an ‘overwhelming preference’ the third of the three options canvassed in DELWP’s online fire consultation. This option proposes ‘less planned burning across the entire landscape’ than the others. It also aims for fuel management exercises to be conducted ‘in areas where they achieve the best outcome for bushfire risk reduction’.

Map shows the proposed approach to fuel reduction in our region. Red is most severe (seen around Castlemaine and Chewton, for example); aqua is exclusion of burns. More detail can be got from the interactive map–which has Maldon in it!

The community preference is revealed in the latest chapter of DELWP’s Engage Victoria consultation on fire. It can be found here. There’s an interactive map, which clarifies what the proposed strategy might mean on the ground. It shows that fuel reduction would be concentrated heavily around population centres, and that there would be extensive areas where there would be no ‘planned burning’.

The result so far reflects a common sense preference for targeted action on fuel, as opposed to the scorched earth approach pursued under the unlamented five per cent target strategy. In fact, it’s very similar to the recommendations of the Royal Commission Implementation Monitor, Neil Comrie.

DELWP is asking for feedback on the strategy, in the form of a short questionnaire. So far this consultation has concentrated on fuel reduction.  The questionnaire does open discussion on prevention, among other things. Given that nearly 80% of fires are caused by human ignorance, carelessness or arson, it might be about time to take this one on.

We recommend you have a go at the questionnaire. It’s open till August 12–next Monday!

Noel Young has sent us this beautiful photo of the Castlemaine Spider Orchid for our TOGS photo project.

Photo submissions need to be in by August 19. You can find the guidelines here and you can see the project Flickr album here.

Castlemaine Spider Orchid (Caladenia clavescens) at the Monk, Photo by Noel Young, 28 September 2017

The 2019 FOBIF Annual General Meeting will be held this year on Monday September 9 at 7.30pm in the Ray Bradfield Room. More details about the program and guest speaker are forthcoming.

Do you want to play a role on the FOBIF committee? Or nominate someone else to the committee? All that’s needed is a piece of paper signed by the nominee, a nominator and a seconder—all FOBIF members. There’s no need of an official form, but for convenience, here’s a sample:

I nominate_________________________________

for the position of____________________________

Signed____________________________________

Seconded__________________________________

I accept the above nomination

Signed___________________________________

Positions on the committee are President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and two ordinary members. Nominations should be in before the meeting.

Engage Victoria is running a new consultation, this one being on litter and rubbish dumping in regional areas, including Mount Alexander shire.

The consultation involves a questionnaire of 34 questions, and will include a workshop in Bendigo on August 28. For details click here.

Forest Creek at the Wheeler Street bridge: milk and soft drink containers with an assortment of other throwaways permanently decorate the surface. Bad behaviour is one part of the rubbish problem: but the major one is the mass production of disposable stuff.

FOBIF is a little cynical about these consultations, as we pointed out in connection with the forest consultation of last year. Some people have even dubbed the process the ‘Enrage Victoria’ enterprise, because of the irrelevance or triviality of some of the questions asked.

In the current case, the questions seem irritatingly designed to make us forget that the origin of the rubbish problem is the creation, on a mass scale, of throwaway stuff. Control of the source of the problem is on the face of it more effective than trying to stem a tidal wave of junk.

Nevertheless, it might be worth having a go at the survey questions,  if only to make that point.

The picture below shows two mature Ironbarks cut down and removed from alongside the Poverty Gully track in the Diggings Park. Illegal timbergetting from public land has become a bit of a plague lately, and FOBIF has heard both from nearby residents and from rangers of what seem to be semi professional operations effectively looting the park.

Poverty Gully track, July 17: two substantial trees have been cut down, cut up and removed. The pattern has been repeated across the area adjoining Castlemaine and Campbell’s Creek

According to DELWP, ‘Under the Forest Act 1958, people who collect firewood outside designated firewood collection areas or a firewood collection season or take more than the maximum allowable amounts can face fines of up to $8,059, or a maximum penalty of one year imprisonment or both, if the matter proceeded to Court.’

We believe Parks Victoria has embarked on a new effort to tackle the problem. No details are available, and in spite of the odd arrest, the results aren’t convincing. It’s hard to supervise large areas of forest at any one time: if the infractions are of a commercial scale, the appropriate approach would seem to be to investigate outlets, as was done in the
Bendigo area successfully in May.