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.

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.

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.

FOBIF has sent an objection to the Mount Alexander Shire to the displayed plans for a new supermarket at Forest and Urquhart Streets Castlemaine. The essentials of our objection are as follows:

‘We emphasise that we have no opinion on the wisdom of a second large supermarket in the town, or its location, or its design: we have to trust to the competence of council on these matters.

‘Our objection is solely related to the proposed landscape plantings for the development. In particular, I refer to pages 06-02 07-02 and 08-02 in the relevant section of the planning documents.

‘On these pages it is proposed to plant the following environmental weeds around the development:

‘Cootamundra Wattle: this is not only an Environmental Weed, which spreads into the bush, replacing indigenous plants and damaging the natural ecosystem, but it also crosses with our indigenous Silver Wattle and thus is in the process of causing Silver Wattle’s extinction in Castlemaine, because the progeny of Silver Wattles are now crosses, and therefore weeds.  It’s like letting a feral bull into a cattle breeding stud and not having a morning after pill available. Even if a “sterile cultivar” were proposed, this would look the same as the non-sterile ones and thus act as a promotion for Cootamundra Wattle, increasing its popularity with gardeners unaware of its problems.   We also question if a “sterile cultivar” is guaranteed to remain absolutely sterile forever?
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Here’s an activity that should be of wide interest: