Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

About 20 people gathered at Walmer last Monday for the FOBIF end of the year BBQ. It was perfect weather for a relaxed and enjoyable end of the year celebration.

Looking north-west at Walmer. Photo by Harley Parker

Lynette, Harley and Rex relaxing.

The FOBIF committee wishes all friends of our forests a happy Christmas and a great new year. Our 2018 walks program will soon be available. We’ll see you in the bush in the new year!

This weekend (22-23 December) is the last one for the Nature Photography in the Goldfields exhibition by Patrick Kavanagh, Geoff Park and Bronwyn Silver at the Newstead Railway Arts Hub. The ‘Hub’ will be open from 10am – 4pm.

Dusky Woodswallows. Photo by Geoff Park

Echidna. Photo by Patrick Kavanagh

Emerging Yellow Gum blossom. Photo by Bronwyn Silver

Coliban Water has been promising to close down some of its inefficient water races for years. These include the Poverty Gully race, which has been leaking repeatedly—a problem not helped when a DELWP fuel reduction burn destroyed the plastic lining water authorities had installed to try to improve the channel’s efficiency. They certainly reduced that particular fuel.

FOBIF supports the closure of the channel, believing the water is best allowed to boost the ailing Coliban River. At the same time, the closure will have some unfortunate side effects. Channel leakages over the years have created the odd interesting minor wetlands, which dry up when the channel isn’t running, but manage to revive when the water comes.

So, what happens when the water stops for good? It seems that the authority may have at last acted to close the channel, and Naomi Raftery has the following response:

‘A few years ago I wrote a piece for Connecting County’s Nature News. It chronicled the excitement of moving into a new rental in Chewton, which backed onto an ephemeral creek line, fed, as it were, by a leak in the Poverty Gully water race. My enthusiasm was for the frog and birdlife that abounded following a leak and my newfound interest in identifying different species attracted to the water.

‘Coliban Water are in the process of decommissioning the water race, which will be finalised in January 2019.  The result is a deafening silence. The frog chorus is gone, the White-faced Herons are not anywhere and the weed march is on.

‘While FOBIF applaud the sensible decision to decommission the race, it is a good case in point for illustrating what will happen in the event of a warming climate and reiterates the importance of setting up solid, long view management of our natural places and in order that they become resilient refugia for  humans and plants and animals.’

Right: although an artificial situation, the case is a very good example of what lies ahead for vulnerable corners of our region, like wetlands and water courses, as a warmer and drier climate settles on the country.

The FOBIF breakup for the year is on next Monday, 10 December beginning at 6pm. Further details can be found here. All FOBIF members and supporters are welcome.

The opening of Nature Photography in the Goldfields by Geoff Park, Patrick Kavanagh and Bronwyn Silver will take place this Sunday at 11am at the Newstead Railway Arts Hub. Everyone is welcome and refreshments will be provided. The exhibition will run between 10am and 4pm over the first 4 weekends in December. The first day of the show is this Saturday, 1 December. Find all the details here. 

One of Geoff Park’s exhibition photos: Male Mistletoebird, Spring Hill Track, 3rd September 2018

And the FOBIF ‘Creatures’ photo exhibition at TOGS will finish this Thursday (November 29). All photos are for sale and reasonably priced. Proceeds of sales go to FOBIF to cover costs. You can see more ‘Creatures’ photos on our Flickr site  and on this previous post.

We would like to thank TOGS once again for their support in mounting this exhibition. This is our fifth show at the cafe and our ninth in total. 

Victoria’s weird practice of classifying deer as a protected species for the benefit of recreational hunters has come increasingly under fire from farmers, landcarers and municipalities, both rural and Melbourne fringe.

Deer in Chewton: They damage crops, trash the bush and are a traffic menace–and illegal hunters are a danger to the public.

If you’re under the impression that deer are cute species which occasionally appear in romantic pose, have a look here and here for a wake up call about the damage to agriculture and the environment caused by rapidly growing feral deer populations. They don’t just damage the environment: they’re a pest to farmers and a danger to motorists. What’s more, rural residents in remote rural areas report living in fear of illegal hunters.

Perhaps as peculiar as the protected status of the deer is the apparent protected status of hunters. The recent draft deer strategy showed clearly that recreational hunting is not reducing deer numbers, now at a million and growing exponentially. Yet the strategy is heavily weighted to giving hunters more chances to enjoy their sport while doing nothing about the problem.

FOBIF’s response to the strategy can be found here.

As a sidelight to FOBIF’s ongoing interest in vegetation clearance on the Pyrenees Highway, we draw readers’ attention to a nice item in the Midland Express [November 20].

Animal shelter managers in Elphinstone lobbied Vicroads to reduce the speed limit on Pollards road to cut the number of animal deaths. Vicroads wouldn’t come to the party, but the Mount Alexander Shire put in 70 kph advisory signs and wildlife crossing signs. Before the signs went up an animal a week would be presented to the shelter. After: there’s been one in 12 months.

Pollards Road: calm down, slow down and reduce animal deaths.

This is a good news story, reinforcing ideas that should by now be commonplace: speed kills, not only people, but animals. As we’ve reported before, you can reduce your chances of hitting an animal by up to 50% by reducing your speed in a known hit area from 100kph to 80kph—and that if you did this over 200 kilometres, you’d be adding only two minutes to the journey!

FOBIF’s submission to Vicroads on the Pyrenees Highway emphasised that significant improvements in safety could be achieved by speed reduction and traffic calming devices like signage and rumble strips. Vicroads, however, is governed by the logic that says that a road like Pollard’s road should have the same speed limit as the Midland Highway…

A Deakin University Phd student has claimed that farm dams are a major contributor to greenhouse gases, according to the Weekly Times [ 21/11 ].

‘This is due to the microbes in dams, which release carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.

‘But, according to the scientist behind the work, emissions from dams could be halved with “simple” changes to farming practices.

‘The study’s lead author, Quinn Ollivier, a PhD candidate in Deakin’s Blue Carbon Lab, found Victoria’s 375,000 farm dams produce the equivalent amount of greenhouse gas emissions as 385,000 cars.

‘Mr Ollivier’s study found dam emissions were caused by dissolved nitrate concentrations, and were significantly higher on livestock farms, compared to cropping areas.’

Well, we never knew that. The good news, however, is that the problem can be largely fixed by revegetating dam edges, which would obviously have other environmental benefits.

And while we’re on the subject of dams, the state government has proposed putting a brake on farm dams by instituting a ‘reasonable use limit’ on them from early next year. The proposal is designed to prevent distortions on water accessibility which may happen, for example, if an upstream landholder reduces the amount of water available to downstream users. The proposal has met with plenty of opposition.

As we’ve explained before, FOBIF’s position on this matter starts with a distinction between genuine farm dams, useful for agricultural production, and ornamental dams, put in by some rural users just to have a nice water view. The latter have exploded in number in recent decades, and have a significant effect on our waterways. As the Dja Dja Wurrung joint management plan puts it:

‘Dams fragment the watercourse they’re built on, preventing movement of aquatic animals between parts of the stream on either side of the dam. Dams and channels can decrease gatjin [water] flows downstream, particularly in low rainfall periods, reducing streams to disconnected pools, or causing problems associated with low flows, such as algal outbreaks.’

Vicroads’ proposed tree removal works on the Pyrenees Highway between Green Gully and Newstead have been put on hold pending advice from the Federal Department of the Environment [DEH] on the impact these removals might have on the health of migrating Swift Parrot populations.

Readers will remember that FOBIF has argued that removal of these trees, some of significant size, is both harmful for the amenity of the road and unnecessary for safety. We have argued that a reduction in speed limits and other measures would be a more effective policy, given that this is a winding stretch of road, probably unsuitable for significant speeds.

Vicroads’ response to this has been to point out that a car crashing into a tree at 80 is as fatal as a crash at 90 or 100—which seems to be ignoring that fact that the lower speed would most likely remove the probability of a crash in the first place. Vicroads’ Annual Report for 2016-7, noting a 15% increase in road fatalities in that year,  points out that ‘The most common crash types were run-offroad on high-speed country roads and intersection crashes in metropolitan Melbourne.’ In spite of numerous TAC campaigns like ‘speed kills’, and ‘wipe off 5’, it seems to us that Vicroads is more concerned to improve traffic flow than to influence drivers to drive to conditions. In a weird way, Vicroads and the Transport Accident Commission seem to be at odds…

Vicroads will be holding more consultations in the local area before the works begin.