Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Vicroads engineers met again with residents in Newstead last week to go over objections to tree removals along the Pyrenees Highway [see our previous posts]. Numerous objections to the basis of the project were raised. Some were accepted as legitimate—statistics regarding traffic flow and accident occurrence, for example, were found to be flawed. Nevertheless, none of these objections were enough to change the nature of the project. Engineers present made it plain that in their view it will go on as planned, sooner or later, further consultations notwithstanding.

The crux of the matter, it seems to us, is that Vicroads is focused on one side of the accident equation. As we reported last week, road authorities attribute the rate of serious injury to two factors: likelihood of a crash, and impact if the crash occurs. Residents’ proposals have centred on the first: avoiding crashes altogether, by reducing speed limits and installing new signage with various road surface improvements. Vicroads works from the assumption that crashes will happen anyway, and we should work to soften their effects. Of course if a car veers off the road a wire rope barrier will soften the impact of the accident. But what if, owing to its lower speed, the car was not to leave the road at all? The two sides of the argument bounce off each other with no result other than the inevitable: the project will proceed…

One revealing moment in last week’s discussion: engineers claimed that for every request they have for a speed limit reduction, there are ten objections to it. We’re pretty cautious about this claim, which sounds a little self serving. We remember that we were offered the same reasoning ten years ago when we asked for a reduction on the Castlemaine Elphinstone road…and a few years after that, the limit was reduced, with little or no community objection…

Residents have sought the assistance of the Minister and the Member for Bendigo West, Maree Edwards, who has been co operative, so far. Consultations are ongoing.

Connecting Country is preparing a grant application to Mount Alexander Shire Council for an Eltham Copper Butterfly project, working with local ecologists Elaine Bayes and Karl Just, seeking funding to monitor and protect this threatened species. FOBIF has agreed to be a partner in the project.

The aim of the project is to raise public awareness about the butterfly, and help develop a small team of citizen scientists trained in ECB monitoring. Castlemaine’s Kalimna Park is home to the largest remaining population of the threatened Eltham Copper Butterfly. However, little is known about this fascinating species, which continues to be threatened by proposed fuel reduction burning. The project uses engagement tools to raise local awareness about the butterfly’s ecology, and builds community skills and capacity to monitor and protect the species into the future.

As we’ve noted below, insect populations worldwide are under pressure, and the more we know about them, the better we will understand how to keep populations healthy. It goes without saying that the presence of the Eltham Copper in Kalimna park is invaluable asset to the community. An example: the annual gathering of the South East Australian Naturalists Association will bring many visitors to this region in October, and one of the attractions will be the chance to see the butterfly…

DELWP is currently running an online survey to gauge community attitudes to forest management. According to a Department press release,

‘The Forest Reform Program is the bringing together of land and fire managers, Traditional Owners and Victorian communities to plan and deliver integrated forest and fire management across the state.

‘The aim of the program is to deliver great community value from our forests to all Victorians.

‘This process includes a clear commitment to work in partnership with Traditional Owners to deliver the Forest Reform Program and manage Victoria’s forests into the future.”

‘The survey is giving people an opportunity to provide their views on what they value in our forests, how forest management can be improved and what they would like from forests in the future.’

You can find the survey here. It suffers from the very serious fault of all voluntary surveys: namely, by definition it is not a random survey of a cross section of the population. Instead, it records the views of those most interested in promoting their views. All the same, it’s at least a partial indicator of what people think, and we recommend you have a go.

The survey closes on March 31.

FOBIF has just received the following communique from Newstead 2021:

Community group Newstead 2021 Inc today has been informed by Bendigo West MP Maree Edwards that VicRoads’ proposed Pyrenees Highway Safety Improvements project between Newstead and Muckleford South have been postponed.

N2021 Inc submitted a petition with 532 signatures to Ms Edwards today asking the work be deferred until community concerns are addressed.

The project proposes to install wire rope safety barriers and guard fences, seal some sections of road shoulders and parts of intersections and remove roadside vegetation including 146 mature trees from Swift Parrot habitat.

Members of the Newstead community acknowledge the importance of road safety, but have been questioning the modelling, data and evaluations – economic, social and environmental – behind the project since 2016.

Newstead 2021 Inc has written to the Roads Minister, Jaala Pulford, about the project.

The group is asking that work to remove roadside trees be halted and the project commencement is deferred until community concerns are fully addressed.

These include the accuracy and reliability of environmental evaluations, traffic counts (eg. VicRoads project quotes 6400 vehicles per day. Local community counts suggest the figure is closer to 3600 per day), road crashes (eg. The project selects 2009 – 2013 data only) and modelling.

N2021 is also asking that the cost:benefit analysis and workings be shared with the community and that speed limits on this section of road are assessed in line with other reductions put in place along the Pyrenees Highway locally.

Green Gully residents are particularly concerned about safety and speed along the stretch of road and especially at their Cemetery Rd intersection where the school bus stop is located.

“Community members believe signage, road edging improvement along the entire section, line marking and changing driver behaviour would be more cost-effective to improve safety and minimise risk without removing 146 native trees,” resident Janet Barker said.

Residents are concerned about this project in light of VicRoads extensive tree removal and overengineering along the Calder Highway at Ravenswood near the Maldon/Mildura exit.

Mal ‘Jase’ Haysom has produced yet another useful map of our area: this time, roads and tracks in the Taradale Nature Conservation Reserve and [almost] adjacent State Forest. The map can be found online here, or a paper version can be picked up from the Castlemaine Market Building. It’s free.

These small but intriguing forest patches were threatened with serious damage in the planning stages of the Calder Freeway Malmsbury and Taradale bypass ten years ago: early proposals would have had the road slice into the Nature Conservation Reserve. Intervention by FOBIF activists persuaded engineers to route the freeway between the two forest patches. The freeway also has a wildlife underpass, allowing animal traffic between the two forest reserves. Judging from the look of the underpass, it’s very heavily used.

UPDATE ON THIS POST: Please see the press release above relating to this matter

Vicroads is planning to begin its tree clearance works on the Pyrenees Highway east of Newstead this week. Works were planned to start today (the 29^th), but we’ve seen no sight of them yet.

Subsequent to the recent Newstead ‘consultation’ meeting, the roads authority has distributed a quantity of material to local residents explaining the project and providing answers to residents’ objections to the vegetation clearance.

The key documents can be found here: 

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/IE/QR7OSTPD

/Pyrenees%20follow%20up%20information%20220119.pdf

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/IE/QR7OSTPD

/Pyreness%20drop%20in%20notes%20080119.pdf

As readers will remember, FOBIF’s objections to large tree removal were accompanied by a number of proposals including:  reduction of the speed limit on the road, and installation of advisory ‘black spot’ signs: the point of these being to reduce the likelihood of an accident. As we have pointed out, Vicroads’ strategy in this case is not to reduce accident probability, but to soften the impact of accidents. According to Vicroads’ tree policy ‘The risk of death and serious injury is directly related to the likelihood of a crash and the impact forces on the vehicle occupants when a vehicle impacts an object.’ Of these two factors, the current project is focussed on one only: ‘This project is focussed on improving road safety outcomes for roads users who are involved in a crash.’  (FOBIF emphasis).

Vicroads’ modelling seems to have been focussed entirely on this angle: and, of course, if you run into a tree at 80 the effect is pretty well the same it would be at 90. The question is, would the accident have happened at all at 80? Numerous campaigns designed to convince us that speed kills would suggest not.

As to what decisions will be made on speed limits, we’re not clear.

A further objection, that the project will damage Swift Parrot habitat, is dealt with in the Vicroads material, essentially via the provision of offset plantings in the St Arnaud area. FOBIF has had no response to our question as to how the removed trees are valued, but we assume that the answer is that the offsets will at least equal the removed trees.

As we’ve suggested before, this project, like many before it, is a small example of a very large principle dominant in our culture: where an apparent conflict is seen between humanity and nature, it is nature which loses out every time. The principle is clearly seen in the current predicament in the Murray Darling, where the underlying principle of governments has been that there be ‘no negative socio-economic impact’. The principle is perfectly encapsulated in Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s statement today: ‘I’m concerned about fish, but I’m more concerned about people.’ The end result now most likely: not only has nature been seriously damaged, but the region, and Australia more generally, is facing a serious social and economic crisis as well.

And here’s a footnote: last July the French government controversially reduced the speed limit on secondary roads from 90 kph to 80 kph. The French Prime Minister released figures this week showing persuasively that 116 fewer people had died on the roads in the period since the change, compared to the average over the preceding years.

In an earlier post we told readers about Alison Pouliot’s new book, The Allure of Fungi, published by the CSIRO. Details of the book and where to purchase it can be found here.

Wombat Forestcare and Alison will formally launch the book on Thursday 28 February at the Woodshed, 21a Raglan Street, Daylesford at 6pm. All are welcome. There will be a celebratory glass of champagne and some readings from the book.

Alison is running even more workshops in Victoria this year. Two of the new workshop topics are ‘Visualising the Environment’ and ‘Trees in Focus’. You can find out all about them here. 

The FOBIF committee hopes you’ve had a good start to the new year, and take good care not to melt in the coming week’s heat.

The FOBIF monthly walks program for 2019 is now available, and can be found by clicking on ‘Walks’ above. A paper copy is being mailed to all members this week. Weather conditions and other factors may bring some changes, so we recommend that you check this site before each walk for updates.

Open committee meetings

Remember: FOBIF committee meetings are open to all members. They’re at the Continuing Education building, Templeton Street Castlemaine, on the second Monday of every month from February to November, at 6 pm. Come along and have a say—or ask a question!

There is a vacancy on the committee owing to Naomi Raftery’s departure for Adelaide. If you’re interested, contact us.

Subscriptions are due now: Member subs–$10 per individual, $15 a family—are due now. [But this reminder doesn’t apply if you’ve paid your sub in the last three months…] If you don’t receive a membership forms in the mail you can download one here. 

A well-attended meeting in Newstead last Tuesday was told that Vicroads’ Pyrenees Highway tree removal and wire rope barrier project was about to proceed. The meeting was therefore a briefing, not a consultation: it was not going to change anything essential. Engineers were put through the wringer by resident questions, but there was an air of fatality about the proceedings.

Strange monument at the Ravensood interchange, Calder Freeway: is this a symbol of the relationship between human beings and the environment? Nearly 2000 trees, many of them ancient,were destroyed for this project. It will take several hundred years for the ‘offsets’ planted to replace them to come anywhere their size.

Although Vicroads has made some compromise on its original proposals of two years ago, its project  is essentially the same. Questioned about the ultimate rationale behind it, engineers cited ‘modelling’. This modelling was unexplained, but– it is claimed–it shows that reducing the speed limit on the highway would have some beneficial effect, but wire ropes and tree removal would have more. Against a background of repeated campaigns to persuade us that ‘speed kills’ and that we should ‘wipe off 5’, this claim was greeted with scepticism by your FOBIF correspondent.

Engineers were also quizzed about the actual rationale behind the project, justified by accident statistics involving one fatality not related to the road condition. They were unclear in their responses to these questions, arguing that their role is implementation, not the justification of the project.

There has been some confusion about this project over the years. For example, we were told two years ago that rumble strips had been removed from the project for cost reasons. Last Tuesday, however, we were assured that they are well and truly in it, though it’s not clear whether centre of the road plugs will be installed. And it seems possible that a speed limit reduction will be ‘considered’.

All this is against a background of far more serious Vicroads atrocities around the state, especially on the Calder at Ravenswood and the Western Highway west of Beaufort. No one disputes the need for safer roads: but it seems that in pursuit of this end environmental concerns are froth to be run over by the bulldozer. We assume that authorities would not demolish Saint Paul’s Cathedral to improve safety in the Melbourne CBD; they don’t have too much trouble obliterating thousands of trees, many of them hundreds of years old, in pursuit of the same end.

Vicroads has undertaken to run a further ‘consultation’ soon. It’s fair to say that the Vicroads personnel at these meetings are unfailingly professional and courteous. The problem seems to lie deeper: that in any consideration of land management (water, fire, roads…) the environment comes off second best. That chicken has still to come home to roost.