Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

In a recent post we reported on the Victorian Government decision to create three new national parks in central-west Victoria. Alison Pouliot comments below on proposed long delays in stopping logging in these parks. She has also produced a terrific video, ‘Listen to the Forest’, on the ecological importance of the forests (see link below).

The fight for the proposed Victorian National Parks must continue . . . .

Following years of campaigning by conservation groups, the Victorian State Government recently announced plans to enact three new National Parks in central-west Victoria (Wombat Forest, Mt Cole and Pyrenees Ranges). While this is very welcome news, extensive logging by VicForests will be allowed to continue in the latter two until 2030. Commercial quantities of firewood will be extracted in the Wombat forest for the next four years. 

The environmental values of these forests are likely to be severely compromised by the time the National Parks are legislated. These forests contain the headwaters of major river systems, threatened species habitats and are an oasis of biodiversity in an otherwise highly fragmented landscape. It is vital that the proposed new National Parks are urgently declared and legislated.  We cannot wait until 2030. 

To contribute your voice, write to the Minister for the Environment, The Hon Lily D’Ambrosio  lily.dambrosio@parliament.vic.gov.au c.c. mary-anne.thomas@parliament.vic.gov.au 

and tell them why the forest is important to you and why the parks need to be urgently legislated.

You might also like to view this short video about these forests and the proposed parks by Alison Pouliot – Listen to the Forest or read the Victorian Government’s response to VEAC’s Central West Investigation.

Kangaroo Creek catchment KAN9064 © Alison Pouliot

Last week’s floods in Europe were horrific, and we must be moved by the sight of helpless people sorting through their destroyed homes.

Victims must be helped, and lives rebuilt…and, of course, lessons should be learned. Already there’s a sense of urgency in Europe about climate change: for decades scientists have been warning of increased frequency and severity of disaster events like this. This matter has been settled in Europe, in theory at least: unlike in Australia, European leaders seem to know how to add two and two to get four.

A matter getting less publicity is urban planning. Have a look at this map of the Arh river, a tributary of the Rhine:

The Ahr river: Lit mineur is the river’s normal course. Lit majeur is the flood plain. (From France 2 Television July 17).

The area in grey is the river’s flood plain, on which numerous houses have been built.

Now have a look at this one, of the flood zone:After recent heavy rain the river naturally spilled onto its flood plain, inundating houses built there. (From France 2 television).

Of course, in time of torrential rain, rivers flood onto their flood plains. And, according to New Scientist magazine,

‘On many major European rivers – including the Danube and Rhine – more than 80 per cent of the low-lying land, where rivers naturally spread during high flows, has been barricaded by flood defences, drained and built on… In Hungary, for example, almost a fifth of the population lives on floodplains…

‘Besides being bad for natural ecosystems such as wetlands, corralling rivers within their banks increases the risk of flooding… This is because the barriers raise river levels higher during floods. Somewhere, they will inevitably burst their banks, flooding homes and streets.’

A European Environment Agency 2016 report predicted a five fold increase in flood events by 2050. It estimated that four fifths of the resultant damage would come from building over flood plains.

While Europeans count the cost of last week’s catastrophe, it might be worth while considering our own situation. Although we at FOBIF are a bit worried about our tendency to repeat ourselves, here we go again: this is from our report on last year’s Royal Commission into natural disasters:

‘The 2004 National Inquiry on Bushfire Mitigation and Management, said that, to reduce natural hazard risk from bushfires: Planning processes [should] ensure that built assets are not placed in areas of high fire risk and that structures meet standards of construction that reduce their vulnerability.’

[2020] ‘Currently, all states permit homes to be built in bushfire and flood prone areas, and the degree to which planning or building standards act to mitigate risk varies across jurisdictions’…

‘…there is still clear evidence of recent planning decisions placing communities at a known and obvious risk of disaster. For example, development in the suburb of Idalia in Townsville is only partially completed, yet it was significantly inundated by flood in February 2019.’

Oh well. As the Commission sadly noted, Australia has now had 240 reports into natural disasters. And maybe we’ll have a few more before too long…

We regret that the COVID lockdown has meant we have had to cancel Sunday’s FOBIF walk. The Beyond the Res (II) walk will now take place on August 15 and the Mount Alexander walk planned for that day will be postponed to 2022.  Contact Lionel Jenkins or Barb Guerin 5472 1994 or 0402 427 162 for more information. Please check this website prior to the walk in case of further changes.