Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Malmsbury Landcare has organised a field day on Sunday 6 November led by Paul Foreman to look at the now severely depleted native grasslands in their district. These grasslands are currently listed as nationally endangered and even the best local sites are threatened by invasive weeds. Paul is an ecologist with a particular interest in native grasslands and works out of Castlemaine under the name Blue Devil Consulting. See this PDF file  for more detail on the day. You can also ring John Walter on 5423 9383.

The event is, in part, related to Malmsbury Landcare’s project restoring native grassland species to a rehabilitated site just next to the bridge over the Coliban in the centre of town. The group will meet at 10 am at this site and then convoy to grassland sites just to the north of Malmsbury. Everyone is welcome.

Judith Tregear has sent us the follow report and photos of the recent 50 years celebration of the Kaweka Wildflower Sanctuary.

There was a lovely celebration on Sunday October 2 at Kaweka Wildflower Sanctuary.

We were delighted to mark 50 years of the committee, which was elected at a public meeting in 1966, after Kaweka was given to the people of Castlemaine. This wonderful gift was from Don McRae, in honour of his mother, who loved and saw the importance of preserving Australian native plants. There had been three or four owners of the land, post-white settlement, starting with Ernest Leviny, who took up a large parcel of land on a miner’s right, but ended up building his house at Buda.

About 50 people of all ages came along and enjoyed three lovely songs from the Chat-Warblers about local wildflowers, and the Eltham Copper Butterfly, beautiful music from Jack Norton on the bouzouki and a short speech from Judith Tregear, president of the committee. Thanks to the brilliance of Jenny McIntyre, we had a beautiful cake, decorated with local wildflowers. We sang Happy Birthday to Rosemary Rasmussen, who told us about playing in Kaweka as a child, before it was a wildflower reserve, when it was simply a beautiful piece of bush. There was a display of local weeds, and an opportunity for a walk, after the afternoon tea. Some local children helped plant some trees and are looking forward to watching them grow. Kaweka is a special place, with its tranquil atmosphere, for people who love wildflowers and birds, and it is particularly lovely at the moment, after all this rain.

Kaweka cake

George Broadway and Rita Mills

Choir, Jack Norton on the left

Choir with the group

Click on photo to enlarge.

Map from the survey. Click to enlarge.

Parks Victoria is currently reviewing the Heritage Action Plan for the Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park:

We want to know about the places you value within the Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park, find out about issues of concern and get your ideas about other themes, stories or aspects of the park that could be shared with visitors.

As part of the review Parks are asking people to fill out an online survey which will remain open until Wednesday 30 November.

The survey gives people the opportunity to specify why they value the park, their favourite areas and suggested funding priorities. The FOBIF Committee will be sending its own response and we encourage everyone interested in the future of the Diggings Park to fill out the survey as well. Click here for more information and the link to the survey.

If you missed the launch of the FOBIF publication, Eucalypts of the Mount Alexander Region, you can now see the morning’s proceedings thanks to Chris Timewell from Connecting Country who filmed the event and put together this terrific video.

The guide is now available for $10 at Stonemans Bookroom, the Information Centre in the Market Building, the Enviroshop (Newstead) and the Guildford Store. It can also be purchased through Paypal ($13 including postage).

FOBIF has made a submission to the Strengthening Parks Victoria consultation. The essence of the submission is set out below:

*****

We welcome the opportunity to participate in this process, and offer our views under the headings supplied in the workbook.

Topic #1 – Connecting people and parks

Question prompt: How do you and your communities enjoy parks? What barriers prevent you from enjoying parks more? How can we create parks that are welcoming and inclusive for all Victorians and our visitors?

Our members enjoy parks for their natural and cultural values. Barriers to this enjoyment include destructive trail bikes, rogue prospecting, rubbish dumping and rampant environmental weeds. All of these are a problem partly as a result of the serious understaffing of Parks Victoria resulting in lack of supervision, inadequate monitoring and non existent or weak feral plant and animal controls.

Other barriers include over management of tracks by operatives with little or no appreciation of roadside vegetation, and some fuel management programs conducted without proper reference to ecological values.

How to overcome these barriers? Adequate resourcing would be a necessary start.

Continue reading →

The Eucalypts of the Mount Alexander Region book is now launched and more than 200 copies were sold on the day. Bernard Slattery, Ern Perkins and Bronwyn Silver signed many copies and buyers also received 2 bookmarks with photos from the book as well as a FOBIF fungi poster.

Geoff Park (Photo by John Ellis)

We heard Geoff Park talk about how wonderful it is that we are able to put the collective local knowledge and expertise of our natural environment into a guide such as this and he congratulated the authors. Many people contributed to the book’s publication and are delighted with the finished product.

 

Noel Muller (Photo by John Ellis)

 

 

Local Parks Victoria Ranger, Noel Muller, outlined how the local community could respond to the current Parks Victoria survey – what do you love and value about our parks, and what could be improved? An opportune time to let the managers and government know the value we place on the natural environment with eucalypts being integral to its health.

Ern Perkins (Photo by John Ellis)

 

 

Bernard then spoke about Ern’s latest guide to native plants of our area – and Ern explained how to use the program.

 

 

 

People stayed to catch up, ask questions, find out about the latest happenings and to enjoy morning tea.

John McMahon sent us the following comment:

I ducked into the library yesterday to get a copy and was amazed at the huge turnout. After reading the book I am no longer amazed, it is of excellent quality and I can see that a lot of care and love has gone into it. Your work is exceptional and you should be proud of it, the photos, the descriptions, the local information is accurate and well put together – well done. It’s probably too cheap though!

The guide is now available for $10 at Stonemans, the Market Building, the Enviroshop (Newstead) and the Guildford Store. It can also be purchased through Paypal ($13 including postage).