The childrens walk planned for Sunday August 30 in the Castlemaine Botanical Gardens has had to be cancelled due to ill health. Our apologies for the short notice: we’ll let readers know when alternative arrangements are made.
Julie Whitfield gave a rousing talk on local butterflies to Newstead Landcare last Thursday. Those who missed it are recommended as a consolation to log on to a terrific Radio National Off Track program, A world without butterflies in which [among many other things] Whitfield takes a well aimed pot shot at the popular book A very hungry caterpillar. Why shouldn’t a good childrens book also be biologically accurate?
![Grey mistletoe [amyema quandang, Barkers Creek, August 2015]: Mistletoes are favoured sources of food for many butterflies, and this particular species has been investigated for the medicinal properties of its leaves.](https://www.fobif.org.au/admin/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/grey-mistletoe-A-quandang-White-Gum-Rd-20-8-15-7-800x5341.jpg)
Grey mistletoe [Amyema quandang, Barkers Creek, August 2015]: Mistletoes are favoured sources of food for many butterflies, and this particular species has been investigated for the medicinal properties of its leaves.
FOBIF has been getting numerous reports of roadside vandalism by both private and public operators. Walkers on FOBIF’s Tarilta excursion noticed more DELWP scouring on the Porcupine Ridge road last week, and this week we found numerous scalped verges on extremely minor tracks in the Fryers Flora reserve, including stretches where patches of Grevillea obtecta [Fryerstown grevillea] have been dozed under]. This plant is listed as ‘rare’ and ‘near threatened’ in Victoria in the Atlas of living Australia.
Survivor: a small bit of Fryerstown Grevillea pokes out of scoured ground in the Fryers Flora reserve. Swathes of the rare plant have been gouged out along this and nearby tracks.
With the best will in the world, we can’t see how this kind of work is necessary. A lot of it has nothing to do with ‘sight lines’ or anything else to do with safety: it’s clear in multiple cases that a tree needed to be removed, but instead of getting a chainsaw and cutting it off at the base, the operator has just dozed it into the bush, taking numerous other things with it. This is a crude time and energy saving measure, which, in turn, is a money saving measure.
And there’s the rub: the excuse we’re constantly getting is, ‘we can’t do any better with the money we have.’
We suspect that another reason is that the operators are neither properly briefed nor properly supervised. And we’re getting increasingly cynical about bland fob offs, along the lines, ‘Maybe it could have been better done, and next time…’ On track management, ‘next time’ is rarely better.
On the matter of money, we’ve put that question to the Minister, and we’ll report her answer when we get it.
‘As we develop a better understanding of bushfire risk in different localities, we will supplement our investment in planned burning with other works
such as slashing and burning and mowing while aiming for the least impact on people and our ecosystems.’ [Our emphasis]
That’s from one of DELWP’s more recent publications, Bushfire management engagement strategy 2014-8. ‘Aiming for the least impact on…our ecosystems.’ Fire management practices seem to have improved in recent years, but we’re not sure if the ‘least impact’ idea has been communicated to road crews.
Fire officers met the public in a lengthy consultation session on the draft Fire Operations Plan [FOP] through the afternoon and evening of last Tuesday [August 11] in Bendigo.
An excellent link to the relevant documents with comments on the FOP in the Muckleford-Maldon area can be found in the Muckleford Forest Blog. In addition to burns discussed there, FOBIF is most interested in proposed burns in the Taradale, Tarilta and Fryerstown areas.
We’ve reprinted this map before, but think it’s worth another look: the ‘priority fuel management areas are in mid grey, and they’re on private land. It’s not clear how they relate to ‘asset protection’ zones near settlements. Source: Strategic bushfire management plan, West Central bushfire risk landscape.
Aninteresting feature of the consultation was the display of Risk Landscape material. Readers will remember that this is the system most likely to replace the current crude five per cent burning target.
It was clear from discussions with officers that as far as on ground work is concerned, it’s early days with this system. For example: as is clear from the map above, most of the ‘priority fuel load’ areas in our region are on private land: yet we were told on Tuesday that negotiations via the CFA and municipal councils to undertake systematic fuel reductions in these areas are not far advanced: and that nothing had yet taken place on the ground in the Mount Alexander shire.
A solid group of FOBIF walkers led by Richard Piesse dropped in to the Tarilta Valley from Porcupine Ridge on Sunday in brisk but fine winter weather. There was good bird watching and plenty of fungi on show, and the valley is showing fair but patchy recovery from DSE’s disastrous 2012 fire exercise.
Taking a break by the Tarilta Creek.
The group left the valley via the impressive rock cleft and waterfall ridge [which, unfortunately, rarely sees much water – see first photo below], and wound its way through an isolated subsidiary valley to the Great Dividing Trail.
Click on photos below to enlarge. Photographers are Bernard Slattery and Noel Young.
Noel Young sent us the following observations:
The bird life was fairly active in the area, and I was able to identify the following either by site or call:
Thornbill flocks, White throated Treecreeper, Golden Whistler, White eared Honeyeater, Grey Shrike-thrush, Spotted Pardalote, Long billed Corella, Sulphur crested Cockatoo, Crimson Rosella and Horsfield’s Bronze Cuckoo.Two Black Wallabies crossed the Porcupine ridge road on the way in.
I didn’t attempt a plant list, but there were several species of wattle flowering, including an unusually common occurrence of A gunni. (Ploughshare), a number of flowering Sundews, and an occasional Hovea and white or pink heath flowers. No flowering orchids were found as far as I know.
Following its objections to roadworks scalping valuable vegetation from the Fryers Ridge, FOBIF has written to the Environment Minister asking for clarification of policy on vegetation management of roadsides.
The letter reads, in part:
“Forest managers have told us that, though this method of vegetation management is not ‘ideal’, budgetary restraints prevent them from using more labour intensive methods—like selective removal of obstructive vegetation, or moderate grooming. Further, there seems to be a common assumption in the Department that ‘priority to safety’ means absolute disregard for environmental values, when it should mean: careful management of vegetation to maintain sight lines and encourage sensible driver behaviour.
Fryers Ridge, July 2015: the road is the strip in the background. Managers plead that budget restrictions mean that ‘scalping’–scouring the earth–is the only option they have in managing roadside vegetation.
“Our group is fully aware of the necessity to maintain proper fire access roads, and to manage adjacent vegetation to minimise the likelihood of accidents. We believe, however, that this should be done with minimum of disturbance to environmental values. We assume that Victoria adheres to the common principle ‘avoid, minimise, mitigate and lastly offset’ in its road management policy?
“Given that managers often justify crude practices by appealing to budget limitations, we have four questions:
As this post is being written, controversy sputters over the destruction of 900 ancient river red gums as part of improvements to the Western Highway: seemingly another exercise by government in which ‘safety’–or in this case, speed–sweeps aside any other considerations.
A study presented at Melbourne University Burnley on August 5 offered strength to an argument that’s been going around for a long time: that high frequency severe fire damages soil. The argument has often relied on common sense and anecdotal evidence, but until now there’s been little rigorous analysis of the facts. This study remedies the deficiency:
‘[The] study investigated the effects of 27 years of repeated low-intensity prescribed burning in dry sclerophyll eucalypt forests in south-eastern Australia, focusing particularly on litter and soil Carbon and nitrogen (N). Four prescribed fire treatments designed as factorial combination of two fire seasons (autumn and spring) and two fire frequencies (high frequency – burning in 3-yr cycle and low frequency – burning in 10-yr cycle) and un-burnt Control were studied…
Severe management burn: a Melbourne University study has shown that such an exercise, repeated at 3 year intervals, does ‘reduce key indicators of soil productivity’.
‘This study provides empirical evidence that high frequency prescribed fire does indeed reduce key indicators of soil productivity, and therefore that longer burning interval (c. 10 years) may be required to maintain a long-term ecological balance in dry sclerophyll eucalypt forests or similar forest ecosystems.’
Studies like this are a sobering reminder that long term damage to the forest is built into a major part of the current fire defence system: namely, the Asset Protection Zone, which under current policy is set to be burned every three years. For a long time managers have conceded that these areas of land are ecological sacrifice zones.
In theory the detail of the research can be found through a webinar at : https://unimelb.zoom.us/j/611678161 but we found the link difficult to access.
Julie Whitfield of Bendigo is an environmental consultant with a passion for butterflies, and she will be guest speaker at Newstead Landcare’s next meeting, Thursday 20th August.
As a recipient of a prestigious Winston Churchill Fellowship Julie recently had the pleasure of exploring conservation projects for butterflies in the USA and the UK with the dream of bringing these models back to Victoria to apply with our local groups.
Julie will provide a presentation on these experiences and on the butterfly species likely to occur in the Newstead area, and their role in local ecosystems.
Mount Alexander Shire has a few populations of the extremely rare Eltham Copper Butterfly which has an extraordinary relationship with a particular ant species and Sweet Bursaria shrubs. Julie will introduce you to this marvel as well as to some of our more common local butterflies.
All are welcome to attend the talk on Thursday 20th August at 8 pm at Newstead Community Centre (gold coin donations appreciated). No need to book in – just come along, discover and be inspired!
Julie Whitfield in action
A bitterly cold morning didn’t deter FOBIF walkers from tackling some obscure corners of the Columbine and Salters Creeks valleys on Sunday. The corners turned out to be even more obscure than intended when a navigation error by walk leader Bernard Slattery landed the group in an unexpected approach to Salters Creek. Well, as the great Paddy Pallin might have said, in this country you’re ‘never quite lost’, and we all emerged triumphant and on time.
The walk included a look at one of Doug Ralph’s favourite haunts: Charlie Sanger’s hut, near Columbine Creek. As usual, we provided perfect winter weather for the occasion.
Lunch at Salters Creek
Walkers at Sanger’s hut site. Photo by Noel Young
Bernard addressing the group at Sanger’s hut site.
White Everlasting Daisy (Chrysocephalum baxteri)
Slime Mould
Dunns Reef
Tall Greenhoods
Gnat Orchid
Blue Caladenia
Downy Grevillea (Grevillea alpina)
Coliban river upstream of the Gibbons bridge
Coliban river upstream of the Gibbons bridge.
Coliban river upstream of the Gibbons bridge.
Sailors Gully ruin
Loddon River near Vaughan
Cortinarius archeri
Mycena subgalericulata
Cortinarius rotundisporus
Cortinarius cystidiocatenatus,
Ramaria sp.
Pink Heath
Mount Alexander
Mount Alexander
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