Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

As we reported above, participants at the January 30 consultation meeting were assured that track works and mineral earth breaks related to burning operations would be carefully managed and would not involve unnecessary gouging or road widening.

Track ‘upgrade’ in Kalimna. This particular track slopes steeply off the Tourist road, and is now a prime candidate for erosion.

Residents can judge for themselves how well this undertaking was kept. Within a week of the meeting work on several minor tracks leading steeply off the Tourist road were heavily gouged to widths of up to 7 metres, and their surfaces reduced to a powdery dust. These tracks, though by no means highways, were previously perfectly negotiable by appropriate vehicles.

This week, ‘upgrades’ have also been performed on the Lawson Parade end of the Tourist road. The top of this road, which has a parking area, has now been widened from 15 to 20 metres.

Much of this work has been conducted on tracks steeply sloping off the Tourist road, and seems like a pretty good effort at promoting erosion when the first storm comes along.

We’ve had a go at trying to get a sensible approach to tracks before, and have received numerous assurances, both from Parks Victoria and from the Council. We are NOT opposed to appropriate fire access: but the relentless widening of tracks to widths bigger than the Midland Highway not only destroys the picturesqueness of our bushland, it creates all sorts of environmental fragmentation as well.

Alison Pouliot has been sharing her fascination with fungi in workshops and forays across Central Victoria for many years. This year she has put together another wonderful program with several workshops in our Shire and others not far away. To view her 2015 program click here and to find out more about Alison’s work and interests click on her website image below.

FOBIF and several other community organisations will be attending an information meeting on February 5 on a proposal to set up a ‘dynamic vehicle testing facility and events and recreation centre’ at Gowar.

The Castlemaine Hot Rod Centre received $29,000 from the Coalition State Government last year to explore the viability of this project. The Centre has acquired farm land opposite the old Gowar school for the purpose.

Land at Gowar is slated for development as a ‘dynamic vehicle testing and events facility’.

The 45 ha block is bounded on the north by the Castlemaine-Maldon Rd and Pullans Road; on the east by Talbot Rd, and on the south and West by the Maldon State Forest. The block is about a kilometre from the Muckleford Nature Conservation Reserve. Bushfire management and Significant Landscape Overlays apply to the whole site.

Back Creek drains across the site on its way to Muckleford Creek.

The project includes:

—a 1.2 km tarmac test track
—parking for 500 vehicles with possibility of expansion
—facilities for movie nights, concerts and outdoor shows
—shower and toilet facilities and powered and unpowered camp sites
—fully equipped function room and catering facility
—display areas for up to 3,000 sites
—capacity for truck shows, rod runs, field days, etc
—‘potential to establish a network of mountain bike tracks combining parts of the site with existing tracks in the adjacent state forest’.

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The photo below is of a red bellied black snake on the Pyrenees highway at Barkers Creek in late December. Efforts to persuade the snake to move off the road in one direction or another proved futile, and the reptile was killed by passing traffic not long after this photo was taken. As we’ve reported in previous posts, reptile deaths on our roads are quite horrific, and in many cases avoidable.

Red bellied black snake at Barkers Creek. Though venomous, it’s ‘beautiful, and largely inoffensive’.

The red bellied black snake is venomous, but not as aggressive as browns and tigers can be when cornered. As the Australian Museum puts it:

‘This beautiful serpent shares our love of sunshine and water, and is a familiar sight to many outdoor adventurers in eastern Australia. Attitudes towards these largely inoffensive snakes are slowly changing, however they are still often seen as a dangerous menace and unjustly persecuted.’

It’s worth reading the Museum’s highly diverting account of this reptile’s mating rituals. The males engage in spectacular wrestling matches which can resemble mating. In their very useful guide Frogs and reptiles of the Bendigo district, Darren Green and Dale Gibbons relate the story of naturalist David Fleay, who caught and bagged two fighting snakes, ‘whereby they resumed their brawling inside the bag slung over his shoulder!’

The combats are not fatal, however: the loser wanders off to another area, presumably to try his luck elsewhere.

The photo below encapsulates the hard reality of summer, reptiles and roads:

The same snake a short while later: at least five million reptiles and frogs are killed on our roads each year.

We are very proud to announce that we have successfully gained funding through the Mount Alexander Shire 2014/15 Strengthening Our Community Grant to run a school holiday program in June 2015.

The FOBIF School Holiday Program for Winter 2015 is aimed at primary school age kids and shall be made up of three events of up to three hour duration in and around Castlemaine Botanical Gardens.

Expert presenters will educate children and their families with a live animal display, book reading and craft with the Castlemaine Library and an investigation of local mosses with a walk and talk around the Castlemaine Botanical Gardens.

This program joins four FOBIF bush walks through the year aimed at young children and youth and ensures that there are opportunities for families to become involved with FOBIF from April through to July.

Please feel free to circulate walks dates and promotional information for the School Holiday Program when it becomes available through your networks so as to support young people finding out about and learning how to protect our beautiful local bush. A summary listing of 2015 walks is now on this site.

Cassia Read with young people on this year’s Kalimna walk.

At the time of writing, it looks as if the ALP will form the next Victorian State Government. The Labor Party’s land management policy, like the enviro policies of all the parties, was pretty muted. It can be found in the last pages of the party’s 88 page platform. Below are a few sections which may be of interest in the next few years:

‘Fuel Reduction
‘Labor is aware of the need to undertake fire mitigation measures such as fuel reduction burning to reduce the risk of fires and to protect lives, property and the environment.

‘Labor will:

‘• Develop and implement fire management plans appropriate to the ecosystem being burnt, enhance regeneration and are based on current scientific research into biodiversity and sustainability requirements of indigenous flora and fauna [FOBIF comment: this sentence doesn’t hang together, but if it means anything, it means the five per cent target must go]

‘• Implement fire management practices based on mosaic burns principles, which allow for biodiversity preservation and ensure that managed burns replicate, as closely as possible, natural burns.

‘National Parks
‘Labor is committed to the creation and protection of a world-class system of National and marine parks for all Victorians to enjoy and will invest in these parks. Labor recognises that National and marine parks provide economic benefits for regional communities and are vital to the ecosystem, providing biodiversity, ecosystem services and recreational opportunities.

‘Labor will:

‘• Review the National Parks Act to ensure its primary focus on the conservation and protection of the national parks network including:

‘• Ban cattle grazing in the Alpine and Red Gum National Park

‘• Develop a strategic plan for the future of parks and reserves system to provide a blueprint for management of parks and reserves

‘• Review the status of Victorian State Parks to ascertain their suitability for inclusion as a National Park

‘• Exclude inappropriate commercial activities or inappropriate tourist developments and prevent any development inside National Parks that could compromise the integrity of the park

‘• Ensure separation of the roles of overseer of the Department and of management of parks and involve indigenous people in the management of National Parks

‘• Build a stronger park management agency and ensure direct reporting to the Minister for Environment. Ensure a specialist focus on environmental management of conservation areas and rare and endangered wildlife

‘• Investigate developing new National Parks to protect Victoria’s threatened species, unique vegetation including unique grasslands

‘• Labor will investigate the establishment of new National Parks and reserves in current productive forests where there is agreement between key stakeholders

‘Landcare
‘Labor recognises that protecting the environment would not be possible without the dedication and commitment of local community groups across
Victoria. Labor understands that community participation through Landcare is crucial to achieving sustainable resource management in communities
across Victoria.

‘Labor will:

‘• Strengthen and support Landcare and community conservation networks to ensure knowledge and information exchange occurs between Landcare groups

‘• Increase support for facilitators and improve management arrangements for Landcare groups

‘• Work with local Councils and landowners to better manage weeds and pests on public and private land.’

Doug Ralph

We are not quite sure of the exact year FOBIF walks began but it was sometime in the late 1990s. Doug Ralph, one of the founders of FOBIF, initially led all the walks but later other locals shared this task. For many years Margaret Panter helped with organising and promoting the walks’ program. Hundreds of people have come along to these walks exploring and learning to appreciate our local Box-Ironbark forests. As well many people on the walks including Frances Cincotta, Margaret Panter and Noel Young have shared their in-depth knowledge of local plants.

We have always kept the same format: 8 walks a year from March to October on the third Sunday of the month. As usual this year we had an interesting variety of destinations: Forest Creek (Marie Jones), Poverty Gully and Eureka Reef (Marian Letcher), Mount Alexander (Doug Ralph), Kalimna Park (Julian Hollis), Muckleford Gorge (Deirdre Slattery), Fryers Ranges (Richard Piesse), Muckleford Forest (Neville Cooper) and Fryers Ridge (Alex Panelli). A big thanks to all those leaders.

This year we have expanded the walks program. Naomi Raftery who joined the FOBIF Committee this year organised 2 family walks, an autumn one in Kalimna Park and a spring one in Kaweka Sanctuary. If you would like to see children exploring nature have a look at this slide show below. (Click anywhere on the image to start.)

Young FOBIF member Nioka Mellick-Copper organised two teenage walks, also in spring and autumn. The first was in Muckleford and the second on the Eureka Reef interpretive trail. These two walks were supported through a Mount Alexander Shire Youth Grant. More on these walks can be viewed here and here.

Teenagers with their parents on the Spring bush walk.

Due to March and September often being hot we have decided to have shorter walks in these months. The first 2015 walk of approximately 4 km will take place on 15 March in the Rise and Shine Bush Reserve. This walk will be led by Geoff Park. The full program for next year’s walks (adult, teenage and family) will be available early next year.