Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

And amidst the gloom, let’s not forget that things are happening out there:

Acacia genistifolia, Kalimna Park, April 12: this wattle flowers for most of the year. Do we take it for granted?

With great regret we have suspended the 2020 FOBIF Walks Program due to the COVID-19 health crisis and the current regulations and restrictions.  The April geology tour is therefore cancelled, and subsequent walks are also called off. When the program resumes we’ll post details on this site.

The April FOBIF committee meeting will not take place and future meetings will be managed by electronic link-up.

Please continue to follow our web page as it’s a great way to keep in touch; and we hope that you all enjoy our wonderful bush over the coming months.

Finding your activities a bit restricted by new regulations connected to the pandemic? Well, there’s always reading, and as it happens the March issue of the Wombat Forestcare newsletter is out. As usual it’s full of good stuff. You can find it here.

Article topics include the Powerful Owl, the rare Bossiaea vombata, tree creepers and Greater Gliders. In these tough times it’s good to  get a bit of inspiration. Here’s Alison Pouliot at the conclusion of her article about fungi in Australia and North America:

‘I am constantly inspired by the Australians I work with from farmers to foresters to conservationists. I admire their flexibility and openness to innovation and new ideas, as well as their willingness to embrace change – that is, their response-ability. The conservation movement urges us to take greater responsibility for our actions. ‘Responsibility’ is sometimes misinterpreted in the context of blame and culpability, or power and control. However, a more positive take on the word revives our response-ability, that is, our ability to respond. We live in the most highly variable and unpredictable climate in the world. We live in an ancient landscape that has shifted and shaped through time and is unforgiving. It is the challenge of uncertainty that drives creative thinking, fuels response-ability and action. Australians’ resilience and response-ability could be our greatest contribution to climate change action within Australia and beyond.’

The pic below shows a stretch of the Railway Dam road north of the Fryers Ridge Road. Significant numbers of sizeable trees have been cut down: ‘hazardous tree removal’ in preparation for DELWP’s upcoming management burn.

This exercise is a reminder of the Department’s tree massacre on Mount Alexander last year, in which we were informed (after numerous enquiries) that all trees had been checked by an arborist before removal. And, further back, we had some bizarre lopping and felling of small trees along Forest Creek , supposedly for safety reasons.

With the best will in the world, we’re getting sceptical of the kind of expertise that waves a wand over these activities…