Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Floods are probably the last thing on anyone’s mind as we endure another heat wave–but it’s a sure thing that they’ll happen again some day. The North Central Catchment Management Authority is looking for ways to soften the blow when it does come, and has run a public meeting and a number of consultations to gauge community feeling about how the three Castlemaine creeks [Barkers, Forest and Campbells] should be managed.

Barkers Creek, January 2014: Even when it’s justified, creek clearance can cause public angst. There’s no evidence that clearance of native vegetation does anything to reduce flood levels.

Here’s a list of ideas thrown up in discussion so far:

–Clear out the creeks (particularly Barker’s creek between Walkers Street and Gaulton Street)

–Levees (particularly investigation of existing levees around the bowls club and National School Lane but also a suggestion to add a levee along the north side of Forest Creek alongside the caravan park from Barker St bridge to the railway;

–Improve local drainage (a large number of suggestions relate to this);

–Retarding basin in Happy Valley to reduce magnitude of flash flooding in urban area;

–Increase vegetation where appropriate to reduce flows entering creeks and to slow runoff divert water to natural retention basins through catchment ‘contour channels;

–Raise houses;

–Flood warning systems; and

–Planning controls to restrict development on floodplains.

All of these ideas present challenges or problems in one way or another. For example:

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The State Government’s Improving our waterways: Victorian waterway management  strategy is now out.

The important background to this document is that Catchment Management Authorities have had staff cutbacks of around 25%, and DEPI hasn’t done much better.

The Strategy is 285 pages long, and contains lots of interesting information, with action ideas to go with it. The question is whether any of the ideas will ever be properly implemented.

The relevant ministers boast in their foreword that they’ve allocated $100 million over four years to river health. This is $25 million a year—half what the Government allocates to the Grand Prix.

The poverty of resources shows in the Strategy: it seems in many cases to have simply abandoned even the pretence that the nice ideas it fields will ever be implemented.

Upper Loddon: this stretch of river is one of the few healthy ones in our region: in North Central and NW Victoria less than ten per cent of streams are in ‘good or excellent condition.’ The State Government is allocating half as much money to river health as it is to the Grand Prix.

A good example is on the matter of recreational activities. When the Draft Strategy was released for consultation in 2012 FOBIF made a submission which read in part as follows:

“On page 77 Policy 7.7 reads: ‘Where recreational activities occur that may impact on water condition, the relevant waterway manager or land manager will identify and manage these risks, where possible.’

“It’s hard to believe such a gormless policy can be seriously proposed in this important document. This amounts to saying, ‘If someone is damaging our waterways, we’ll try to do something if we can. If we can’t, we’ll just identify the problem and watch it get worse.’

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The opening event for Connecting Country’s 2014 education program will be a talk by Ian Lunt, Associate Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at Charles Sturt University, Albury. His topic is “Natural regeneration in central Victoria: the biggest positive change for conservation in south-east Australia”

The talk will take place at 4 pm on Sunday 2nd March at the Newstead Community Centre. Following the talk there will be a BBQ dinner to celebrate the start of Connecting Country’s Improve Biodiversity on Your Property Education Program 2014.

For more information have a look at the Connecting Country website.

Forget about that dream cruise on the Rhine, past turreted castles built by German madmen. What about a trip from Lake Weroona in Bendigo down to the sea at Portland, on a first class steamer along a noble canal?

Such an idea was seriously proposed by the Grand Victorian North-Western Canal Company in the second half of the nineteenth century. The scheme had enthusiastic support from some quarters, but didn’t survive an examination of the realities of water supply. It’s only one of many mentioned in Robyn Ballinger’s An inch of water, a water history of Northern Victoria [ASP 2012].

Wacko schemes are one thing: but apparently more reasonable schemes to tame the country, and make it do things it can’t do, are even more threatening. Ballinger offers serious evidence of the human suffering and ecological damage wrought by efforts to green the semi-arid country. With efforts to rectify the longstanding problems of the Murray Darling Basin still ongoing, her book is a sober warning of what can happen when you push the land beyond its capacity: ‘The results have been an increased ecological and economic vulnerability.’

Her conclusion: ‘Historic reactions to climatic fluctuations have been informed, understandably, by the urgency of the here and now. But by attempting  to make the environment more certain in times of political, economic and climatic uncertainty, various schemes linked to science, technology and global markets have actually increased unpredictability…Successive governments have raised cultural expectations and neglected local memory and experience…There is a need to create a vision for Australian landscapes that builds both human and ecological resilience to a changing climate.’

An inch of rain can be found at Stoneman’s bookroom Castlemaine and other good booksellers.

The Wellsford Forest is about 15 kilometres NE of Bendigo. The Bendigo and District Environment Council is holding a forum on the future of this forest on February 6. Speakers include Rod Orr (Bendigo Field Naturalists) on the Values of the Wellsford; Stuart Fraser (BDEC) on the Economics of the forest management; and Nick Roberts (VNPA)  on  How to preserve a forest.

The forum will be held at Golden City Support Services Building, 48 Mundy St, Bendigo (Opposite Y.M.C.A. Hall ), from 4pm to 6pm, February 6th, 2014 ( Tea & Coffee provided).

RSVP BY email PLEASE…. sbperrin@bendigo.net.au

The poet Les Murray has made the interesting observation that ‘the kangaroo has never heard of Australia.’ The point being that animals don’t see things the way we do.

Pyrenees Highway Chewton, January 9 2014: this echidna amazingly made it across the road in heavy traffic.

Nowhere is this more evident on a daily basis than on our highways. According to the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration figures, in 2007 at least one animal was hit by a vehicle travelling at speed every second—that’s about 86,000 a day!

The consequences for the animals in question are of course catastrophic: and when the animal in question is big, the dangers to drivers are clear.

A hundred metres away, January 8: this kangaroo didn’t make it. Authorities estimate a 20kph slowdown could reduce collisions by half.

Traffic Safety estimates that you can reduce your chances of hitting an animal by up to 50% by reducing your speed in a known hit area from 100kph to 80kph.

Another consideration is the fate of smaller animals and reptiles, collisions with which may even pass unnoticed by the driver: reptile deaths on our roads are frightening. The Queensland Government Department of Main Roads quotes 1985 research to the effect

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The Tarrangower Cactus Control Group (TCCG)  now has 3 new videos on their website: Cactus Warriors: Who We Are; Cactus: Tackling the Problem and Cactus Warriors: the Wheel Cactus. The videos feature Ian Grenda, President of the TCCG, and  run for between 6 and 10 minutes.

TCCG was set up 7 years ago when 3 local Landcare Groups and Parks Victoria joined together to tackle the spread of Wheel Cactus across an estimated 10,000 hectares of land in the Maldon, Baringhup, Nuggetty and Sandy Creek districts, including the Maldon Historic Reserve. In the first video Ian explains that through their ongoing work the group has probably controlled half of the local infestation of this weed.

The website also has updates about regular field days and  TCCG events and serves as a repository of information about Wheel Cactus, methods of controlling it and the history of the group.

Cactus Warriors on a TCCG Field Day.

Summer: it’s a time when the bush can look stressed and under siege—but also when it can offer some pretty good sights, especially in the late afternoon or early in the morning. Clouds of butterflies around flowering  bursaria come to mind–or the flowering tea tree planted by Castlemaine Landcare along Forest Creek.

River tea tree (Leptospermum obovatum), Forest Creek, January 2014: ten years of work by Castlemaine Landcare have transformed the creek between the town and Wesley Hill.

But summer is a time when many species go onto the defence against heat and dry. In some cases, this can be quite picturesque: for example, a splash of startling bronze at the base of a tree which turns out to be a drying patch of Bronze Signal Moss [Sematophyllum homomallum]:

Sematophyllum homomallum, Kalimna Park, late December: as it dries, it often becomes a richer bronze colour–which might explain its common name, Bronze Signal moss.