(which is now also:From the President)
Welcome to the Summer edition of the newsletter. I am not yet including a report on the damage to our Park as the picture is not clear yet. So much infrastructure gone, so much loss of habitat. I finalised the newsletter to members on the third day of the heatwave, with worrying news coming in as I was photocopying it of fires in different areas of the park. I was in a hurry to give enough notice of an Australia day weekend activity. Which of course had to be cancelled because of our horrid fire.
As you will see from our activity reports we ended 2013 at a gallop, with so many plant surveys, but also issues we had to respond to.
I came across an article reprinted in FriendsNet from VNPA. (see later) I think it is very important as we consider which issues to worry about. Unless we have public sentiment in favour of parks, we will not see public money being spent on their maintenance or on protecting biodiversity. I am concerned that it seems that the public mood is swinging against anything considered “green”. And that this is a far greater concern than skirmishes over particular issues. I would be interested in your comments.
It is good to be able to report on one small win from the lobbying work that we and other groups have done. Areas burned by wild fires and escapes in areas pre-planned for fuel treatments will now be counted in calculating how much to burn. Environment Minister Ryan Smith approved the policy change despite government officials previously repeatedly saying bushfires were not part of the official count. Let’s hope that this year we don’t lose too much Between the fires of 2006 and 2013 so much of our Park has been burnt.
In other good news we hope we have quolls in the Park. One was captured on film at the Rock Wallaby site. There is some discussion of this in my report on the AG meeting in October. Many congratulations and thanks to the skills of Daryl Panther who sets up the cameras, and to the thoroughness of Ryan Duffy, Ben Holmes and all the local team in recognising they had something very unusual on their screens.
Margo