Category: Newsletters

Wildflower Show

The Grampians Wildflower Show in Halls Gap would be impossible to present without the support of FOGG members from outside town. We introduced a lot of changes this year, with very mixed success. The main setting, in the Botanic Garden, looked beautiful, but proved challenging to our older visitors. There was a communication failure re the PV display for the hall, but the banner from the Hamilton Field naturalists was superb. And we didn’t explain well enough our decision to name less of our flowers and encourage folk to look them up in our resources. On the other hand, many visitors welcomed the changes

We still struggle for people with enough time to manage the event, so whether the show continues is still in doubt.… Read the rest

Committee Report – Advisory Group

I was an apology due to illness but here are some items from the minutes.

Grampians Peaks Trail Master Plan

Key discussion points: Summary of consultation process and feedback. Around 90 responses. Major points of issue included: On Park Accommodation, Maintenance/management responsibility, environmental and cultural values.

Discussion: The Advisory Group believes it is critical that the issue of a fully resourced operation is investigated and recommended as a matter of priority, so the Park and PV isn’t left with a liability and therefore the reputation is damaged and the park resources drained. A world class Trail and infrastructure needs world class customer service and management/maintenance.

Question: When, who and how do the AG advocate and lobby for (PV to undertake) a business operations plan?

Action: We will write to Dr Bill Jackson and Minister Ryan Smith to emphasis the need for proper, objective and well researched operations … Read the rest

Committee Report – Round Table

Margo attended the last Round table on 15th July at Mirranatwa Hall, but Wendy was unable to. This report was supplied by the organisers. A presentation was given on the ‘South Western Bushfire Landscape’ project. Andrew Govanston, Jill Read, Evelyn Nicholson and Steve Balharrie outlined the project. The project came out of the Black Saturday Bushfire Royal Commission and their recommendation that planning to reduce impacts of major bushfires, needed to be more strategic, be landscape-focused, and provide regular opportunities for community involvement and feedback opportunities.

The four key steps of the project were outlined. Step 1; Establish the Environmental Context (Enviro Scan); Step2; Identify Assets and Risk in the landscape; Step 3; Analyse the Risk; Step 4; Monitor implementation of the project and feedback to stakeholders and communities.

Steve informed the group on the Bushfire risk modelling undertaken across the state, and tabled the Victorian Risk profiles, before … Read the rest

From the Editor

Welcome to another full newsletter, whether you are receiving it in the post or by email. You can also access it via our website, together with various photos .

Please remember that it’s time to renew your membership, via the form included.

Also please check if we have your correct email address so we can contact you with late news.

Our AGM is in September and will creep up on us quickly. All office positions will be open for election. It would be really good to involve new folk as we look to the future of our group. Do let us know if you are interested.  You don’t need to live locally as much can be done by email these days.

Margo… Read the rest

President’s Report

It has been an unusual quarter. I got the last issue out just before I left for a visit to Europe, leaving Wendy to look after the various activities we had planned and got home just in time to work with the committee on our response to the proposed Grampians Peaks Trail. (see my article on the trail, and the response we sent).

Wendy and Noushke put in an application for ‘Communities for Nature’ grant for a fence around the Caladenia audasii site. We are yet to hear the outcome.

January’s severe fire has an ongoing  impact on several of our activities, as well of course on what the Park staff have to do. They are struggling with an enormous workload and very little money to help with all the recovery work. We are so fortunate to have such a dedicated and capable group here. Our volunteer co-ordinator Katherine Dyson … Read the rest

From the Ranger in Charge Desk July 2014

There is plenty of activity occurring around the park at the moment as we move beyond the shortest day of the year and start the climb towards Spring.  The team has been extremely busy undertaking our routine and not so routine tasks, which continues to challenge our resources and our ability to adequately forward plan. In saying this, the achievements of the team is outstanding when you consider what has been thrown our way this year, on the back of many challenging years.

For the Environment & Heritage team, the key interest has been around planning for the next phase of the Grampians Ark program, our landscape scale predatory control program and ensuring we are being really clear and concise about we are hoping to achieve over the next 3 years. We are hopeful that this initiative will be fully funded by DEPI for that period, and therefore we are … Read the rest

Natural Values Update

One of the really encouraging talks at the Fire Ecology forum was Ryan describing the way partnerships with the museum and with universities are enabling a lot of valuable research into our fauna and flora. Later in the year we are hoping to hear from one of these students, Susannah Hale who is doing her  PhD at Deakin.  Susannah also delivered the Deakin small mammal trapping program a couple of years ago and is now completing a paper that will be submitted for publication summarising the data thus far.  An item for our AGM will be how we can best support this work. Last year we donated money to help with the  travelling costs of two students researching Smokey Mouse, and we will be arranging a time for them to present to us too.  At least one other Friends Group is doing this sort of thing. A FriendsNet article  reports … Read the rest

Activity Report – Zumsteins Tree Planting

IMG_0107 IMG_0104 IMG_0103MAY  27 – Zumsteins Tree Planting

On Tuesday 27th May there was a tree planting at Zumsteins.  FOGGs received a grant last year to do a planting around the kiosk area of McKenzie Falls and the money needed to be spent by 30th May. When the fire went through in February it was decided to relocate the work to the Zumsteins area. This activity was organised by Katherine Dyson who arranged for students from Stawell Secondary College to do the planting with some help from Proo and Wendy. The rain held off for us and we got a few hundred trees planted. They were a nice group of students and also had a biology lesson on how the bush recovers after fire. It is sad we are losing Katherine as she does such a great job with the students.

Wendy… Read the rest

Activity Report – Field Naturalist Survey

JUNE 7 & 8 : Field Naturalist Survey

The aim of the project was to survey  for arboreal mammals, in particular Squirrel Gliders. The group used remote cameras, hair tubes and spotlighting. A few Foggies were able to join them spotlighting near Silverband Falls, but unfortunately saw nothing interesting at all. It was only after I left that they even saw a wallaby!

Margo… Read the rest

Activity Report – Ecological Burns

JUNE 11 – Ecological Burns

On 11th June we had a presentation by Parks and DEPI staff: Jill Read ‘Fire and environment management officer’, Ryan Duffy ‘Biodiversity and Heritage officer’ from Halls Gap, Glen Rudolph ‘Planning Manager Wimmera District, Land and  Fire’, and  Andrew Govanstone ‘South West Bushfire Risk Landscape Planning’ DEPI. They explained some of the processes and considerations put into planned burns. This is a very large and complex subject and I have tried to give a brief overview of some of the things presented to us.

The Grampians is a fire prone landscape and has a high occurrence of lightning and so most of the species are well adapted to fire. 70% of the vegetation requires fire for regeneration and is fire dependant, 28% is influenced by fire but requires much longer intervals between fires, 1% is fire sensitive and is severely damaged by fire and 1% … Read the rest

Friends of Grampians Gariwerd