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Mountain Journal

Environment, news, culture from the Australian Alps

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Cam Walker

I work with Friends of the Earth, and live in Castlemaine in Central Victoria, Australia. Activist, mountain enthusiast, telemark skier, volunteer firefighter.

Backcountry film festival – Melbourne, April 30

The Backcountry Film Festival is produced each year by Winter Wildlands Alliance as a celebration of the human-powered winter experience and a gathering place for the backcountry snowsports community.

In 2019 it features a program of ten films, including productions from Colorado, Washington state, California and China. There will be a screening of the classic splitboarding film Ode to Muir, featuring Jeremy Jones and Elena Hight.

Tuesday April 30

Get there early for a drink: Bar from 6.30pm. Films from 7pm – 9.30pm.

Co-hosted with RMIT Outdoors Club.

Storey Hall (RMIT), 342-344 Swanston St, Melbourne.

Suggested donation: $8 conc & students/ $15 waged. Tickets at the door. There will be plenty of room. Sorry, cash only sales.

There will be a bar run by the RMIT Outdoors Club before the films start.

Facebook event page for Melbourne available here.

You can check the trailer for the 2019 season here.

Full listing of films available here.

This screening is family friendly.

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TAS fire update – and vegetation impact assessment

Bushfires have burnt more than 90,000 hectares of land in Tasmania this summer. The Gell River fire in the south west is still burning. There have been fears expressed that large areas of fire sensitive vegetation have been impacted. An initial desk top assessment carried out by researchers at the University of Tasmania suggested that the areas of these vegetation types affected was very small.

Now the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service has provided an update on what types of vegetation was involved in the fires and the likely impacts on what they define as ‘Extreme fire sensitive communities’. Their assessment is that very small areas of these communities was impacted.

Continue reading “TAS fire update – and vegetation impact assessment” →

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Please make a submission to the VIC alpine resorts strategic plan

The Victorian Alpine Resorts Coordinating Council (ARCC) is developing a new alpine resorts strategic plan entitled “Alpine Resorts Strategic Plan (2019) – responding to a changing climate”. The preparation of an Alpine Resorts Strategic Plan is a requirement under the Alpine Resorts (Management) Act 1997 and will be informed by the review of the existing Alpine Resorts Strategic Plan, completed by Council in 2017.

You can make a submission to this process. But time is short, with the submission process closing on March 19.

Continue reading “Please make a submission to the VIC alpine resorts strategic plan” →

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Mountain Journal turns nine

Crikey. Another year. Sitting on the tail end of a long, hot and dry summer, it feels like the cooler seasons will never arrive. In reflecting on 2018, two things really stand out:

  • The fact we had another fantastic winter (on par with 2017, which had been billed as ‘the best since 2000’), which was followed by
  • The heatwave and dry summer that saw huge fires across Tasmania and the Victorian alps.

You can read the annual review here.

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Your mountain needs you

The campaign against the controversial proposal to build a cable car up the east face of kunanyi/ Mt Wellington, in Hobart, continues. It’s highly likely that this week the premier of Tasmania, Peter Gutwein, will sign off on the permit to allow Mount Wellington Cableway Company (MWCC) to begin drilling at 32 sites on the mountain. This means that work on the mountain could commence this month.

Local group Respect the Mountain – no cable car has issued a call for help at this pivotal moment in the campaign.

Continue reading “Your mountain needs you” →

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‘Giving climbers a platform to speak up about climate change’

Protect Our Winters (POW) is well known for its efforts to mobilise the snowsports community to be active on climate change issues.

Now they have launched POW Climb – describing it as ‘a unique division of the POW Alliance focused on engaging the climbing community in climate action’.

‘By highlighting the climate impacts most relevant to climbers, POW Climb works to connect the climbing community with opportunities for advocacy and activism while amplifying the community’s voice to affect systemic solutions to climate change’.

You can find out more about the program here.

“It’s time to give the climbing community a platform to speak up about climate change.”
– Tommy Caldwell

[IMAGE: POW]

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“The whole thing is unravelling”

Once again, we are hearing that Australia’s forests are being ‘reshaped’ by climate change as droughts, heat waves, rising temperatures and bushfires drive ecosystems towards collapse.

Ecologists have long predicted that climate change would have major consequences for Australia’s forests. Now they believe those impacts are already unfolding. Mountain Journal has often reported on this, for instance:

  • In Tasmania, research has confirmed the trend towards more extreme fire seasons. It suggests that we reached a ‘tipping point’ sometime around the year 2000 and that, since then, there has been an increase in the number of lightning-caused fires and an increase in the average size of the fires. This is impacting on fire sensitive vegetation like the high elevation Pencil Pine (Athrotaxis cupressoides) forests and cool temperate rainforest.
  • Fires have decimated some populations of Alpine Ash and Snow Gum
  • Mountain Ash forests could collapse as a result of climate change

A new report, covered in The Guardian describes one of the processes driving the change, called the ‘interval squeeze’.

Continue reading ““The whole thing is unravelling”” →

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What part of ‘No’ don’t they understand?

The public debate about the plan to build a cable car up the east face of kunanyi/ Mt Wellington in Hobart continues to rage. The developer intends to do test drilling soon, and local residents group Respect the Mountain – No Cable Car – is planning to protest against this.

A discussion has now flared about indigenous attitudes to the proposal.

The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre has stated that a cable car will create a “deep wound across our hearts”. In what can only be seen as an insensitive move, cable car proponent Adrian Bold has said that the Mt Wellington Cable Car (MWCC) company are “investing heavily in an architectural layout to tell their story when they are ready to engage”. He’s been trying to ring and says they won’t return his calls, and describes this as a “sad situation”. The whole colonisation process in Australia has seen colonisers refuse to listen to indigenous people. You would hope that in the 21st century, corporations and governments have learnt to listen. ‘No’ clearly means ‘no’. To refuse to accept this position, on the assumption that Aboriginal groups will eventually ‘come around’ is an approach that should have been left behind centuries ago.

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Fires burning across VIC alps

Following a major lightning storm, there are a range of fires burning across the Victorian Alps. Many of these are not yet contained.

There are currently fires in the following areas:

  • Crooked River/ Dargo area
  • East Gippsland, north of Buchan
  • North of Licola
  • Mt Buller/ Howqua area
  • Camberville/ Lake Mountain area
  • South of Mt Hotham/ Dinner Plain.

Check the Emergency Vic website before traveling into the alpine areas.

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Residents step up campaign against the cable car

As previously reported, the residents group Respect the Mountain – No Cable Car has announced it will protest any attempt to drill test sites on kunanyi/ Mt Wellington as part of the plan to build a cable car up the mountain. They say “when the drilling rigs come we will be there. The Government and the investors have got this one wrong”.

They have asked people to sign up for non violent protests (you can do so here) and offered training for interested community members (the first session is happening on Sunday March 3). There has been a ‘dress rehearsal on the organ pipes’ to demonstrate the group’s intent to oppose this unpopular development proposal (see the header image).

The location of the drill sites is available here.

The Respect the Mountain – No Cable Car facebook age is available here.

 

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Central Highlands Council rejects tourism development in World Heritage Area

In a significant move, the Lake Malbena tourism development has been rejected by the Central Highlands Council.

The controversial ‘helicopter tourism’ development planned for Halls Island in Lake Malbena on Tasmania’s central plateau had previously been approved by state and federal governments. One of the first acts of the Morrison government was to greenlight a private tourism development with helicopter access in Tasmanian world heritage wilderness against the recommendation of an expert advisory body. The local Council was the last government authority which needed to sign off on the project.

The final vote happened at a packed meeting held on February 26, with three councillors voting for, and six against the proposal.

Continue reading “Central Highlands Council rejects tourism development in World Heritage Area” →

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Climate change pushes the Mountain Pygmy Possum closer to extinction

The Mountain Pygmy–possum, Burramys parvus, is Australia’s only hibernating marsupial.

It is a small, mouse-sized nocturnal marsupial found in dense alpine rock screes and boulder fields, mainly in southern Victoria and around Mount Kosciuszko. The species is currently restricted to three isolated mountain regions:  Mount Blue Cow in Kosciusko National Park in New South Wales, Mount Bogong and Mount Higginbotham/ Mt Loch in the Bogong High Plains in Victoria, and Mount Buller in Victoria.

The biggest threats to the remaining mountain pygmy possum populations include:

Now, recent research underscores the fact that climate change may be posing a major threat to the viability of the species by decimating the moths which act as a major food source for the possum.

The Guardian reports that the Bogong Moth which migrate in their billions to alpine areas have crashed, which is putting extra pressure on the endangered mountain pygmy possum.

Continue reading “Climate change pushes the Mountain Pygmy Possum closer to extinction” →

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