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A visit to the ghost forests of the High Country

Friends of the Earth has been focusing on threats to the higher elevation forests of north east Victoria for the last three years. With the welcome announcement that native forest logging will end in the east of the state on January 1, 2024, our focus will now be largely on ensuring all ecosystems in the region are protected from the impacts of climate change.

In the case of snow gum woodlands, this means gaining a better understanding of the state of these systems, and how they are being impacted by more frequent fire and dieback caused by the Longicorn beetle. As part of this process FoE has been leading a series of guided walks and citizen science fieldtrips to a range of areas in the Victorian high country.

The next trip will be in early March 2024, to see the recovering snow gum woodlands on the north western edge of the Bogong High Plains. These forests have been negatively impacted by repeat wildfires, leading to widespread distribution of ‘ghost forests’: areas of burnt and dead woodlands with dense thick and highly flammable regrowth, and localised ecological collapse.

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Bright housing estate update

As reported previously on Mountain Journal, many regional areas are in danger of being ‘developed to death’ as people move from major cities, seeking a Tree or Sea Change. This is playing out in many areas, including Bright in north eastern Victoria, where there is a subdivision and development plan that is currently being considered by the Alpine Council. This has been opposed by many residents in Bright.

In an update to this campaign, the Alpine Shire Council is now recommending that a sub-division permit which will see the destruction of two of Bright’s heritage trees be approved at next week’s Council meeting.

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Summer podcasts for your next roadtrip

If you’ve got a bit of spare time, or need to do a long drive, and are looking for some outdoors content to listen to, here are a few ideas.

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Backcountry film festival – Melbourne, 2024

Date claimer / Call out for local films

Each year the Backcountry film festival (BCFF) celebrates the connection between humans and wild winters. It is a ‘collage of human-powered stories and backcountry-inspired experiences. Backcountry Film Festival ignites wild conversations and inspires action to communities that celebrate the present while looking towards the future’.

For more than 10 years, Friends of the Earth has held the BCFF in Melbourne before winter. The 19th Annual Backcountry Film Festival is screening documentaries and ski movies about athletic pursuit in the mountains, artistic vision, friendship, and how the snowsports community is adapting to a changing environment.

In 2024 we will again co-host the Melbourne screening with the RMIT Outdoors Club. We are looking at dates in late April or early May.

We are looking for some short Australian made backcountry films to be included as part of the evening. Yes, 2023 was grim. But if you have a film you would like to see screened at the festival before an enthusiastic audience, please get in touch: cam.walker@foe.org.au

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Call out for MJ magazine #4

Mountain Journal magazine comes out once a year and is a free journal that is distributed throughout mountain and valley towns from Melbourne to Canberra. Now in it’s fourth year, this is a call out for contributions for the 2024 edition.

You could either contribute to the cover theme (mountain icons), one of the regular sections (see below), images for a photo essay, or an image for use on the cover.

Contributions would be needed by January 20, 2024.

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TAS gov pushes ahead with Tyndall Range proposal

[ABOVE: do you want a privately run hut here?]

Around the country, protected areas are being threatened by the prospect of commercial development within parks. One of the long running issues has been a proposal to build an ‘iconic’ walk in the Tyndall Range in western lutruwita/ Tasmania.

The Tyndalls are a spectacular range which is tucked out of the way and currently in a wild condition, with no roads or other infrastructure on the range itself. However in 2019, the Tasmanian Liberals announced a plan to commit “up to $20 million … to deliver our next iconic multi-day, hut-based walk which will enhance the visitor economy throughout the entire region”. According to the proponent, the proposal includes the option of “a private walking company .. investing in the development of private lodges similar to that of Three Capes Track”. A subsequent Feasibility Study concluded that the proposed walk was only feasible if the then-budget of $20 million was doubled, which the government duly did.

Recently it has been made clear that the government intends to proceed with this controversial project.

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Are we ready for the next Black Summer?

Firefighters say dry lightning has caused more than a dozen fires across Queensland this week, sparking concerns for authorities battling El Niño conditions.

As reported by the ABC, senior meteorologist Steve Hadley from the Bureau of Meteorology said dry lightning occurred when there was no significant rainfall, particularly during “overarching dry conditions”.

“Sometimes with not enough significant rainfall, of a few millimetres or more, that can mean lightning is essentially happening over drier areas and drier terrain with no rain to follow it up,” he said.

“Then you can get some fires starting from that depending on how the landscape is at that time.”

The threat from dry lightning caused fires continues to increase in mountain environments. To take one example, multiple lightning strikes across the Victorian high country on December 31, 2019 resulted in fires developing, including the 44,000 ha Cobungra fire which threatened Omeo, Anglers Rest, and Cobungra.

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Are you suffering from Shifting Baseline Syndrome?

How often do you see an image or vista like this when you’re in the mountains? Whether you drive up from the valley towns through mile after mile of grey alpine ash trunks, or wander, ski or ride through the snow gum ghost forests of the high plains, you are witnessing a world that didn’t exist a generation ago.

Whereas we would have infrequent hot fire in the high country in the past, now we have fire on endless repeat. The forests get younger as we get older, yet this new reality of dead trees and thick regrowth becomes understood as being ‘normal’. Many people don’t recognise that what they see as they look out from a ski resort over burnt out hills is actually ecological collapse in real time.

Are we all just witnessing a deteriorating landscape and thinking it is ‘normal’ because we don’t have a memory of what was here before?

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When will the snow industry get its act together?

All snow lovers know how bad last winter was. As Mountain Watch noted in it’s end of season wrap, it was one ‘that went out with a whimper, ending two weeks early for most resorts thanks to a low snow year, above average temps and hot northwest winds and the fastest meltdown in memory’.

‘How to summarise the 2023 season? Given the slow start, early finish, three-week ice age during July, spring temps and hardly any snow in August and summer temps in September it’s fair to say, as far as the snow totals and snow quality goes, the 2023 season was pretty bad’.

Of course we will continue to have good and bad winters (and fingers crossed for 2024!).  But we also know that climate change is reducing the overall amount of snow we receive in Australia. The snow pack has been in decline since at least 1957. How grim it gets will depend on how the world responds to the threat of climate change now.

Continue reading “When will the snow industry get its act together?” →

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Mountain Ash at risk of collapse. Same as Alpine Ash.

For the past decade, Mountain Journal has posted regular stories about the fact that Alpine Ash communities are facing the prospect of ecological collapse – that is, the loss of these forests and their conversion to something else – most likely a grassy and scrubby system perpetually stuck in a loop of fire followed by rapid development of flammable regrowth, followed by fire.

The Alpine Ash is closely related to the better known Mountain Ash which. New research says that the threats faced by Mountain Ash are significant enough for the species to be listed as threatened under national legislation. We would agree and argue that the Alpine Ash communities need the same level of recognition.

Continue reading “Mountain Ash at risk of collapse. Same as Alpine Ash.” →

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Alpine snowpatch plant communities being lost to climate change

Snowpatch plant community distribution and composition are strongly tied to the duration of long-lasting snow cover in alpine areas; they are vulnerable to global climatic changes that result in warmer temperatures and longer growing seasons.

Given the very small areas of alpine terrain in Australia, these communities are already very limited in their distribution. New research shows that Snowpatch plant community identity is being lost. In terms of their structure and composition, they are transitioning to woody communities rather than herbfields full of small plants. The loss of late-lying snow is likely to be the main reason for this change, as shorter periods of time where the communities are covered by snow allows woody plants to move into areas where late snow typically excluded them previously.

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Loving the Vic Alps- FoEM X Patagonia event

Join the Friends of the Earth Melbourne forests campaign at Patagonia Melbourne for an evening to hear all about our Alpine campaign and where to next.

We’ve been raising awareness through community events about the special Alpine regions, highlighting the incredible outdoor and nature values that are at risk due to the impacts of logging.
With the state government’s recent announcement that it will end logging by Jan 1 2024, there is now a good chance that we can expand protections for these areas, safeguarding their future and adequately addressing the needs of vulnerable ecosystems in a rapidly changing climate.

There is still much to do: we will need to listen deeply to the aspirations of First Nations people, influence government decisions in coming months, and continue our advocacy and citizen science work in the high country.

Please join us on October 11 to be educated and inspired to take action to protect the mountains and forests that we all love.

The evening features some great short films and updates on what’s happening in the Alps.

  • Campaigning in the high country. Alana Mountain is a forests campaigner with Friends of the Earth. She has been working to see high country forests protected from logging.

    Image: Alana in the Vic high country
  • The nature of Australia’s high mountains are changing. Recent, repeated landscape-scale fires have burnt much of the subalpine forests dominated by Snow gum. Long-unburnt forests are now exceedingly rare. John will identify where long-unburnt Snow gum persists in the Victorian Alps and outline why management intervention is necessary to protect these unburnt refuges.

John Morgan is a plant ecologist from La Trobe University who has a passion for documenting high mountain floras, their dynamics over long timescales, and how they are faring in the face of invasive animals, less snow and increasing frequency of fires.

John_Morgan.jpg

Image: John Morgan

The Australian Alp – Taylor Bennie-Faull

Mt Feathertop’s striking beauty holds a special place in the hearts of the Australian backcountry snow community. As one of the only mountains here that resembles its northern hemisphere counterparts, The Australian Alp tells a story of the profound impact it’s had on a group of keen explorers.

Taylor is a documentary filmmaker based out of Melbourne who seeks to empower viewers through connecting them to the deeper emotions of storytelling. He’s been active in outdoor sports from a young age which has fostered his love for the  natural world and ways to reduce ecological footprints. His aspiration is to use his documentaries as a means to engage others with the environment.

This gorgeous 12 minute film is a homage to one of our favourite mountains.

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Cam Walker from Friends of the Earth will open the evening. Cam has been working on a range of issues in the Alps for many years, and co-write the Icon at Risk report which outlines threats to the Alps. He recently wrote this piece for the Patagonia blog Roaring Journal.

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Register your attendance, see you there!

This is a free event but we ask you to rsvp for catering purposes.

https://www.melbournefoe.org.au/foem_alpine_event_patagonia

Continue reading “Loving the Vic Alps- FoEM X Patagonia event” →

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