Would you like to hear about great environmental and sustainability initiatives happening in the Upper Ovens valley? Then please join us for a free event on the evening of tuesday March 14 at Bright Brewery.
This forum will feature local speakers showcasing some great conservation initiatives, and be a good chance to catch up with like minded people.
We know that lockdowns and covid has been hard on all mountain businesses. Now, many are struggling to find enough staff as Australians head to the snow in droves. The rise in interest in backcountry skiing and riding was certainly good for some businesses through the hard winters of 2020 and 2021, and this year is providing a welcome boost. But, faced with the rise in online shopping and the buying power and reach of large chain stores, it’s remarkable that there are still so many locally owned outdoor gear shops in and around the Australian Mountains.
Here are a few of them. If we don’t support them, we will lose them. And as we know, all these places offer local knowledge in a way that online stores can’t.
Continue reading “Local gear stores. If we don’t love them, we’ll lose them”
The Victorian Backcountry Festival is a 100% volunteer run event, by the community for the community. It will be back at Hotham this winter with an action packed schedule of talks, tours, workshops, a demo village and outdoors bar over three days in September.
Volunteering with us is a great opportunity to make new backcountry friends and join a group of like-minded outdoor individuals who want to help out and support the festival and the adventure community it represents. We are hosting 2 volunteer meetup events in early June, in Bright and Melbourne.
Continue reading “Victorian Backcountry Festival volunteer info nights”
The Backcountry Film Festival is produced each year by the Winter Wildlands Alliance as a celebration of the human-powered winter experience and a gathering place for the backcountry snowsports community.
The 2022 season is screening early and will be an online festival. You can get tickets here.
However, Bright Brewery will be hosting a screening on Wed, Dec 1.
Continue reading “Backcountry film festival screening in Bright, DEC 1”
Snowboarder and environmentalist Jeremy Jones embarks on a mission to raise awareness about climate change.
His film Purple Mountains is being screened in Bright as part of the 2021 Victorian Backcountry Festival, which will happen in and around Mt Hotham resort over September 3, 4 and 5. Join festival sponsors Bright Brewery for a free screening of ‘Purple Mountains’ inside the brewery.
Continue reading “Protect Our Winters Australia film screening: Purple Mountains”
With the price of gold rising rapidly, much of regional Victoria is seeing renewed interest from mining companies, who are seeking exploration licences. In the Upper Ovens and Kiewa Valleys, there is strong local opposition to mining. A survey of local attitudes to mining highlights that gold mining does not have social license to operate in these areas.
The group No Gold Drilling (and no more gold mining) in Our Shire Valleys has released the results from their survey:
Continue reading “Alpine Shire residents oppose gold mining”
Endangered snow leopards or mountain gorillas? Not in Australia – but we do have native animals and plants threatened with extinction, right here in the Upper Ovens Valley.
The Upper Ovens Valley Landcare Group is hosting a special community event on Saturday June 19 to explore the ecology of some of these very special local species, why they are at risk and what can be done about it.
Continue reading “Threatened Species and Fire Recovery: a special community event”
The Facebook group objecting to gold mining in the Ovens Valley has launched a survey to get Alpine Shire people’s views towards the future of gold-mining in the Alpine Shire.
It comes as a gold exploration company has been drilling in the Havilah Valley in recent weeks.
There are many exploratory licences applicable to the upper Ovens Valley. And there are 2 applications for gold exploratory drilling waiting for approval covering areas south of Yackandandah, Wandiligong, all the upper Ovens Valley to Harrietville and a strip down the western side of Kiewa Valley near Mt Beauty.
“We were getting clear indications many people in the Alpine Shire were not happy with the exploratory drilling and the prospect of new gold mines in the area” said Col Finnie, administrator of the group. “But we thought it was time to find out what ratepayers and residents of the Shire think, hence launching a Survey Monkey survey.”
Continue reading “Please express your views about gold-mining in the Alpine Shire”
An Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) between Taungurung Land and Waters Council and the State Government is in ‘legal limbo’ after the Federal Court found it was registered incorrectly.
The land use agreement was finalised in October 2018 as part of a broader settlement agreement largely under the auspices Victoria’s Traditional Owner Settlement Act 2010. The settlement agreement formally recognised the Taungurung people as the traditional owners of more than 20,000 square kilometres of land in north central Victoria from Kyneton in the west to Bright in the east. The agreement includes a number of national parks, including sections of the Alpine National Park and Buffalo National Park.
Federal Court proceedings concluded earlier this month, with Justice Debra Mortimer finding errors in the way the agreement was registered with the National Native Title Tribunal.
It is not yet clear whether this will impact on the agreements regarding the Alpine national parks.
Continue reading “Taungurung Indigenous Land Use Agreement in ‘Limbo’”
Ten projects in Indi (north eastern Victoria) have received funding through the federal governments Local Economic Recovery (LER) program for bushfire recovery.
Local Member for Indi, Helen Haines, says: ‘They will bring new jobs and attract tourism, and I’m so proud to see the hard work and initiative of our region recognised by this investment.
‘It is fantastic that the Alpine resorts have received $7 million for three transformational projects. The resorts were hit hard by the fires and then COVID-19, and yet inexplicably, the Government had initially excluded them from the bushfire recovery funding.
‘There is also great news for tourism in our region here. $5 million for the Great River Road, upgrades to the Alpine Hotel and Bright Velo will help position our region for a strong economic recovery, creating sustainable jobs by bringing tourists to our wonderful region’.
Continue reading “Bushfire recovery funds for alpine and valley communities”
In late November 2019, fires started in East Gippsland as a result of lightning strikes. As noted by Peter Gardner, many of these went on to become major blazes. November 21 was a Code Red Day, causing fires across the state. On December 30, fires tore through the township of Goongerah in East Gippsland. By 30 December 2019, the fires started in November had grown into three active fires in East Gippsland with a combined area of more than 130,000 hectares, and another in the north-east of the state near Walwa, which was heading south-east towards Cudgewa.
And on new year’s eve, lightning storms passed across the state and started another set of fires across the Victorian mountains, and fire season came to the Alps with a vengeance.
Continue reading “One year on from the DEC 31 fires”
An Exploratory Licence application for gold is with the Victorian government’s Earth Resources department for the upper Ovens Valley. The deadline for objections is 23 December. The best time to stop a destructive project is before it gets going. Please add your voice to the strong community campaign against this proposal.
Governments and companies often dismiss opposition to exploration, saying that ‘any environmental issues will be considered’ if the proposal moves toward a mining application. But the more money the miner puts into the project, the more they will push through with the proposal to commercialise. The best time to stop it is before exploration starts. And if a project has no social license to operate, why approve exploration? There is strong local opposition to gold exploration in the Upper Ovens. In a time of climate change, where water flows are expected to decline over time, the river systems that rise in the Victorian Alps will become even more important for downstream communities and environments. Why would we risk such a significant river system for short term gain for a mining company?
Continue reading “No Gold Drilling for the Upper Ovens Valley”
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