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Victorian Alps

‘Environment minister keen to see chalet plans’

The following comes from the Bright Observer.

Journalist: EBONY D’ARCY

A BID to breathe new life into the Mt Buffalo Chalet continued last week with members of the Mt Buffalo Community Enterprise group meeting with the state environment minister.

Bill Sykes (MLA, Benalla) led a deputation made up of enterprise chair John Brown and directors Mark McKenzie-McHarg and Cameron McKern to visit Environment Minister Ryan Smith at Parliament House on Thursday.

The visit was part of the group’s bid to rejuvenate the 100-year-old building, which has been lying idle for more than three years.

The meeting was an opportunity for the group members to meet Mr Smith and familiarise him with their case.

Mr Sykes said the minister agreed that “something needs to be done”.

“The minister requested that once the group has their presentation ready for Parks Victoria, they also present it to him and Minister for Tourism Louise Asher,” he said.

“He was keen to see what the group comes up with.”

The group has until the end of May to develop a comprehensive project plan for presentation to Parks Victoria, which will include solutions for issues with energy and power supply on the mountain.

The aim is to have the go-ahead by September, which will allow detailed architectural planning, applications and governmental negotiations to begin.

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Vic minister vows to continue alpine grazing trial

Ryan Smith says the trial will continue but they are still working on the details.

Snow gums, Mt Stirling

The Victorian Government has decided to return cattle grazing to the Alpine National Park next season, despite telling the Federal Government that they had no definite timetable for grazing trials to continue.

In January, 400 cattle were released into the park as part of a trial by the Victorian Government, to determine if grazing reduces the risk of bushfire.

However the trial did not have Commonwealth approval.

The Federal Environment Minister, Tony Burke, has ordered the cattle out of the park.

However today, the Victorian Environment Minister, Ryan Smith, told ABC Local Radio the trial will continue.

“We just haven’t put together the details of how it will go forward. We’re taking a careful approach, we’re using the data collected over the last few months to inform the next stage,” he said.

“We also want to be very open and transparent so that when the plan is put together, when Professor [Mark] Adams is advising us on it, there will be a panel overseeing that, who can ask the questions that perhaps need to be asked.”

This article comes from the ABC.

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Stop alpine grazing – it’s a park not a paddock!

Image: VNPA

PUBLIC FORUM, April 6

The Baillieu Government has reintroduced grazing to Victoria’s Alpine National Park under the guise of a flawed science project.

Cattle were banned from the park in 2005, now they are back – damaging threatened species, trampling wetlands and spreading weeds.

While this may benefit a few cattlemen it comes at great cost to Victoria’s natural heritage. National parks are for nature, not cattle.

There will be speakers from Environment groups, scientists, politicians and others.

WHEN: Wednesday, April 6, 2011. Doors open 6.30pm, for a 7pm start.

WHERE: Box Hill Town Hall.

Full details here.

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Tourism facilities in national parks could kill the ‘golden goose’

A release from the Victorian National Parks Association on a recent proposal to open up national parks for private tourism facilities.

MEDIA RELEASE – Tuesday, 8 March 2011

Tourism facilities in national parks could kill the ‘golden goose’

Mount Hotham

The Victorian National Parks Association says a recommendation by the Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission, to open up national parks for private tourism facilities, is simplistic and would be a dangerous new direction for park management.

“National Parks are becoming a victim of their own success. They are popular and much loved, but now private companies want a piece of the action in a public asset designed to protect nature for the future”.

“There is a danger of killing the goose that lays the golden egg. People visit national parks for an experience they can’t get elsewhere – they want the opportunity to experience the natural world.    There is ample opportunity for tourism infrastructure adjacent to parks, where financially viable developments can take place without the more onerous conditions necessarily imposed on infrastructure inside parks.

The VCEC recommendations contradict Victoria’s current, and widely respected, Nature Based Tourism Strategy, which states that “Private investment into any new large scale facility, particularly accommodation other than adaptive re-use of existing infrastructure, should be sited outside the park”.

“There is a lot of tourism potential on private land adjacent to our national parks which allows for certainty of investment, particularly in and around regional towns,” said Mr Ruchel.

“The VCEC draft report fails to appreciate the public land tenure system and its landscape context. Over 60% of Victorian land is privately owned and 80-90% of that has already been cleared. National parks and conservation reserves make up only approx about 18% of the land in Victoria, and are a refuge for plants and animals in a state with relatively little intact native habitat left.”

“The State Government must rule out new major infrastructure in national parks and re-commit to the principles outlined in Victoria’s existing Nature Based Tourism Strategy.”

“The change we need in national park management is a solid commitment to managing our unique natural heritage for all Victoria’s and future generations” he concluded.

For further comment contact:
Matt Ruchel: 0418-357-813
Phil Ingamells: 0427 705 133

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Mountain journal turns one

Well, time really does race when you’re having fun. It’s hard to believe that Mountain Journal is a year old, emerging as it did from my late summer doldrums in March 2010, when winter seemed like it was still lifetimes away.

And what a winter it was – big storms, flooding rains, and enormous dumps of dry powder. Roads closed, communities snowed in, land slips.

stream at Telephone Box Junction, Mt Stirling, VIC

From the original idea of having a mountain-orientated on line journal, influenced by such luminous paper versions of the idea as the Colorado-based Mountain Gazette, it has evolved in various directions: as a forum for various environmental concerns, like alpine grazing and snow mobiles in the back country. As a place to comment on what’s happening across the Alps, and appreciate fun things, festivals, and human-powered activity. Judging by the response (most folks are shy and email me rather than posting comments on the site) it seems that I am not alone in appreciating the various aspects of mountain culture that the Australian Alps offer.

I really enjoyed doing a series of interviews with a range of people connected to the mountains – they shed some light on good work, good ideas and incredible commitment. It has also been a forum to educate and mobilise people, such as with the case of logging near Glen Wills. It became a place to advertise the Australian launch of Protect Our Winters (POW), another side project of mine that will hopefully gather some momentum in 2011.

The most visited sections over the past year have been:

·    the Alpine grazing alert
·    the ‘side country’ skiing guide to the Hotham area
·    the logging alerts
·    the proposal to put a ‘skyway’ up onto the Buffalo Plateau
·    the launch of POW
·    the interviews
·    the story on traditional owners of the Alps

But primarily, it has been my way of writing a love story for the mountains that give so much meaning and joy to my life, building on an earlier site on the Alps and broader ‘Bogong bioregion’.

My original vision had been to expand the journal into a ‘real world’ paper version, but the beauty of this project is that it is overtly not commercial in focus, and so the effort of chasing advertising to cover printing costs was all a bit much. So for at least the foreseeable future, this will remain in (green energy powered) cyberspace.

Thanks again for your encouragement and support on the journey so far.

Please feel free to contribute to this project, with news, links, stories, photos, reviews, poetry or any thing else that’s mountain-related.

Here’s to an early winter and deep snow! Regards, Cam

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Alpine grazing action alert

A new dilemma for the government:

According to The Age newspaper, “traditional owners of Victoria’s high country have threatened the Baillieu government with legal action, accusing it of “stepping over the mark” in the controversial return of cattle to the Alpine National Park.”

The government appears to be in the bunker and not responding to a number of recent stories in The Age.

UPDATE, 12/1/11: it has just been announced that the government has secretly put a small number of cows back in the Alps Park in order to “prevent any potential Federal Government injunction”. (!!)

This secrecy flies in the face of the Ted Baillieu’s committment to transparent government.

Check this letter from the Environmental Farmers Network on the grazing decision.

Background

Cattle were removed from the Alpine National Park in 2005 by the government of Steve Bracks. This was an important step forward for good land management in our state. Since then, some of the long term damage caused by decades of grazing have started to heal.

However, the Victorian Coalition announced in the build up to the November election that it would return cattle grazing to Victoria’s alpine national parks as a tool to reduce fire risk.

It probably made sense to summer graze cows in the alps when the practise started in the 1800’s. Given what we now know – of the ecological damage they cause – it made sense to remove them from the precious alpine areas.

Putting them back into the Park – in the very headwaters of our most significant river systems in a time of climate change – would mean turning our backs on common sense land management and scientific evidence. Grazing greatly damages the alpine systems, including the peat beds, that release high quality water into our river systems across the north east of the state.

Research on alpine grazing has consistently shown that the pro grazing mantra ‘grazing reduces blazing’ simply isn’t true.

The Victorian National Parks Association has substantial information on the question of grazing and fires which is available here.

You can also see the CSIRO’s finding on grazing and fire here.

We need to send a strong message to the new government that the majority of Victorians do not support the re-introduction of grazing into the Alps and other protected areas like the Barmah forest.

TAKE ACTION

Please write to the Premier and Environment minister, explaining that you are opposed to the reintroduction of cattle grazing into Victoria’s alpine environment.

You could mention that the grazing of cattle in a national park is inconsistent with conservation management, which is the main purpose of national parks protection. It will not help reduce fire risk. Our alps are at great risk from climate change and do not need that degradation that will come with grazing.

Simply send a brief and polite email outlining your concerns, with your name and address to:

The Hon Ted Baillieu MP
Premier of Victoria
ted.baillieu@parliament.vic.gov.au

The Hon Ryan Smith MP
Minister for Environment and Climate Change
ryan.smith@parliament.vic.gov.au

It would be great if you could cc us a copy so we know how many letters have gone in: foe@foe.org.au

Please send this alert on to your friends. Thanks!

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what would a Coalition victory mean for the Victorian Alps?

Little Mt Higginbotham, VIC

With the prospect of the Coalition taking power following yesterday’s state election it is worth taking a few minutes to think about what this might mean in terms of a change in attitude to the Victorian High Country.

The most obvious short term implication would be if the Coalition was actually able to implement its promise to return cattle to the Alpine National Park. (Phil Ingamells of the Victorian National Parks Association recently explained why this is most unlikely).

The Mountain Cattlemen’s Association of Victoria (MCAV) is hoping the Coalition will act on it’s promise to re-introduce cows to the Alpine National Park. They say this would be a good thing because “cattle grazing (is) a proven management tool to reduce fuel loads”.

You don’t have to be a genius to know that a cow, given the choice between a succulent plant and a prickly shrub, will choose to eat the former. Over time, at at scale, this drives sub alpine vegetation towards scrubbier vegetation types – which will be more flammable. ‘Alpine grazing reduces blazing’ has been consistently proven incorrect by a number of studies. There are a range of other reasons to keep cattle out of the headwaters of our most significant river systems, not least of which is water quality. Lets hope common sense will prevail on this one.

They have also announced that they would intensify logging and replace native forest ecosystems with Mountain Ash ‘plantations’.

Another, longer term issue is climate change. As we know, climate science tells us that the Alps are at grave risk from climate change unless we can greatly reduce greenhouse emissions in the near future.

The Victorian Coalition was noticeably absent from the climate change debate through most of this year, and didn’t even bother to release their climate change policy before the election.

They did release an energy policy (just 4 days out from the election) and there are various points of detail in that policy that should worry anyone who is wanting action on climate change from the Party that forms the next state government.

This includes the fact that:

  • they have provided very little detail on how Victoria might meet the existing 20% emissions reduction target,
  • there is no mention of the scale of the problem of climate change,
  • there is no direct commitment to a phase-out of Hazelwood or any other coal fired power station,
  • finally, it includes a regressive policy on wind farms.

As leader, Ted Baillieu has shown a complete lack of interest in the issue of climate change. The next few years are pivotal if the global community is to respond effectively to the threat of global warming. Victoria must do a fair share of this work. Based on their actions over the past year, it seems clear that a Coalition government would send Victoria backwards on this most pressing of issues.

In the build up to the election, environment groups released a series of scorecards assessing Party policies. In the final version, the Greens scored 93%, the ALP was next best on 52% and the Coalition was far behind on just 22%.

The scorecard can be found here.

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Plan to re-open Buffalo Chalet emerges

Wildflowers, Buffalo Plateau, VIC

The resurrection of the landmark Mount Buffalo Chalet is a step closer to reality after the state government agreed to help a local community group develop a plan to redevelop the building.

The government will give it a 12-month deadline and $200,000 to develop a viable business model that will redevelop and operate the 100-year-old chalet. The building is Victoria’s first ski lodge and was a plum holiday destination for Melbourne’s wealthy.

The community group, known as the Mount Buffalo Community Enterprise, has 16 shareholders, including well-known local business figures such as John Brown of Brown Brothers Wines and Tom O’Toole from the Beechworth Bakery. But the biggest name among shareholders is former deputy prime minister and current ambassador to the Vatican, Tim Fischer.

The group pledged that if it revived the chalet, it would distribute 51 per cent of profits to a community foundation, with the balance to be shared between investors.

From the article Mt Buffalo’s ‘grande dame’ wins powerful new friends by Darren Gray, The Age, October 29, 2010.
For the full story, check here.

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Why cattle will never again roam free in the Victorian high country

Summer storm on the Bogong High Plains, VIC.

An opinion piece by Phil Ingamells of the Victorian National Parks Association about the Victorian Coalition’s promise to return cattle grazing to Victoria’s high country.

He suggests that the Coalition seems to be playing politics with the cattlemen, promising to bring them back to the high country, even though they must know it can’t actually happen.

The article is available here.

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Volunteers needed for weed surveys on Bogong High Plains

Orange Hawkweed. Image: DPI

Parks Victoria is looking for volunteers to help look for King Devil and Orange Hawkweed on the Bogong High Plains

Native to Europe, Hawkweeds have recently become established on mainland Australia. They pose a serious threat to Australian biodiversity and to the structure of natural communities.

Hawkweeds spread quickly via runners and above-ground roots, forming dense mats and outcompeting native vegetation. In grassy ecosystems like the High Plains, dense patches of the weed dominate the spaces between grass tussocks that are vital for the survival and recruitment of native flora and fauna.

Three survey sessions will be conducted during the flowering period and each session requires 8 volunteers. All of the sessions will be 5 days long, Monday to Friday. Attendance for the full sessions is preferred but is not essential.

Accommodation will be provided at Falls Creek.
Breakfast and snacks will also be provided.

The surveys for 2010/2011 season will be held over the following dates:
Session 1: November 29 – December 3 (Mon – Fri)
Session 2: December 27 – December 31 (Mon – Fri)
Session 3: January 17 – January 21 (Mon – Fri)

If you would like more information or to take part in a survey session please contact:
Sally Summers
hawkweed@parks.vic.gov.au
Mt. Beauty Parks Victoria Office: (03) 5754 4693

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Winter 2010

Snow shoe trail, Razorback, VIC

As spring kicks in and the snowmass melts, it feels like time to acknowledge what an incredible winter it has been: massive snow falls interspaced with rain and warmer weather and crazy storms. A number of resorts were isolated as treefall and landslips cut roadways. In August almost 2 metres of snow fell across the alps, and now (early October) there is still good skiable snow across much of the higher areas.

The following are some images from the Hotham/ Feathertop area in Victoria from June until now.

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the perfect spring?

on Mt Blowhard

The last few weeks have been incredible across the High Country. In Victoria we passed into spring with fantastic snowmass and in the last few weeks we’ve had sunny days and mostly cold nights. The resorts are still going, at least until this weekend, and there’s lots of backcountry terrain which is accessible with little or no walking.

Mornings have been great, even if you have to battle through a slushfest once the sun is high. A perfect spring after an amazing winter of grey skies, floods, and a series of massive snowfalls.

A couple of pictures from Feathertop/ Mt Blowhard in Victoria to honour the end of another season.

Razorback & Feathertop

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