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Specialising in natural resource and social planning; community consultation and facilitation; values mapping and consensus building, mediation and conflict resolution; policy development; program and organisational diagnosis and development.
Grassy White Box Woodlands |
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project outline |
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Project Update: Winter 2000Financial incentives for protectionThe Taking Action Now! Project aims to provide support and incentives to landholders and land managers wanting to protect remnant Grassy White Box Woodlands (GWB).A small amount of funds is available to provide support in 2000-2001. The funds can be used to assist with physical works such as fencing and weed control, and/or to enable the development and implementation of a management strategy for a remnant. The Taking Action Now! Project is designed to support landholders who are involved in creative strategies to protect their GWB remnants, especially those which involve partnerships with other stakeholder groups. Application is open to individual landholders, Landcare and other community groups, Local Governments and Rural Land Protection Boards. Applications will be individually and confidentially assessed. For further information and to obtain a copy of the application form, please contact Heather Pearce from Community Solutions on (02) 9818 2684. Heather will also put you in contact with a local member of the project team who will be able to provide further information. Closing date for applications is 30 August 2000 Manilla Central School to support local GWB communityby Toni McLeish, RLO in the NorthManilla is situated on the north west slopes of NSW, at the junction of the Namoi and Manilla rivers. Students looking out the classroom windows to the north west view the Baldwin Range which is predominantly covered in White Box Trees. The surrounding arable land is dotted with White Box trees where once GWB spread. Manilla is probably no different to any other town found on the slopes of NSW, in that many residents of this small country town would recognise a White Box Tree. Knowledge of the plant community is restricted to identifying the dominant species, with very limited knowledge of the other flora or fauna, or how it all interacts to form a community. Primary Department librarian Marg Pike and Nell Chaffey (a Tamworth teacher) raised the concern that students were encouraged to study rainforests and deserts, but little information was available on the local plant communities, woodlands. Realising that in particular Grassy White Box Woodlands are a threatened plant community, Marg and Nell have decided to invest their own time in developing curriculum specific units of work for stage 2 Primary. These units will make it easy for every Primary teacher on the NSW slopes to teach students about their local woodland communities. Both these teachers felt that a web page would be a great support tool for teachers using these woodland units, as well as students and possibly landholders. To this end Geoff Hanson the computer teacher in the Secondary Department of Manilla Central School has generously offered support, with three year eleven boys taking up the challenge. Nathan Kirchner, Thomas Dutton and Danny Elliott are keen to develop a Woodland web page that will raise the profile of this neglected plant community, while at the same time learning about computer technology. These boys could do with some assistance from you, the readers of this “Update”.
Wanted -
Email your responses to Toni McLeish (tmcleish@tpg.com.au) 
Students from Year 11 Manilla Central School - Nathan, Thomas and Danny. Report on the “Is A Fence Enough?” Grassy Woodland Management Workshop, Cumnock, 24 March 2000Report compiled by Bill Semple, DLWC, PO Box 53, Orange 2800Over 100 farmers, extension officers and woodland/grassland ecologists exchanged ideas on managing grassy woodlands at a workshop in Cumnock in March. The Question/Answer session and field trip highlighted the need to do more than just put a fence around a woodland remnant. For example, native understorey plants need to produce seed but they also need gaps in which to germinate and establish. This means that vegetative litter levels need to be reduced at regular intervals. Both burning and grazing can do this but there was no general agreement about which was best. Speakers at the workshop emphasised that natural “patchiness” in woodland remnants needs to be maintained - particularly for the survival of small animals. Try not to burn or graze the whole area at any one time. Continuous grazing - even at low stocking rates - was considered inappropriate for woodland management as uncommon plants are likely to be selectively grazed. Short periods of high intensity grazing can be used for controlling weeds as well as for incorporating litter. However, grazing was not recommended for pristine sites with a history of nil or very infrequent grazing. Most importantly, keep records - even if only photographs - of what management regime was applied. We still have a lot to learn about managing grassy woodlands. The overall message was that there’s no one “right” way to manage these areas. If encouraging native birds is your aim, then planting shrubs may be appropriate even if they weren’t part of the original woodland. Ideally, such plantings would be restricted to a “buffer area” around or on one side of the woodland. Similarly, excessive tree regeneration in a remnant could be controlled if your aim was to mimic the original woodland. But when viewed from the perspective of a relatively treeless landscape, such trees would probably be retained for their potential benefits as habitat and for controlling groundwater. For most landholders the first step in conserving woodlands will be to fence them so that they can be managed separately from surrounding land. Financial assistance for doing this is available from the sponsors of the workshop: Greening Australia, Bushcare, Community Solutions “Taking Action Now” project, National Parks & Wildlife Service’s “Grassy Box Woodlands Conservation Management Network” and the Department of Land and Water Conservation.
Congratulations to all the organisers of this successful workshop! The workshop was videoed for future reference. Contact Mollie and Geoff for details (Email: geoff.tonkin@bigpond.com)
 Innovative GrantsCongratulations to recipients of Taking Action Now! project Innovative Grants
Taking Action Now! Grant recipient reportsRLO Ray Dowling writes about his GWB remnantsThe grassy white box woodland project on the property Braeburn, adjacent to Narallan Rd Murringo 26km east of Young, was the recipient of a Community Solutions grant in 1999. The area is approx 3.5 ha. and adjoins the Narallan Road Woodland corridor. As the area is undulating to steeper hill slopes, it has never been cleared, even though some White box trees were cut for fence posts and some were ring barked. Due to the steep slopes and granite outcrops it has never been cultivated or pasture improved. Grazing pressure has been quite low . The main problem has been invasion by exotic plants. Sweet briar, Japanese elm ( Zelcova), Tree lucerne (Tagasaste), Fire thorn (Pyracantha), Chinese Pistachia, Privet, Cotoneaster, Pepper trees, and Olive trees have been removed by the cut & paint method. The stems of the woody weeds are cut and glyphosate is painted onto the stump immediately. This method has been successful. The isolated Phalaris and Cocksfoot grass has also been sprayed with glyphosate, so preventing these exotic perennials from setting seed and spreading. In the spring the small area of annual weeds, mainly Patersons curse, Barley and Rye grass will also be spot sprayed.
This area contains some rare GWB species and with the exclusion of grazing they should all grow to recolonize the whole area. As this woodland is next to the road, access is no problem. Any interested people who would like to visit the site can contact Ray Dowling (email: rayd@hn.ozemail.com.au).
 Changes to Taking Action Now! projectIn considering his response to our application for the third and final year’s NHT funding for this project, Federal Environment Minister Robert Hill has decided that our project should be combined with the Conservation Management Network Project being hosted by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service.Both projects focus on GWB, but they have very different objectives, and different ways of achieving them. The CMN project aims to set up a network of reserves for high quality GWB. Our project is working directly with landholders to help them integrate land use and conservation managementobjectives. Negotiations are now commencing between the two projects to see how the important strengths of each can be maintained within a collaborative approach. The joint application will then be provided to the Minister in early August. The Taking Action Now! Project is designed to support landholders who are involved in creative strategies to protect their GWB remnants, especially those which involve partnerships with a number of stakeholder groups. Clearly, the activities listed above will require liaison between landholders and managers, scientists with skills in the management of remnant vegetation and others in the community.
Application is open to landholders willing to form a group with others in their area, Landcare and other community groups, Local Governments, Rural Land Protection Boards and schools in relevant areas. Your local Rural Liaison Officer (see below) will be able to provide useful information to help you to prepare your application.
Getting info on the Taking Action Now! ProjectRural Liaison Officers (RLOs)Toni McLeish“Kurrajong Hills” Upper Manilla NSW 2346 Ph/fax 02-6785 6504 email: tmcleish@tpg.com.au
Geoff Tonkin
Ray Dowling
Team Leaders and Heather Pearce: ph/fax (02) 9818 2684 and email: heather@sydney.net
Please make contact with one of the above people if you would like to be placed on the mailing list for this regular Update.
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CONTENTS:Financial incentives for protection Manilla Central School to support local GWB community Report on the “Is A Fence Enough?” Grassy Woodland Management Workshop, Cumnock, 24 March 2000 Taking Action Now! Grant recipient reports Changes to Taking Action Now! project |