South west Victoria parks plan

[Earwig]

Parks Vic have released a management plan for south west Victoria, includng the Great South West walk and a few other spots in that part of the world - Discovery Bay, Mt Eccles etc. A web link is here.

http://parkweb.vic.gov.au/explore/parks/mount-eccles-national-park/plans-and-projects/ngootyoong-gunditj-ngootoong-mara

The release was posted on FB a week or so ago.

[Hallu]

What's shocking is that they won't give you a summary of this. You get like 30 pdfs and hundreds of pages of gibberish so unless you have a week to read everything, you have no idea what is their intention. Do they want to open everything for logging ? To build expensive resorts and hotel ? To increase conservation ? To make aboriginal people more involved ? I have absolutely no clue... You need to be a lawyer to understand what's going on, and that doesn't bode well, like they have something to hide...

[icefest]

They did make a media release: http://parkweb.vic.gov.au/__data/assets ... t-Plan.pdf
I'm reading through and summarising for you though.

[Hallu]

Thanks good luck with it. Tthis media release says it supports the parks and it supports the people... OK, in what way ? It's all very vague, I don't understand this rubbish communication.

[icefest]

Sorry about the formatting, it's all done quickly
I only wrote down the more significant changes.

• Synergistic approach to management of parks with Traditional Owners.
  
• Public roads and access will remain largely unchanged across the planning area. Two areas needing track rationalisation have been identified, being Cobboboonee and Mount Richmond National Parks.
  
• Rename Mount Eccles National Park to Budj Bim National Park
  
• Promotion of the Great South West Walk
  
• Camping and hiking and boating as before on the Glenelg river
  
• recognise the Gunditjmara People’s non‐exclusive native title rights and interests over almost 132,000 hectares of vacant Crown land, national parks, reserves, rivers, creeks and sea north‐west of Warrnambool, bounded on the west by the Glenelg River and to the north by the Wannon River. Includes Lower Glenelg National Park, Cobboboonee National Park, Mount Richmond National Park, Mount Eccles National Park and Cobboboonee Forest Park and state forests.
  
• The state that the public excpressed a want for improving access and facilities in Mount Eccles National Park and Lake Conda and maintaining horse riding access in parks and reserves, especially in Cobboboonee National Park and Forest Park
  
• a list of species and ecosystems at risk
  
• Classification of national parks:
  

VISION: make all things good again.

• How they plant to care for the environment (management reporting and partnership programs) read it for specifics (it's uselessly general)
  
• Kill goats around mt napier http://puu.sh/4iIFA.png
  
• Kill pigs, cats and foxes south of the glenelg http://puu.sh/4iIDF.png
  
• Make lake Condah all good again http://puu.sh/4iIBH.png
• make sure there are eels http://puu.sh/4iICX.png
  
• Close reading suggests they want to limit visitors to beaches during breeding season of some birds http://puu.sh/4iIyN.png and http://puu.sh/4iIz9.png
  
• Less dune buggies around swan lake http://puu.sh/4iIA3.png
  
• Control marine pollution through management reporting http://puu.sh/4iIHC.png
  
• Limit seal colony visitors: http://puu.sh/4iIHC.png
  
• Improve glenelg water quality: http://puu.sh/4iIJ7.png
  
• Don't build dams: http://puu.sh/4iIJI.png
  
• Make the magic happen http://puu.sh/4iIKx.png (only divert water if the river can handle it)0
  
• Make less bad fires occur by lighting fires where they won't do damage.
  
• Keep caves open and close caves to protect bats http://puu.sh/4iIMr.png
  
• Document caves (and bats too while we're at it) with caving assoc's http://puu.sh/4iIMX.png
  
• Fix road in Mount Richmond and Cobboboonee National Parks http://puu.sh/4iISU.png
  
• Close sacred places http://puu.sh/4iITk.png
  
• Keep up walking tracks and contact public about status http://puu.sh/4iIUw.png

Lower glenelg canoe trail

• Make safe ramps and landings http://puu.sh/4iIWu.png
  
• Less water skiing http://puu.sh/4iIX6.png
  
• Close camp sites: http://puu.sh/4iIXS.png

Mt Eccles (Budj Bim)

• Make walk + cycle paths http://puu.sh/4iIYK.png

Cape bridgewater

• Close currently open walking areas http://puu.sh/4iJ02.png

cape nelson

• No change

Glenelg river

• Create serviced camping areas: http://puu.sh/4iJ1f.png
  
• Introduce camping and booking fees http://puu.sh/4iJ1O.png
  
• No horses http://puu.sh/4iJ2k.png

Great South west walk

• Less walkers, that have to pay fees to walk http://puu.sh/4iJ32.png
  
• Get free labor http://puu.sh/4iJ3F.png
  
• Close campsites: http://puu.sh/4iJ4k.png

Mt eccles

• Serviced camping http://puu.sh/4iJ5n.png

Princess Margaret Rose Cave

• no change

Bridgewater Lakes

• Close caves seasonally, limit access http://puu.sh/4iJ6v.png
  
• possible boat restrictions http://puu.sh/4iJ7f.png

Cobboboonee Forest Park trailbike area

• Create trailbiking area http://puu.sh/4iJ7J.png

Discovery Coast surf areas

• Improve and limit access http://puu.sh/4iJ8f.png

Cobboboonee NP, Crawford River, Dergholm SP and Glenelg River, Fulham SSR

• Less campsite services in general http://puu.sh/4iJ9S.png

Byaduk Caves

• Summit track http://puu.sh/4iJaE.png
  
• Seasonally close all caves http://puu.sh/4iJb5.png
  
• Improve access to cave 1, close the rest http://puu.sh/4iJbu.png

Mount Richmond

• No horses http://puu.sh/4iJcB.png
  
• Close tracks and campgrounds http://puu.sh/4iJcs.png

Swan Lake

• Limit buggies http://puu.sh/4iJcP.png

General changes

• Firewood collection limits http://puu.sh/4iJfP.png
  
• Decrease pipi harvesting impact http://puu.sh/4iJgj.png

Restriction summary: http://puu.sh/4iJe8.png AND http://puu.sh/4iJex.png



MAPS:
1A http://puu.sh/4iJgj.png http://puu.sh/4iJgj.png
2A http://puu.sh/4iJid.jpg
2B http://puu.sh/4iJiI.jpg This shows new convervation status.

[Hallu]

Wow that's a daunting work you did, thanks for the translation and summary. I notice that they're very careful with their words. It's never a big task, they won't eradicate anything, they will "contain" or "reduce the abundance". Unfortunately, unless you eradicate a feral species, it will keep coming back again to alarming numbers, so I don't see the point. Unless they have a new virus for those species, as they did with the rabbits...

Overall it's a lot of minor cosmetics changes, no big reform. What would people like in that area ? First that their stupid pine plantation would stop. This is Australia, land of the eucalypt, why the hell would we need pine plantations ? These plantations did more damage on the wildlife and landscape than all the feral species combined. Everybody knows that koalas eat eucalypt leaves and that many mammals and birds nest in eucalypts burrows. People would also like to see new areas being protected, this plan provides none. A big plan to save threatened species would be good too. Even in their details they stay very vague : "managing visitors' activities to minimize disturbance of seal colonies", what the hell does that mean ? Are they gonna make us pay to see the seals from land ? Remove walking tracks and observation platforms ? Limit the number of boats touring to see seals ? It's probably the latter, but again, they're so vague it's impossible to know what they're gonna do...

[icefest]

Limit tours. Like for whales I think
No major reform? The serviced campgrounds isn't major? Closing campsites isn't major?
The is some threatened species stuff. but mostly "management reporting" Closing caves, limit dams, identifying high risk areas for special treatment is planned.
I thought there has been a large increase over the past 5 years in protected areas.

I'm not sure what you are basing you opinion of pine plantations on though. "more damage on the wildlife and landscape than all the feral species combined"? Cats, rabbits, goats and cane toads have done less in total than the plantations?
they did mention a 1km buffer zone of plantation and natural forest.

[Hallu]

I'm not talking about feral species as a whole. In the country yes they certainly have done more damage, but on that area alone, destroying a huge native forest habitat to plant pine certainly has a more direct and powerful effect on wildlife than feral species. Feral species compete with native wildlife habitat, or eat their young. It's a gradual effect. Logging is immediate. You immediately kill the koalas, possums, gliders etc..., you destroy the habitat of birds and reptiles, and by planting pines you strongly modify the acidity of the soil and the amount of light under the canopy, which will affect low scrub, insects, and small mammals and reptiles.

We need stronger laws in parks that will be applied. Recently the VIC government has been sued for not protecting its endangered species ( http://www.theage.com.au/environment/en ... 2jywk.html ), it's just shameful.

[icefest]

I ended p doing some research about land clearing in Au (wikipedia sucks by the way) and found this: http://jpe.oxfordjournals.org/content/5/1/109.full

it's quite interesting (and depressing).

[icefest]

Of note:

Recent work suggests that Australia’s wood production surpasses its domestic wood consumption, and more importantly, the country’s wood production derived from plantations outpaces that derived from native forests (Fig. 6), supplying some 80% of the wood-processing industry’s raw material (Ajani 2008). This means that Australian processors should be able to meet most of their requirements without relying on native forest harvest (Ajani 2008); however, increasing plantation cover at the expense of any native vegetation will continue to cause biodiversity to decline (e.g. Lindenmayer et al. 2000), although there is certainly some biodiversity value improvements as plantations age and join previously disjunct native forest patches