Ballarat Region Treegrower members with pruning experience will teach and supervise at the field day, which will start at 11am on Friday 17 October.  We’ll stick to forestry trees and practice on invading trees along the 5ha biorich plantation’s edges. Pruning is not just about form pruning for timber values – although if you want to get a sawlog some time in the future, you’ll need to prune. Pruning is also a way of reducing dense canopy trees that are outcompeting shrubs in an environmental planting.  And pruning makes it possible to walk and see through what could otherwise become impenetrable scrub. There’s some who argue you can overprune   – so come along, learn another skill and be part of the discussion.

Please RSVP to Gib Wettenhall on Contact us so we have an idea how many are coming along. We're meeting at the ImLal display board, 100m past the Ironmine Rd intersection on Lal Lal Falls Rd. BYO lunch and secateurs. $10 for non-AFG members; free to AFG members.  

   
The public launch of the Canadian Multi Use Forest Park proposal was held on Saturday 20 September. Phil Kinghorn,Steve Murphy and myself attended a Wauthawurrung 'smoking ceremony' in the messmate forest, followed by a short uphill walk to the 750ha site, which is a decommissioned Hancock plantation  on the edge of Ballarat.  A massive 350ha has been cleared, and under the terms of the reserved Crown land, it has, according to DEPI, to be put to 'productive use.' This favours re-establishing vegetation for  the recreation park using a biorich model, mixing linkages to the surrounding natural forest in with  'productive' forestry clumps.

Two of the convenors for Friends of the Canadian Corridor, Linda Zibell and Jeff Rootes, have attended our bird surveys and have come away impressed with the biorich concept. The ALP has promised $2 million towards establishing the park. With the election less than two months away, the other major parties are expected to come on board the bandwagon.