Biorich plantations – mimicking nature to integrate conservation & production
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Melbourne Uni environmental and forestry students ponder to prune or not

29/9/2016

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Over 20 students from Melbourne University's School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences heard differing viewpoints from Phil Kinghorn and Gib Wettenhall on high or low silviculture of the biorich plantings.  Senior Research Fellow Dr Lauren Bennett said later: "There was lively discussion on the return bus about the various issues that were raised, including comments on how instructive it was to see the reality of restoration practices, and how enjoyable the visit had been overall."

We just fled the hilltop in time as the wind rose and the rain fell. It was the day an extreme weather event caused massive outages in South Australia. Lauren concluded: "there were also comments on how well you (we) managed the weather (these admittedly made later as the rain set in)."

MU hopes to repeat the visit in coming years.

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High or minimal intervention: to silviculture or not?

23/9/2016

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PictureThe ecologist and the forester debating the finer points of how much silviculture to apply.
We have a split on the degree of silviculture that ought to be applied to the ImLal site – high or minimal intervention.

High intervention leads to ease of access, less perceived fire risk, reduction in tree density and the “pleasing prospects” approved of by explorers and pioneers in the days of Aboriginal land management.

Low intervention is closest to unmanaged natural forest and so-called “wilderness", as well as providing dense habitat for protection from feral predators like cats and foxes.


How do these two differing approaches affect biodiverse abundance (a primary goal of a biorich plantation). Seasonal bird surveys have tracked growing use of the site both in the number of species and size of flocks. To what extent will this be compromised by high or low silvicultural intervention?

We have agreed to divide  ImLal South in half to demonstrate the use of both approaches.

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Water, water everywhere

23/9/2016

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It's been a very wet early spring. The 'footy field' has reverted to a swamp. What few plants survived from last October planting day are now underwater (see bottom right). We'd better stick to reeds.

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Gordon TAFE students try their hand at pruning

5/9/2016

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Some 40 Gordon TAFE students from Geelong visited the ImLal site in August. After background from Stephen Murphy, Phil Kinghorn handed out pruning tools so the Conservation and Land Management students could gain some practical experience of an essential silvicultural skill. And it proved good vigorous exercise for a typically cold winter's day at ImLal.
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    Author

    Gib Wettenhall is interested in how  we carry out large scale landscape restoration that involves the people who live in those landscapes. That, he  believes, would build truly resilient landscapes.

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