2012 season
The Winter Wildlands Alliance created the Backcountry Film Festival in 2005 to help grassroots and professional filmmakers to show audiences their love of the winter outdoors.
Since then, the annual festival has been shown in more than 30 towns and cities, and raised thousands of dollars to help efforts to preserve our winter environment.
The festival highlights the fun and magic of the winter backcountry. At the same time, it raises funds to help grassroots groups to continue to protect wild areas.
The Melbourne showing is being held in early May.
Full details here.
John Reid was a well known and very influential naturalist from the Melbourne area who inspired many thousands of children and adults to better understand and love the places where they live.
As Val Himmelreich and Jean Edwards say in their memorial, “His knowledge of plants, birds and other fauna was exceptional and his quiet yet authoritative way of imparting his knowledge to those around him started many of us on a path of understanding and appreciation of our local natural environment”.
I met John many times while living in the Dandenongs, and loved his quiet passion for natural landscapes and his remarkable knowledge of plants and animals. He was a genuine and authentic person, and his passing in February will leave a big gap in the lives of many, and a real loss of knowledge about natural systems, at a time when we need this knowledge more than ever.
Thank-you, John, for your works to educate and empower people to understand and protect their home place. Go well.
The following story about John comes from the wonderful regional newsletter The Understorey.
The Dandenong Ranges
A healthy waterways initiative
The Merri Creek at Galada Tamboore (Wurundjeri language for "stream waterhole") in Campbellfield/Thomastown. Image: MCMC
Tuesday 7 February 2012
6:00pm – 8:00pm
CERES Community Environment Park
Stewart Street, Brunswick East (Melway 30 B7)
Meet at 6:00pm on Merri Creek Trail, east of Merri Creek Management Committee Building (near end of Lee St, Brunswick East)
Click here to see map, and location of 6:00pm meeting place on Merri Creek Trail.
There is no charge to attend.
In January 2012, an injured platypus was discovered in Merri Creek. Since the find, Melbourne Water has introduced additional platypus surveying on the creek. We are pleased to invite you, your colleagues and friends to this information session about our platypus monitoring program and how platypus surveys are done.
Click here to read more about the recent find.
Melbourne Water people will be joined at the information session by people from cesar Australia, our platypus monitoring contractors.
At 6:00pm, join us on the Merri Creek Trail to see how nets are set up for platypus surveys.
At about 7:00pm, join us in Rooms 2 and 3 at CERES (Stewart Street entrance) to find out about platypus biology, Melbourne Water’s platypus monitoring program – including additional monitoring since the January find – and results of monitoring.
We look forward to seeing you there.
More information
Eddie Tsyrlin, Senior Aquatic Scientist, Melbourne Water Phone: 0413 995 525 Email: edward.tsyrlin@melbournewater.com.au
Sunset from The Bluff, VIC
With all the debate about whether cows should be allowed to graze in the Alpine National Park as part of a ‘trial’ to test whether grazing reduces fire risk, there has been some hyperventilating by the mountain cattleman’s association, with a bit of nationalist tub thumping (“It’s like spitting on the Australian flag”, said Charlie Lovick) but one statement especially disturbed me.
Association president Mark Coleman, while describing his belief that Mr Burke had made his decision to “appease the Greens”, said “there is nothing more historical about the alps than the mountain cattlemen.”
There are so many aspects to the human story of the Alps: Indigenous people, settlers, loggers, graziers, the Anglo and Chinese people who worked the high country mines, the women who kept rural families together, the posties who crossed the alps on skis, the European workers who provided much of the labor for the Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme and so on. Yet we fixate on one group.
In the current debate we need to remember that traditional owners of the High Country have been largely ‘liquid papered’ out of the story.
Maybe it’s time to acknowledge some of the other stories that come to us from the mountains?
There is a bit of a longer ramble on this topic here.
The social revolutionary thinker, writer, ecologist, environmental activist and founder of Planet Drum Foundation died on July 28, 2011. Peter Berg was an unforgettable personality for anyone who made his acquaintance over the past several decades.
– from the Planet Drum website
Image: Planet Drum Foundation
Back in 1990, when I was involved with setting up the Yarra Yarra Bioregional Network, I had a call from someone to see if we would host the famous bioregionalist Peter Berg. Of course, I jumped at the chance.
Peter and his partner, Judy Goldhaft, were travelling Australia, to spread the good word of place based culture, art and politics, and apart from the forums we put on in Melbourne, I spent several days with Judy and Peter, including taking them on a tour of the Upper Yarra valley. It was a most illuminating visit, Peter was like a graceful elder, happy to share his wide ranging experiences, and was constantly both good company and an insightful commentator on local culture.
He and Judy provided wonderful hospitality when I stayed with them a number of times in the mid 90s in their house above the offices of Planet Drum Foundation in San Francisco, but in recent years correspondence had fallen away. Then recently I started to work my way back through some books that had been good friends in my formative years as an activist and I found a chapter in a book by Peter about the days of the Diggers in the late 1960s and his conversion/ evolution that lead him to become a key bioregional thinker and writer in the following decades. It got me thinking about Peter and what he might be up to. In recent times I had tracked some of his work in both Japan and Ecuador. Peter was always ‘keeping the faith’ but also looking for new places to put his shoulder to the wheel.
It came as a huge surprise to hear from my friend Ernie in Spain that Peter had passed away.
We all have our time and no one lasts for ever and Peter had, as they say, a good innings. But it was a real shock and felt like there was a huge gap in the forest of ecological thinking. Peter felt like a big old tree, and suddenly the gap in the canopy showed the reach of his influence.
As we rush headlong into relentless cultural erosion and ecological breakdown, and face the newer challenges of climate change, we are in greater need of sane thinking about how to get out of our various crises than ever before. Corporate-controlled globalisation, the generic nature of consumer lifestyles (and the massive corporate networks that frame and feed these lifestyles) lead us into an ever more perilous century. Place based thinking – thinking that puts people back into place – is possibly as strong as ever, but is almost invisible. In the global North, it manifests through slow food movements, farmers markets, transition towns, permaculture and peak oil groups. But a lot of this energy and movement can feel like they are new forms of consumer lifestyles because they are often stripped bare of politics, or a desire for justice. Witness the constant mantra of many transition towners that I meet – ‘we don’t do politics’ (which is kind of like saying ‘we don’t breathe’).
In the global South, groups like La Via Campesina spearhead the resistance by place based cultures, representing many millions of traditional farmers and growers.
What we need in the North is a new political sensibility, one that understands ecological limits and the need for a cultural transition rather than relying either on simple personal action or political lobbying. Peter and Planet Drum Foundation, which he helped establish, was one of the voices that filled this niche, through their focus on reinhabiting country and building lifestyles and cultures that are resilient, while understanding the forces you will come up against in seeking a true ‘sustainability’. Peter largely worked outside the institutionalisation of environmental NGOs and his deep ecological analysis avoided the sometimes glib, often highly pragmatic choices and politics of this movement. The bioregional movement had the intellectual courage to declare that consumer culture was indeed naked, and needed an entirely new set of clothes. Go well, Peter, you will be sadly missed.
on the Rams Head range, Snowy Mountains
This news report comes from the ABC.
Tourism hope for ancient Aboriginal pathway
Traditional owners from the New South Wales south east have completed a major on-ground survey of an ancient Aboriginal pathway.
The Bundian Way stretches 300km from Mt Kosciuszko to Fisheries Beach, near Eden.
A team of 20 people have walked the track this week to explore the potential for a new tourism venture.
The Project Officer with the Eden Local Aboriginal Land Council, John Blay, says it has a lot to offer.
“It’s like thousands of backyards one after another,” he said.
“There are so many different places along the route.
“It was amazing to find massive yam gardens in wild country as well as along the Monaro.
“The beauty of some of those landscapes across the Monaro is awesome, just as when you come down into the coastal forests.
“It’s quite wonderful what you get to see.”
You can see a lot of scenery out a car window. But there is no better way to get out into country and experience a place than walking. Guidebooks can sometimes take some of the magic out of exploring because they lay it all out for you. The guide writers have done all the hard work and you just need to put in the muscle power.
In some ways, the Daywalks Around Victoria guide put out recently by Open Space Publishing ticks all the boxes to make it dummy proof: good maps, very intricate track notes, and it seems to be the first Australian guide where each described walk can be downloaded for free as a GPX file for use in a hand-held navigation device, or opened directly in Google Earth.
And that’s all a good thing – it makes walking far more accessible to folks that aren’t hard core adventurers. But having road-tested 2 walks in the book, it also has the simple beauty of having maps that are good enough to provide the guide, leaving the notes themselves perhaps for the more obscure walks with difficult or off track sections. And because it covers a number of areas that aren’t obvious contenders for day walks, it will probably broaden many people’s thinking about good places for walks.
The book has been put together by Glenn Tempest, and features 36 daywalks that cover a really thoughtful and representative cross section of the bioregions found in Victoria. From semi-desert to mountains, each well researched and often with a nice note from Glenn at the end explaining his thoughts about the area.
And while they are day walks, they are not all accessible as day trips from Melbourne, meaning they can be dropped into longer touring and walking trips. Its a great guide, beautifully put together, with some outstanding photography that captures some gorgeous aspects of Victoria. And it has wanders in ‘human’ areas rather than just ‘wilderness’ or remote places.
You can order it directly from OSP or find it in outdoor and bushwalking stores. Highly recommended.
a new book by Maya Ward
PLEASE NOTE:
Castlemaine launch, July 23, 2011.
This will be held at Lot 19.
Janet Phillips will be launching the event,
mamas kitchen will be serving exquisite hungarian food for vegans gluten intolerants and meat lovers, and papas bar will provide refreshments
3pm on Saturday 23rd of July,
in the heated gallery, we hope to see you there.
–
Melbourne launch
There will be another launch of this book in Melbourne, at Friends of the Earth, July 6th.
Full details here.
–
The book will be launched on Thursday 2 June 2011 – 6 for 6.30pm
at the Bella Union, Trades Hall. Level 1, corner of Victoria & Lygon Streets, Carlton South
RSVP: info@transitlounge.com.au or 03 9332 7847
This is the joyful yet heartbreaking true story of four friends who walk a 21- day pilgrimage from the sea to the source of Melbourne’s Yarra River. There is no path for most of the way, but offers of campsites and boats, and free access to private lands, illustrates the generosity shown to pilgrims even in modern times. Maya Ward’s lyrical exploration of her river as it winds through the city and the wild is a revelation, a testament to the fact that the greatest of worlds are often at our doorstep. Its author understands the power of the natural world to transform lives, and writes about the connection between a river and the self with humility, humour, and a clear-headed wisdom.
The telling of her own journey and that of her fellow walkers is seamlessly woven together with ecological and cultural history, the revelation of the pilgrim’s path and the unknowable depth of Aboriginal myth. Through trekking this Wurundjeri Songline, this ancient, ever-renewing river, she discovers rich possibilities of belonging, and shares how a river can nourish the passion and resilience required to transform our world.
Further information here.
Although this story comes from the UK, it seemed relevant given the on-going debate we are having here in Victoria about wind farms.
I am a WIMBY. The fight for renewable energy begins here!
Whilst polls reveal overwhelming support for wind energy – 74% are in favour of increasing it – a staggering 75% of onshore applications are being turned down by planning committees.
WIMBY stands for Wind in My Back Yard. It was influenced by Facebook groups who are already campaigning for wind energy in the UK. For example, more than 37,000 people are already members of groups such as Put a Windfarm in My Backyard if You Like.
The WIMBY campaign will seek to empower people to make the case locally for windfarms in their areas, and to let politicians know that people who support renewable energy are tired of being pushed out of the debate by anti-wind groups.
This campaign is run by Embrace my Planet.
Backcountry film festival
Showing in Melbourne, next week April 12
The Backcountry Film Festival has been going since 2005 and aims to showcase films which clebrate the winter outdoors.
April 12
Films start at 8pm. Please feel free to arrive earlier to grab a drink.
At 303 (303 High street, Northcote), tram stop #32 on the #86 tram.
303 is a licensed bar.
Entry by donation. All funds raised will support Protect Our Winters.
This year’s festival features:
Best of the Festival: Teton Gravity Research’s festival cut of “Deeper” follows legendary snowboarder Jeremy Jones and other top riders as they forsake helicopters, snowmobiles and lifts to venture deep into untouched terrain under their own power.
Best Short Film: “Desert River” from Sweetgrass Productions, is a beautiful ski adventure into Alaska.
Best Environmental Film: “Whitebark Warrior” from TreeFight and Snaz Media, chronicles the decline of thousand-year old whitebark pines due to climate change and efforts underway to save these iconic high alpine trees.
Other Films Include: Australis, TELEvision and Cross Country Snowboarding.
Full details on the Melbourne showing here.
