Autumn 2012 Newsletter

In this issue BUSH Scottsdale’s peppery new resident 3 4 Around your reserves HERITAGE 6 Eurardy through a photographer’s lens 7 Sowing seeds at Scottsdale NEWS 8 Welcome from our new CEO Autumn 2012 www.bushheritage.org.au The fight for Ethabuka and Cravens Peak What gives someone the strength to battle one of Bush Heritage’s greatest natural emergencies? Lucy Ashley spoke with Karen Dermer about her experience when wildfire threatened your Cravens Peak and Ethabuka Reserves in western Queensland late last year. It wasn’t long after Karen Dermer had put see was the big fire out in the desert that “To see them working her three children, Asha (6), Clay (4) and their dad was helping to put out. Dad was Zavier (1) to bed before she heard the very good at putting out fires and together – and supporting sounds of tiny feet coming back down the everything would be fine. each other to help protect a hallway. Asha and Clay just couldn’t contain Tucking them back into bed, Karen stepped their excitement. There was a huge orange outside to take another look at the sky. place they so clearly love – was glow in the sky and they just had to tell Despite how close it looked at night, she truly awe inspiring.” Mum all about it. knew from satellite imagery that this fire Karen listened to her kids as they was far away. Still, it would be good to have Above: Lightning strikes started the blaze at described what they’d seen from their Al and his fire-fighting crew back home safe Ethabuka Reserve bedroom window. Then she took a deep and sound for even a few hours’ rest before Photograph by Al Dermer breath, and as calmly as she could, they were up and off again. explained that the orange glow they could Continued on page 2 It was a big decision for Al Dermer and his as many as 32 people, comprising Bush wife Karen to return to your Cravens Peak Heritage staff from eastern Queensland and Ethabuka Reserves last August as and South Australia, neighbours, local interim reserve managers after years away volunteers and members of several from the reserve. Queensland government departments to No-one among the Bush Heritage staff has control the fires and stop them spreading a more enduring connection to this wild and to neighbouring land. remote place than Al and Karen. As the Supporting the fire-fighting team at ‘home properties’ first reserve managers starting base’ was Karen, balancing her role as just after the reserves were purchased with parent with countless other tasks. In the your help in 2004, Karen and Al put several desert, she says, in situations like this you years of back-breaking work into the long, just get on and do whatever you have to do. slow process of nurturing this formerly In any one day this meant a busy schedule barren and dusty land, full of skeletons of of home-schooling Asha, looking after her trees and cattle, back to glorious life. two boys, filling the vital role of community Al and Karen have so much of themselves liaison officer for the local fire-fighting invested here. Their eldest child Asha took efforts, and making sure that their food her first baby steps in the red sand around supplies held up for as long as needed. the Ethabuka homestead. And during the “We ate a lot of potatoes, rice and cabbage,” fires, Zavier did the same at Cravens Peak. she says. “Camel curry became our Thanks to your fantastic support, Al and night-time staple.” Karen have seen an almost wondrous One of the Bush Heritage staff on the front transformation in the land they left a few line with Al Dermer was Mo Pieterse. Mo is years ago, which back then was only just our new Field Officer at Cravens Peak and showing the first signs of recovery. Several Ethabuka, and you could say that his first good seasons of rain have caused month in his job was a real baptism of fire. wetlands, water courses and creeks to fill, and for abundant bird life to return. The He says watching Karen and Al juggle so desert dunes are carpeted in spinifex and many vital roles so well throughout the healthy coolabahs, creating safe havens for emergency, from fighting fires one day to desert-dwelling small mammals, reptiles piggy-backing their squealing kids around and birds. the yard at Cravens Peak the next, was really something special. Though drought will come again to this Top Right: Ethabuka homestead was Karen and her land, as it always does in the Simpson “To see them working together – and family’s home for the duration of the fires in 2011 Desert, Al and Karen know that it will now supporting each other to help protect a place Bottom: The aftermath of the fires at Ethabuka be more resilient. they so clearly love – was truly awe inspiring.” Bottom Left: Al and Karen Dermer with their So when all we’ve achieved together at Ethabuka and Cravens Peak reserves were children (from left to right) Asha, Clay and Zavier Cravens Peak and Ethabuka came under acquired in 2004 and 2005 with the threat late last year from wildfire, Al and assistance of the Australian government’s All photographs by Al Dermer Karen dedicated their waking hours to National Reserve System program and The fighting the fires, as well as ensuring the Nature Conservancy. Bush Heritage also safety of their family and fellow firefighters. thanks Diversicon Environmental Foundation for assistance in the purchase of Ethabuka, For nearly eight long weeks, Al worked with and the Estate of Josephine Gay Bell for a team of firefighters, sometimes including assistance in the purchase of Cravens Peak. Thank you from Al and Karen Approximately 27 per cent of Ethabuka and Cravens Peak reserves burnt during the fires, but thanks to the work you’ve helped Al and other reserve managers do, the news is not all bad. Much of the land was burnt in patches, allowing animals places to seek refuge. New life has begun to emerge after Summer rains, preventing erosion and providing animals with shelter and food. We’ll update you when the rain stops and the land dries out, allowing ecologists to access the reserves. Thanks to your ongoing support, their assessments will help to improve and refine our fire management plans. To continue your support for this important work across all our reserves, go to: www.bushheritage.org.au/donate 2 Bush Heritage News | Autumn 2012 In May 2004, Rainer Rehwinkel found interested to see how it goes in the long something special in his backyard. “At first term and whether it seeds.” Scottsdale’s I thought it was a daisy, so I waited for it to flower, then I realised it was a peppercress “So far, of all the translocations peppery new – that’s when I became really excited,” he says. The endangered aromatic peppercress undertaken in 2011, the (Lepidium hyssopifolium) is currently known peppercress has only emerged resident only to exist in one other location in New South Wales. Rainer had accidentally at Scottsdale.” The endangered aromatic unearthed it while establishing a garden at peppercress has a new lease Scottsdale Reserve holds a very special his new property in Bungendore. place in the heart of many Bush Heritage on life at its new home in As Senior Threatened Species Officer at supporters, including Enid, who describes Scottsdale Reserve thanks NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, herself as “one of the gardening brigade” to Rainer Rehwinkel and you, Rainer is one of very few people who could that care for the peppercress, along with Bush Heritage’s supporters. have recognised the native, which is a other plants in Scottsdale’s native plant Kelly Irving reports. member of the cabbage family and is easily nursery. A high-profile site in the mistaken for a weed. He’s travelled to over Kosciuszko to Coast project area, its Above: The aromatic peppercress 3000 sites looking for endangered transformation since 2006 and its Photograph by Stuart Cohen grassland and woodland sites in South- continuous maintenance is down to the east New South Wales. Often, it’s taken care of our conservation partners, donors him days just to get to one site. “That’s why and volunteers. Thanks to you, the future it’s so odd this plant came up in my looks bright for the peppercress. backyard!” He laughs. Yet our work doesn’t stop there. Rainer Rainer knew the peppercress needed a says it’s crucial we learn to understand new, more secure home. “If we ever decide what is threatening this species. “Just to sell the house then there’s no guarantee because it’s in the reserve doesn’t mean that the next owner will look after the our work is done,” he says. “There are lots plants.” Feeling responsible for its survival, of questions that need answers. For he set to work on several translocation example, as its name suggests, the projects to try and increase the plant’s peppercress’s leaves have a peppery taste, population. In July 2011, he joined forces so does this make it particularly palatable, with Bush Heritage and the peppercress and thus vulnerable to grazing animals?” got a new address at Scottsdale Reserve. “Bush Heritage offers us a great opportunity Our volunteers played an instrumental role in to find out more,” says Rainer. “We have a the move. They planted seeds at four sites in responsibility to try as hard as we can.” the reserve, including three around the Scottsdale Reserve was acquired in 2006 shearing shed in disturbed ground similar to with the assistance of David Rickards, in where the peppercress emerged in Rainer’s memory of Helen Rickards, the Vincent garden.

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