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Summer08 Newsletter V6.Indd Bush Heritage News www.bushheritage.org.au Summer 2008 In this issue Volunteering at Cravens Peak • The Kosciuszko to Coast landscape partnership • Wildfl ower season at Eurardy Reserve • 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species ENDANGERED Nearly 1600 species of plants and animals are listed as nationally threatened. You can help save them – see back page for details. Creating the herbarium at Cravens Peak Volunteers Max and Margaret includes managing camel incursions The fi eld herbarium project was Bourke discuss their experiences from the Northern Territory, maintaining established to complement work volunteering at Cravens Peak Reserve, boundary fences and minimising the undertaken by the Royal Geographic where they helped set up the herbarium impact of bushfi res, especially in the Society of Queensland in 2007. The dunefi elds. Although the University of herbarium – a collection of preserved Cravens Peak in south-west Sydney’s Desert Ecology Group has plant specimens – aims to fi ll these Queensland is Bush Heritage’s largest, revealed much about the dunefi elds gaps and is an important part of the most diverse and most remote reserve. through their long-term work in the ongoing effort to understand this It is in relatively healthy condition, area, Cravens Peak is so vast and beautiful and biologically important despite the damage that had been remote that many areas have never region. Herbaria preserve a historical caused by grazing. Recovery work been biologically surveyed. record of change in vegetation over Clockwise from top: Flowering pink fringe myrtle (Calytrix longifl ora) on a sand dune after winter rains, part of the biologically diverse desert ecosystem on Cravens Peak Reserve, Qld. PHOTO: WAYNE LAWLER/ECOPIX Parrot pea (Crotalaria cunninghamii). Max and Margaret Bourke with BHA ecologist Paul Foreman (right). Pituri bush (Duboisia hopwoodii). PHOTOS: MAX AND MARGARET BOURKE Flowering parakeelya (Calandrinia balonensis) PHOTO: WAYNE LAWLER/ECOPIX Summer 2008 1 time, and provide a vital reference for to work on any of the Bush Heritage delighted. This project meant we would plant identification. properties. Our major criterion was that be doing some of the baseline recording we wanted to help on the scientific in an environment which Max knew and The Toko Range, which runs along wanted to know better. the northern boundary of the property, program. As Bush Heritage has purchased property of high ecological can be thought of as the dividing line In 2007 the Royal Geographic Society value, we believe that it is important between the sand of the Simpson of Queensland had collected botanical that the scientific benchmarks for Desert and the heavy soils of the specimens on the property, however rehabilitation and preservation are in Channel Country. This is what makes heavy rain had fallen before they place for management. the place so interesting aesthetically, as arrived, which meant that while they well as from a biodiversity point of view. When we were offered the opportunity could make good collections they In our initial application as volunteers to help set up a herbarium at Cravens were restricted in where they could go. we indicated that we were prepared Peak in August this year we were Under the guidance of Paul Foreman, Clockwise from top: Yellowtop daisy bush (Calotis erinacea) flowering on a desert dune near The Coolibah Hole, Cravens Peak Reserve, Qld. Hawk moth (Sphingidae) rests on a coolibah eucalyptus, Cravens Peak Reserve, Qld. PHOTOS: WAYNE LAWLER/ECOPIX Central netted dragon, Cravens Peak Reserve, Qld. PHOTO: PAUL FOREMAN 2 Bush Heritage News a Bush Heritage ecologist, we collected of the Mulligan River, smaller streams Our time at Cravens Peak gave us at sites which had not been previously and inter-dune systems (all dry) were a chance to experience life in the surveyed. Although the conditions this also areas of rich floral diversity. While truly remote outback, as well as the time were very dry, we were able to there are a few invasive species like companionship of the lovely reserve collect approximately 120 flowering Noogoora burr, for the most part the managers. At Cravens Peak if specimens, 20 of which had not been property is in very good shape. The something breaks or you need urgent previously collected, and one, Paul camels are certainly a worry though. supplies, you know Boulia, a very small believes, which had not been previously Having returned from collecting town, is two and a half hours away and recorded in Queensland. specimens in the most remote parts Mt Isa is five hours away! Max had previous professional of the property along the Northern We finished up the herbarium work experience in botanical collecting but Territory border, the next stage was with a week to spare so we spent our not in this environment. On the other to identify them, record the locations last week moving junk to the tip, also a hand, Margaret, as a keen gardener, from GPS data, then mount and store rewarding experience because each day had some botanical knowledge, but them. This was all done according to you could see what had been done! was a novice in the field procedures of a template developed by volunteers at Bush Heritage’s Eurardy Reserve. Life in the desert can be tough with collecting, pressing and recording, which either cold or hot winds blowing. The was made more difficult by the less- The final stage was to scavenge, with reserve managers Nella and Mark hot days make driving over the dunes than-ideal conditions, with cold gale particularly difficult, but boy does the force winds blowing some days. Lithgow, through the homestead’s outbuildings for a suitable storage washing dry quickly! Seeing only eight We did find that plant collecting brings cabinet to house the Cravens Peak people in three weeks and lights out out the hunter instincts, making the Herbarium so it is protected from pest at 9.30 each night because of the quest for a rare or unusual specimen and environmental damage. Duplicates generator meant that it was a novel very exciting. It also leads to close of the collection were sent to the experience, enhanced by no television examination of the landscape, which is Queensland and National herbaria or newspapers … something we did not rewarding in itself. to confirm identification. really notice. The great red dunes of Cravens Now the collection has a starting point. With the sunsets that we had most Peak are magnificent and many of The next addition will be the material nights as we sipped a beer with Mark the species in flower, including the from the Royal Geographic Society’s and Nella, we really missed nothing of Aboriginal favourite, pituri (Duboisia collection. We hope it will be there in the so-called amenities of the city! hopwoodii), occur on the dune ridges. hundreds of years’ time like the very But the variety of flora between the first herbarium collection of Andrea dune swales was the real surprise, and Caesalpini in Padua (1594), which is Thanks to Max and Margaret Bourke the ability of some of the more robust still in use. (Knowing of this monk’s and the Brisbane and Canberra species to thrive and flower in the work in Italy 500 years ago made herbaria for their work, time and in- gibber plains areas is truly astonishing. collecting several members of the family kind support on this project. Along the ephemeral water channels Caesalpinaceae particularly rewarding.) Pictured from left: Spectacular flowering of a field of mulla mulla (Ptilotus macrocephalus) in grassy woodland of Georgina gidyea, Cravens Peak, Qld. Georgina gidyea (Acacia georginae) tree on a pediplain, Cravens Peak Reserve, Qld. PHOTOS: WAYNE LAWLER/ECOPIX Summer 2008 3 K2C has a number of major goals. As well as reconnecting fragmented landscapes and protecting land of high conservation value, the project also aims to improve the health of the land and waterways and to work with traditional owners of the land to glean insights into the seasonal importance of land systems and the movement of species. By working in partnership with local farmers and landowners, the project is not only growing in scale but also building awareness of, and skills in, conservation management among the existing landholders. A major part of Project Facilitator Lauren Van Dyke’s job is encouraging landholders to come onboard. A series of public workshops about K2C were The Kosciuszko to Coast landscape partnership held at Bush Heritage’s Scottsdale Reserve in late spring 2007 and Regional Strategies Team Leader began in 2004, and is coordinated summer 2008, and an open day was Ben Carr explains how Bush Heritage by a network of community groups, held at Scottsdale in October 2008. and partners are working on restoring conservation organisations and A presentation for the public and fragmented landscapes in the government agencies. landholders interested in the K2C Kosciuszko to Coast project Bush Heritage owns two properties project highlighted how Bush Heritage Bush Heritage plays a leadership role in within the current K2C focus area is working to restore and rehabilitate the a number of visionary projects that aim – Scottsdale and Burrin Burrin reserves. ecological values at Scottsdale. to rebuild fragmented landscapes and K2C aims to reconnect isolated ‘Landholders and managers are critical restore them to health. The idea behind woodlands and grasslands between to the success of [K2C], and the this is that rebuilding habitats across Kosciuszko and Namadgi national open day was an opportunity to explain how they could get involved large swathes of country will allow plants parks and the coastal forests of and contribute towards maintaining, and animals to adapt to the changes southern New South Wales in a sustaining and reconnecting the that climate change is predicted to series of ‘biodiversity stepping stones’.
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