newsletter Issue 24 Spring 2012 Supporting landholders with native vegetation Striking Jacksonia What is that splendid by Karen Walker flowering shrub or small Seed Bank Coordinator tree of weeping habit, with breathable cloth bag which will pea flowers in yellow to capture the seed when it pops orange shades that blossom from the small pods. The timing of at this time each year? this is unpredictable and sudden. Spring is the season of There are usually 1 or 2 seeds per pod, but they are very Jacksonia scoparia , a susceptible to insect attack. prolifically flowering indicator species of our As a member of the pea family, the seed requires heat treatment Lowland Grassy Woodland prior to sowing (boiling water Endangered Ecological poured over seed and left to soak Community. overnight) and supposedly germinates well. Cuttings are said Jacksonia ’s spring flowering to strike readily. makes up for being almost inconspicuous at other times of Consider planting Jacksonia on the year, with thin, broom-like, drier sites in revegetation grey-green foliage lacking in projects, in windbreaks and in apparent leaves, with plants seed production areas. It looks growing 4-6m high. Most plants I great, as a legume it will presumably fix nitrogen and see are centred around Buckajo, Contents insects, birds and butterflies will Candelo and Tantawangalo areas, love it too! Jacksonia 1 often on road verges. The genus Jacksonia comprises Coordinator’s column 2 40 species Australia wide (except History, Fire, South Australia). It is named after botanical librarian George Jackson Global CO2 3 and with scoparia meaning broom or brush-like, which refers to the Birdsong 4 foliage. Jacksonia can sometimes The Pittosporum be confused with the weed Scotch broom ( Cytisus scoparius) . 'Problem' 5 Our local Jacksonia could be Andrew Morrison 6 considered “locally rare” and prefers to grow in low nutrient, Fire Workshop 7 gravelly soil (shales & clays). Every year I attempt to collect Rodway Alison Photos: seed, which involves “bagging” FSCCMN the Springracemes 2012with a form of p Next Workshop Coordinator’s column Bill Gammage’s latest book, The Biggest Estate on Earth has sparked many new conversations about fire and reignited interest in fire as a tool for managing landscapes. Most of the articles in this edition deal with fire in some way, particularly in relation to managing our lowland grassy woodlands. These stories along with our workshop on fire with Fink. If you also write poetry Jackie Miles earlier this month that could inspire other are just the start of our CMN members then I’d love to read it. Seed Collection conversation on this topic. I hope you enjoy these photos with Karen Walker There was a remarkable of one of my favourite trees, the Why, where, when, how? response to the recent CMN Blueberry ash, which is flowering Sat 9 February 2013 survey. The information is right now in our coastal forests. heartening and will be useful for Their delicate fringed flowers, Contact Ali (details below) planning what happens with the the leaves that turn red as they network over the next two get older and their lovely purple years. blue berries are worth making pilgrimages for each November. I’m excited to print our first Contact the poem from CMN member Averil Ali FSCCMN Alison Rodway PO Box 118 Bega NSW 2550 Photos: Alison Rodway Alison Photos: (02) 6491 8224 (w) Blueberry Ash Elaeocarpus reticulatus at Gillards Beach 0457 542 440 (m) [email protected] www.fsccmn.com.au What is the CMN? The Far South Coast Conservation Management Network (CMN) supports landholders in the Bega Valley Shire to manage native vegetation on their property and caters to all land holders and vegetation types. The CMN is funded and supported in various ways by the Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority, Department of Environment and Climate Change and Bega Valley Shire Council. These agencies are working with landholders to protect native vegetation on private as well as public land. The CMN’s role is to provide motivation, knowledge and skills support to landholders to ensure ongoing management and care is worthwhile for the landholder and the environment. FSCCMN Spring 2012 p 2 History, Fire, Global CO2 and the Photo: Frank Oliver management of endangered grassy woodlands We often focus on the (but specific) areas of Australia by Josh Dorrough, were open and grassy owing to Ecological research consultant temperature aspects of Visiting Scientist at CSIRO climate change but rising intentional, planned fire atmospheric CO is with us undertaken by indigenous 2 Australians. With the removal of maintaining open grassy here and now and is already planned fire following European ecosystems across the globe. changing vegetation and settlement many of these areas impacting on how we can rapidly thickened, promoting large The work of Bond and Midgley manage it. Conditions are destructive fires and requiring adds an additional element to the rapidly shifting in favour of clearing of regrowth. historical story told in The Biggest Estate on Earth . Their central trees over grasses and this More recently, land retirement (or argument is that while fires are has big implications for how removal of livestock) in open crucial to determining the relative we manage landscapes with grassy woodlands often leads to dominance of trees in higher rapid regeneration, and loss of the fire. rainfall savannah landscapes, open woodland characteristics, atmospheric CO concentrations3 There are two recent publications presenting a significant challenge 2 influence how effective fire is. that have had a huge impact on for conservation management of how I view the Australian Under current CO 2 levels, tree and landscape. Bill Gammage’s shrub seedling growth rates are wonderfully rich book The Biggest possibly several times faster Estate on Earth has challenged my than they were at the time of ideas about current and historical European arrival. This is land management and vegetation important because the size of patterns. The second is a many tree and shrub seedlings is research paper by William Bond closely related to their ability to and Guy Midgley which details the survive grass fires – the bigger the impact of changes in our global seedling, the more likely they can atmosphere on vegetation, in 1 survive a fire and go on to particular the influence of become a large adult tree. In atmospheric CO 2 levels on tree higher rainfall areas, some trees densities in grasslands and grassy and shrubs that might have woodland ecosystems (savannah). reached a size where they can Despite the considerable survive fire in 3 to 4 years could do so in 12 to 18 months. differences in the two publications2 there is a strong theme current to While increasing rates of tree and both. Both see fire as central to these ecosystems. Gammage shrub growth due to increased determining many vegetation would argue these landscapes lack CO 2 might be good in some patterns, something most the fire regimes necessary to keep respects, making it increasingly ecologists and land managers country open. Previous work by possible to restore tree cover would agree with. Gammage Bond and Midgley has also (Continued on page 4) strongly argues that in 1788 vast demonstrated the role of fire in FSCCMN Spring 2012 p 3 (Continued from page 3) native Poa tussocks), at low CO 2 impacts on biodiversity and rapidly to agricultural landscapes concentrations. Tree and shrub current land use. Other with appropriate soils and seedling growth in contrast was management strategies may need management, it does have serious much slower and relatively few to be employed if we want to implications for how successfully fires were necessary to tip the keep our woodlands and forests we can use fire to keep country balance in favour of open grassy open and grassy, including open and grassy, which is ecosystems. physical removal, stem injection essential for maintaining much of with herbicide and strategic use of By the time of European arrival in the ground layer diversity of livestock. Australia CO levels had risen to grasslands, grassy woodlands and 2 about 280 ppm and the climate Regardless of the rate at which grassy forests. While trees in was warmer and wetter. Trees our climate is changing due to woodlands are good for and shrubs would have been human actions, the effects of biodiversity, dense thickets may growing faster and fires would rising atmospheric CO are already not be. 2 need to have been more frequent here. Navigating the interactions During the last glacial period to keep country open. Since then between CO 2, vegetation change (which peaked ~20,000 years CO 2 has risen dramatically and and fire is a challenge for how we ago) atmospheric CO 2 levels were throughout the world tree manage our land now and into less than half what they are densities in savannah woodlands the future. today, approximately 180ppm (it have been found to be increasing, Footnotes: is now 392 ppm and rising). In even where historic fire southern Australia not only was it frequencies have been 1 Bill Gammage 2011 The Biggest much colder and drier, but lower maintained. Estate on Earth Allen & Unwin CO levels were strongly limiting 2 It is almost certain that returning 2 William Bond and Guy Midgley for plant growth. Under these to pre-1788 fire regimes will not 2012 “Carbon dioxide and the circumstances grasses dominated uneasy interactions of trees and have the same effect that it did many landscapes, in particular savannah grasses” Philosophical then or several thousand years drought tolerant C summer active Transactions of the Royal Society 4 before. There is little doubt that grasses, such as Kangaroo Grass B 367: 601-612 more frequent fires will be (Themeda triandra ).