Friends of the bush disappointed

Dear editor,

After thirty years of the Friends of Bannockburn Bush conducting and supporting good management there and being the one consistent presence, due to low funding and handpassing by Parks Vic and DEECA, a new group, Western Region Ecological Network has been formed from the ashes of the former Ballarat Environment Network.

WREN looks at present as though they want to fully exclude FOBB from management decisions, firewood collection and conservation work.

We have several projects running and grants to manage and cannot get access.

BEN and WREN have taken over $20,000 pa of sugar gum from the reserve to support the 40 other reserves for which they are a Committee of Management under DEECA.

FOBB has no say in the logging operations but does do regeneration work.

The WREN board promised us the world in support and funding… We have had worse than nothing and our two most dedicated workers have become tools of WREN… It seems that the rest of us are the ‘Biodiversity crew’ without portfolio.

We have been accused…of defying OH&S procedures and damaging native vegetation. There was no answer when I asked for evidence or an apology.

WREN has managed and tried to justify extensive damage to our Fire Dram track in the process of removing overhead vegetation. This work was done with a large logging machine but should have been done with a much smaller cherry picker to avoid such serious damage to the other vegetation.

In contrast, FOBB members cleared the Whip snake track by hand with chainsaws and more than met the CFA requirements.

In a 2023 meeting with DEECA, to establish WREN, between the old BEN committee, on which FOBB was represented, FOBB was congratulated effusively for our work in the reserve. It was recognised as exemplary and unmatched by any other group in the WREN system of reserves.

Yet, on Sunday 9 June, we found that all the locks had been changed without any warning and our own locks had been taken. We couldn’t get in via the gates without doing damage.

The irony is breathtaking as it was a FOBB project to lock out vegetation damaging activities. Now it looks like the fox oversees the hen house…

As DEECA oversee the unelected WREN group, I have requested a tour with them asap to re-establish our normal program.

This reserve was established in part to provide local community with firewood, and as a conservation reserve. It was not intended to be the major funding source for a Ballarat based group.

Stuart McCallum

Secretary

Friends of Bannockburn Bush