Support for flora strategy

By Mara Pattison-Sowden
A PROMINENT Healesville environmentalist has come out in support of the draft Flora and Fauna Management Strategy, saying that it identifies a number of good initiatives for looking after the land into the future.
Sarah Rees told the Mail the strategy was aspirational and ticked a lot of the boxes when it came to sustaining the environment.
“There are some nice initiatives around monitoring ecosystems, especially on roadsides and reserves,” she said.
“But whether we will see some of these changes on the ground remains to be seen.”
Ms Rees said the strategy did an excellent job in identifying threats and problems, “but how well they manage those will be up to state powers.”
“How much of it can they implement when a lot falls under State Government legislation?” she asked.
A fundamental activist against logging in native forests, Ms Rees said the strategy was “not as toothy” as she would like it to be in regards to logging.
“Supposedly they have a strong policy on logging in catchments but we’re seeing logging in catchments within the shire,” she said.
“Some of the biggest impacts on land is from logging and this doesn’t deal with those issues.”
Ms Rees said there had to be compromises involved in living in the Yarra Ranges environment.
“We can’t have everything cleared,” she said.
“If farmers don’t want hollows on the roadsides, they should provide them on their land.”
She also believes a mix of exotic and indigenous trees would continue to be beneficial to the environment.
“We have an amazing amount of native vegetation but it would be adequate to have smaller areas of exotics,” she said, mentioning the exotics that shielded her sister’s house in Chum Creek during Black Saturday.
Yarra Ranges Council formally adopted a policy opposing logging in water catchment areas in November 2008.
Council spokesman James Martin said the council did not have any ownership of land in water catchments.
He also said the draft flora and fauna strategy talked about logging, both in water catchments and more generally, from pages 58 to 62 of the strategy.
The council maintains the draft strategy cannot and will not over-ride state or federal government legislation.
Mr Martin said the document was really the formalisation of many of the “best practice” activities undertaken by council in working on and protecting council land.
“The document, once finalised and following community feedback, will also be used to help raise awareness on the importance of our region’s flora and fauna – including exotic species,” he said.
The draft Flora and Fauna Management Strategy is available for viewing online and at all community links. Submissions will be received until 4 April..