UGLN Awarded for Fire Recovery Effort

The enormous post fire efforts of the Upper Goulburn Landcare Network and its many supporters was acknowledged at last week’s Victorian Landcare Awards presentation.

The Fire Recovery Award was received on behalf of the Network by Terry Hubbard UGLN President and Chris Cobern, Fire Recovery Coordinator at Government House from the Hon Alex Chernov AO QC Governor of Victoria and the Hon Ryan Smith Minister for Environment.

A great deal of credit for the Award must go to those landcare people who met at Terry Hubbards place just three days after the fire and who feared a backlash against Landcare and the environment in general.

They felt that the UGLN with its ability to respond quickly and decisively and having strong environmental links with the community were well placed to find out the immediate needs of those affected, be proactive in coordinating volunteers and to this end .... work commenced immediately. This Award also reflects the earlier efforts of people like Bridget Clark, Janet Hagen and their bands of volunteers.

In total the UGLN with fantastic support from volunteers has undertaken a recovery program with an estimated value of over $3m.

All our efforts have been well supported by the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority, in particular Tony Kubeil who entrusted our volunteer Executive and Coordinators after the fires to roll out what has been an astonishing program.

The UGLN efforts have also been recognised for the nationally prestigious Banksia Awards (finalist) and as winner of the Regional Landcare Award.

Round-leaf Pomaderris

A team from Conservation Volunteers Australia has doing some great work with us tree planting and removing Cape Broom and English Broom from properties in the Kinglake/Flowerdale area.

One of the days was spent planting at the Stony Creek reserve in Kinglake West. The reserve has had holly and blackberry control works over the last two years. Now with the weeds under control we are able to carry out revegetation.
Plants included fifty of the very rare Pomaderris vaccinifolia or Round-leaf Pomaderris. These very special plants were grown for us by Healesville Environment Watch from seed collected in the Toolangi area.

We also planted more of the Pomaderris on private land along the Number One Creek in Kinglake, Island Creek in Glenburn, at the Murrindindi Scenic Reserve (with assistance from DSE) and on private land along the Murrindindi River in Murrindindi.

Bunnings support UGLN nest box program

On Saturday 5th November we held a nest box building day at Bunnings in Shepparton.

Volunteers from the local community, Shepparton Mens Shed and Uniting Care built 68 nest boxes for Sugar Gliders, King Parrots and Owlet Nightjars.

Bunnings kindly donated $4,000 worth of timber, hardware and paint as well as providing a marquee, cold drinks and staff to assist Karen and myself on the day.


The nest boxes will be installed on properties throughout the fire affected areas of Murrindindi Shire.

Phone Chris on 0413 855 490 for more information or if you'd like some nest boxes for your property.

DSE Planting Day on Murrindindi River

Volunteers from the DSE and the Dept of Planning and Rural Communities planted 300 shrubs and grasses along the Murrindindi River in Murrindindi.

The plantings were a great support for the local Yea River Landcare Group who have spent many hours carrying out weed control and improving this and other reserves in the area.

The reserve is a popular fishing spot and the work they did also beautifies the area for other recreational users and lovers of nature.

Local kids build homes for wildlife

Students from Yea High School and the Kinglake Scouts have been building nest boxes for wildlife which we have been installing on properties in Flowerdale, Junction Hill and Kinglake.

Due to the loss of many hollow bearing trees in the area as a result of the fires, we are providing artificial homes for the animals that generally nest in hollows in the trees. Suitable hollows can take many decades to form.

Recent inspections of boxes that we installed last year have discovered that they are being used by Ringtail Possums, Brush-tailed Phascogales and Sugar Gliders.

This is the second year that the students and Scouts have been involved with our fire recovery nest box project. Installing the boxes involves more than just nailing them to a tree. The kids record on a data sheet the height of the box, tree type, nest box and entrance aspect using a compass and they also GPS the location so we can find them later to inspect.