The North Central CMA is actively looking to support
large scale carbon projects across our catchment as we
recognise the potential contribution of the carbon market
to support our Regional Catchment Strategy (RCS)
objectives, such as climate change mitigation, retention
and protection of on farm biodiversity, biodiversity links,
stewardship and increasing soil health.
It is our intention to set up an interested landholder
register to allow us to facilitate and enable large scale
projects with our NRM partners in the region. We would
like to hear from any landholders that would be
interested in participating in the carbon market – soil or
revegetation.
As a guide we have provided the following criteria, but
we encourage anyone with an interest to register their
details with us as opportunities may exist for smaller
sites. Keep in mind that a longer-term commitment would
be required on these projects.
Criteria for land
• The preference would be for 50 hectares or
more but 20+ hectares would be acceptable OR
• Long stretch of riparian zones
• Ideally area should provide opportunity for
biodiversity, biolinks and indigenous outcomes
• Looking for ecosystems that hold carbon
Once we have an established list of interested
landholders, we will be in contact in early 2021 with next
steps. We will not share any personal information without
your permission. The intention of this exercise will be to
create project scale – if we get enough of you on board
then we are more likely to have a viable project.
Muckleford Landcare AGM and end of year get together
We will be holding a very informal event for our AGM, planning for next year, and social get together with members.
It is SUNDAY 13TH DECEMBER, 3-5pm at the Muckleford train station.
In the shade of the old trees, down by the creek, we will supply food (Covid protocols means we can’t share food), but you are welcome to bring your own drinks and a comfy chair. Families and guests welcome.
Please RSVP here for catering purposes. All food will be vegetarian and vegan, but please let me know if you need gluten free.
Connecting Country AGM 26 September 2020
Connecting Country 2020 Annual General Meeting (AGM) 2.00 pm Saturday 26 September 2020, online.
Two excellent and engaging speakers: Jess Lawton (Connecting Country) on ‘Connecting Country’s ten years of ecological monitoring’ and Jacinta Humphrey (La Trobe University) on ‘The impact of urbanisation on birds’.
Bassett Creek Planting two years old
The Muckleford Landcare committee is taking ‘shifts’ to clean up the Bassett Creek planting. People are going in twos to take off the guards from our last community planting, as funded by the NCCMA. Plants are doing really well and will hopefully take the form of a corridor with the previous plantings from 16 years ago.
Muckleford Bushland Reserve
The Muckleford Bushland Reserve is public land, entry via the Muckleford School Road. If you’d like a walk, please take a bag with you so you can pick up some rubbish at the same time! It’s a shame, but people are dumping rubbish there.
There have also been some sneaky people taking home firewood…
BUT…it’s a lovely place to forage around. There are some old exclusion plots that must have been erected by a government agency, and no longer monitored or maintained. (Editor’s note: Dave tells me that they were put up by Muckleford Landcare in the early 90s). One fence is down, but the other two plots are still intact. They aren’t very high so don’t keep out roos, but they are worth looking in, to find some lovely plants in flower.
Mammal monitoring 2020
Dear Members, we have carried out the annual monitoring of the Walmer Conservation Reserve. We did this in small groups – Beth, Nev, Theo and Eleanor in the morning; and Beth, Nev, Theo and Dave in the afternoon. We’re sorry we couldn’t extend the invitation to more members, but we didn’t want to break any Covid-19 restrictions.
Here are our results for 2020:
-we checked 88 boxes on the day
-10 x Brush-tailed Possums; 1 x Brush-tailed Phascogale; 13 x Sugar Gliders; 11 x bats
-20 of the boxes contained a critter: 6 had sugar gliders, 10 had possums, 1 had a phascogale, and 3 contained bats (bat species unverified at this point)
-7 of the boxes had evidence of phascogales using them (fresh nests)
-8 of the total boxes were for pardalotes (so no activity this time of year or evidence of use)
-35 critters in total
-2 boxes had bees
Land restoration activities by Landcare members
Some of you may remember a workshop we held a couple of years ago as part of our Water in the Landscape series, on the property of Landcare members, Paul and Kylie. Muckleford Landcare Vice-President, David Griffith, spoke to us about getting moisture back into the soil, and he got into his tractor and did some ploughing to show us the key line technique.
Paul and Kylie are continuing their restoration work on their Walmer property, and during the ‘lock down’ period they have: prepared a site for some revegetation on their dam; done some more key line work in a degraded section in the bush to improve hydration and aid the recovery of understorey plants; also key lined on slopes with degraded pasture to again improve hydration and promote pasture growth.
Thanks for sharing. If you are doing something on your property that you would like to share, please let Beth know via email.
Heads down, bum up
We hope everyone is getting a chance to poke around the bush and look for flowers, we have certainly been doing that when the sun is out. Keep sending me photos that you would like to share with other members, thanks, Beth.
- Autumn Greenhoods (thanks Eleanor and Albi for this photo)
- Inland Red-tip Greenhood (well done Nev for finding this little beauty, never found this one before)
- Parson’s Bands (included a drawing I did for a book on flora of our Muckleford property)
- Sprawling Bluebell (it took a lot of microscope work to identify this correctly as it’s dying now and is not the most common around here, the Tall Bluebell)
Get ready to plant
Landcare member, Dion, (Muckleford South) is using the time at home to get some plants in the ground. Call Frances at Newstead Natives or Ken at Neangar Nursery to see how they are trading during lock down.
Hares at Easter
Neville, our Landcare President, found a nest of baby hares on his Muckleford property, the parents took off when he discovered the nest.
