In Forests #02
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Tag Archives: habitat
The Trees
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Run river red run dry run dead
In the Valley there are few trees now
since white settlement the river gums have bled
steadily back into ever depleting soil
the dehydrating sap bleeding red
some majestic sentinels remain
on final watch across the floodplain
of gritty dust and cropped introduced grasses
as the parade of indigenous extinction passes
withdrawing from the flats
retreating across the hills
ascending to heaven after suffering grave ills
and the broken remnains of centuries of trees
stand skeletal or lie shattered on the ground
as if awaiting a last chance for redemption
after each falling whoosh and final thump of sound
in atonement for overseeing the loss of forest
they crave to protect their young who escape the cut
of plough or chainsaw or grazing teeth they
enfold survivors in fractured parental branches
fostering the roots beneath
attempting nurture of trunk and leaf
but they have nothing left to bequeath
to young individuals left standing exposed
to sadly age in grief
witness to a parasitic human occupation
a relentless quest by the future’s thief
Greta
What can you say our young assertive one
with the voice of an innocent and every reason to come
to the land of the people with the frozen tongues
did you hear the voices trapped in the throats of the speakers
the truthsayers the protesters the dumb and the seekers
what will you say my naive one
as a voice for the reticent who want to save their home
where no voices are heard and no listening is done
did you crack the blank shields of the riot police abashing
when your truth and your statements of the obvious were clashing
with the public dialogue of denial that’s in fashion
what do you now see my prescient soul
a world that is scared yet loudly condemning your role
contradiction abounds around what’s believed and is told
but you won’t close your mind your mouth or be controlled
because the need is the need of a world being sold
where ascendant rejections of science’s findings
carry weight disproportionate to tomorrow’s unwinding
and the hope that was youth falls to systemic undermining
I hope that you stand up to the relentless grinding
for across the world there are still people who need you
to attack all the arguments of denial so feeble
they still rise to smother the planet in chaos and evil
but for your pluck and your courage your ability to needle
it does provide a check with words that are real
and challenges others to rise too and reveal
the lies and deception the denialists conceal
I hope and I wish you can change how they feel
what will you say next our young assertive one
If you didn't pick it up the rhythm is sort of set to Bob Dylan's A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall
Woollybutt
An excellent walk in the towering Woollybutt Alpine Ash forest of Mt Stirling. Find my map and description here https://walkingmaps.com.au/walk/5836
My furrowed brow
The Finch
with red brow and olive wings
presents a pretty picture
Upon its chosen perch
it even makes the invasive thistle look good
With pleasure I spy
scenery I would rather deny
The Lunette walk, Winton Wetlands
This is the second last of the ten walks to be mapped and published by me from Winton Wetlands. It has taken a while to get to, but it was worth the wait: Lunette walk
You can find the other Winton Wetlands walks I have published to date here: https://wintonwetlands.org.au/walking/
‘Twas
It was only one bird, I saw was missing from the sky.
And then I realised there was another missing that I could not deny.
Then,the flocks and gatherings I saw were missing from the coast.
Where had all the birds gone? That flight, that wing, that multitudinous host?
I saw the water washing clear upon the beaches of rock and sand.
I saw the water empty there, devoid of life it flushed the sparking strand.
There was one ragged crab as dead could be, it was wedged in a scaly crust.
Where once there were shellfish diverse and plentiful, now all were ground to dust.
Summer people walked and played in the waves, they paddled close to shore.
Unaware of the teeming life, that was there no more.
Where the water touched the land, the interface was sterile,
But one could still splash and be cool, with no inkling it was puerile.
Koetong “Spa” and Wildflower walk
Koetong Creek in Mt Lawson State Park runs through open woodland of Narrow and Broad-leaf Peppermint, Candlebark, Manna, Blue and Brittle Gum, Red Stringybark, Long-leaf and Red Box. You will also find Black Cyrpess-pine and Kurrajong. The combination of diverse forest layers, a cascading waterway (Spa) and beautiful wildflowers give this walk a real buzz. Take a hike.
You will find the walking map and details I have published on http://www.walkingmaps.com.au here Koetong “Spa” and Wildflower walk
Mt Timbertop wildflowers
Greenhood Orchid
Violet
Watkins walk
Watkins walk is a Strathbogie Tableland roadside walk through grazing farmland and native forest. One of its other attractive features is the high conservation value roadside vegetation including various towering species of eucalypt.
Such roadsides are critical local biolinks for flora and fauna. There is plenty to see and wildlife sightings are common.
This is a little trafficked smooth gravel road and Strathbogie Tableland is quiet. You can hear cars approaching from some way off. It is pretty safe walking. However, it still makes sense to stick to the right of the road so you are facing any oncoming vehicles that do appear.
Click this link Watkins walk to the map I have created on http://www.walkingmaps.com.au
Save our Strathbogie Forest (SOSF)
On Sunday we gathered at the giant Messmates in Strathbogie Forest to launch the Save Our Strathbogie Forest Action Group’s chuffed.org crowdfunding campaign. This campaign is in support of the Save Our Strathbogie Forest legal challenge to stop DEECA and FFMV burning endangered Greater Glider habitat. Strathbogie Forest is amongst the best Greater Glider habitat in the country. These Victorian Government Departments want to burn precious habitat there without reasonable justification.
You can donate here: https://chuffed.org/project/strathbogieforest-legal-action
Good Things Only #17
It has been a while since I have embarked on a GTO (or much in the way of creative writing at all for that matter). I have been otherwise occupied. Why? Happily, the reason is the subject of this GTO.
In retirement I developed my habits of walking, cycling and writing into something more like lifestyle choices. Combined with photography, I found myself outside often, roaming in new places, observing with pleasure, feeling fortunate and interested in the many ways and forms of life and ecosystems around me. It costs little, the prep is fun, the exercise is great and every outing opens your eyes that much wider and your mind expands that much further and you just feel good.
I found myself privileged. Here in Victoria there are so many diverse natural places to savour. Even where environmental degradation has occurred there is often evidence life will find a way. (Whether with or without humans takes on less and less significance exploring as an individual. You barely register on the scale of things so you don’t matter one little bit. You are simply lucky to be there and to bear witness).
I started mapping, photographing and describing these places for others to share. It seemed a good retirement project – to spread the feelings of well being experienced in diverse green spaces . To identify low cost beneficial outdoor activities for other people. To put walkers in these spaces as discoverers of beauty and advocates for deterring misuse and champions of habitat improvement.
Since then I have been asked to transform this hobby into project work for local government and a health promotion charity. As grateful for such opportunities as I am, and as good as that has been, I now finally get to the specific subject of this GTO.
Over the past six months I have been working on a new and wonderful project: “Walking and Rolling: accessible walking paths for people with disability”. Our inclusive team has co-designed an audit tool for assessing walking paths for accessibility. I have been co-auditing accessible walks beside people with disability.
We launched the first 24 Victorian accessible walks last week in a joyful celebration on a glorious day. We have made the audit tool publicly available as a free to use resource for people with disability, carers, families and land managers to do their own assessments and publish accessible walks they identify. Accessible walks are for everyone. There are more to come.
This is an incredibly worthy GTO for me to have fallen into. To my colleagues and the people with disability who have helped make this happen, I will be appreciative to the end of my days. In the meantime, let’s keep going!
Shipwreck and Geology walk, Loch Ard Gorge
Here is a link to the latest walk I have published on VictoriaWalks walkingmaps https://walkingmaps.com.au/walk/5485
Living on the Edge walk, Loch Ard Gorge
Here is a link to the latest walk I have published on VictoriaWalks walkingmaps https://walkingmaps.com.au/walk/5484
Brittle
Brittle branch breaks under weight of bird landing
Falls to ground
Alarmed bird flutters to new bough
Insects break down branch
All is right with the world
Butterfly lands on native flower head
Tongue extends for life giving nectar
Butterfly moves on
Flower is pollenated
All may be right with the world
Mountain Water flows over rock
Down toward the sea
Sediment forms floodplain soil
Landscapes bloom with new life
All was right with the world
Forests, grasslands, wetlands and ocean life
Breathe for and cleanse earth and sky
Working together
part of a whole
All is not right with the world
Broken branch is tidied up by gardener
Native flower is replaced by agricultural product
Mountain water is harvested for commercial gain
Land and ocean are raided
Diversity is diminished
Brittle the world breaks
Port Campbell Discovery Walk
Here is a link to the latest walk I have published on VictoriaWalks walkingmaps https://walkingmaps.com.au/walk/5483
The myth of silence
The words
I have always heard
about the silence
of the forest
have never
rung true
There is no silence
in the forest
No matter how much
you romanticise
or wish
there to be
The forest is noisy
relative only to
just how hard
you choose to listen
Good Things Only #15
Shinrin-yoku or forest bathing. When I first read about forest bathing the cynic in me scoffed, “Jeezus, how many gimmicky ideas can humanity come up with?” As curious as it may appear, I have reevaluated the matter. Why? Well, it was an accident really.
In reading the aforementioned book by Bill Bailey I learnt more. It was the Japanese Government that validated shinrin-yoku in the 1980s. After research confirmed the hypothesis that forest walkers experienced significantly less stress and anxiety than urban walkers, the idea became a public health policy. Hence the very real, legitimate and officially mandated practice of shinrin-yoku, forest bathing or put more simply absorbing the atmosphere of the forest.
I learnt this with a little embarrassment because I have clearly been a shinrin-yoku practitioner for years. Walking and cycling in the bush have long been favourite pastimes, as soothing to the mind and cleansing of the soul as anything I can imagine. I realise now I have practiced forest bathing and even refined the practice. My own specialised sub discipline will now be called forest basking. This is where I find myself paused, stationary, sometimes mid step, sometimes sitting, sometimes lying down looking either up, across or down, grinning, goggling or gasping or all three at once, in awe at nature’s beauty and evolutionary accomplishments.
I am no shirin-yoku guru or forest bathing shaman, but I am an advocate by default because I do my best to promote these wonderful activities publicly and widely. Why? Because if they are good for individual lifestyle and well-being they are good for societal wellbeing. If shinrin-yoku encourages people into positive low impact forest experiences those people become advocates for the forest and habitat gets improved as well. And who doesn’t want such a desirable set of outcomes from the simple act of taking some time out in the forest?
5 Good Things Only #01
1. A Grey Shrike Thrush sang for us from the verandah as we ate breakfast while a Scrub Wren scoured the brickwork and window frames for its own breakfast.
2. Starting a new book and enjoying it from page 1. Shadow Hawk by Andre Norton.
3. Listening to a Late Night Live podcast while exercising.
4. Deciding not to walk amongst undulating hills of grazing land in the wind and rain.
5. Deciding to walk in the shelter of Strathbogie Forest instead. The rain stopped when we got there. It didn’t resume until we returned to the car. Adding to the pleasure of being in the forest, we observed many Greenhood Orchids.
Conservation Kasa
Many places I have called home as around the world I roamed. But none so full of joy for me as the Tableland Strathbogie. With mountain forest all around, wetlands, creeks, rills and swamps abound. Native animals can thrive here, Wombat, Platypus we hold dear. Vicforest loggers habitat deprive. We fear wildlife won't survive Koala are less seen today. Bandicoots all but gone away. Greater Gliders still here endure, but our forest is not secure. Conserve and re-wild what is left. Or lose all this to future theft.
This week’s d’verse prompt came from Sannaa. Write a poem using the Korean poetic form Kasa.
Falling birds
All those birds falling from the sky Some birds live More birds die So consider Why oh why? We poison food chains and nature deny We pave We divert We scrape the sky We take too much don’t comply heat the planet watch it dry Then only crocodile tears do we cry As our legacy becomes the worlds biggest lie That we care action says we deny
What I said to the other animal on my journey to the end of the world
I think you might eat me
I‘m scared that you will
If I run you beat me
No light on the hill
In the hope of appeasement
Still desperate to run
I appeal for lenience
For my trashing your home
So I’ll say I’m sorry
That we humans are dumb
I’ll say we forgot
Where we’ve been and come from
You don’t need to eat me
Because we’ll eat ourselves
Let me go quietly
From the home where you dwell
Humans all will be leaving
It’s our destiny
There will be no grieving
And your world will be free
The Trees
The trees, the trees are prophesy
Their collective memory grand
equips the trees to well foresee
beyond the reign of man
In forests or in parks or standing on their own if trees of the world could speak as one I know what they’d say before they are gone For happiness, health and wealth For worthwhile survival Save the trees to save yourself re-wilding equates with revival strathbogie poetry strathbogie photography strathbogie cycling
The Last Butterfly
When the last butterfly flutters by your seat on the grass When the sun moves overhead in one more timeless pass When the creek’s empty water flows by and on When the creatures of the bush all around you have gone Will you sit and reflect on what could have been When you knew it was coming it had been foreseen Will you ask why you didn’t when there was time and you could While you sat on the grass thinking I must then I should
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