by Kester Baines
Most of us would be aware of the importance of vegetation alongside our rivers, creeks, lakes and estuaries. Trees, shrubs and smaller plants help prevent erosion, provide shade on the water, and are habitat for many kinds of mammals, birds, insects, amphibians, reptiles and a myriad of other life forms.
Recently, I was reminded of the vital role of these vegetation corridors when I read an article by Hugh Stewart in a newsletter of the Otway Agroforestry Network. Hugh is a past president of the Rotary Club of Flemington, and his family have had the 230-hectare property “Yan Yan Gurt West” near Deans Marsh for generations.
Hugh writes that two farm residents were recently startled when they began to move a pile of cut wood which had been stacked to dry. A sugar glider shot out of the pile, followed by another, then several more. The site was in a triangle of eucalypts, only about 2ha in area, isolated from the nearest shelter belt by about 160m of open pasture. Sugar gliders are a small, nocturnal, tree-dwelling marsupial whose primary mode of travel is to climb high in a tree then glide up to 50m to another tree using the gliding membrane of skin which links from the elbows to ankles. They are not efficient movers on the ground, but must have covered the open terrain successfully to set up home in the wood pile. Hugh has sought advice from biologists and experts in the ways of gliders, and will work with his brother Andrew and other family members to establish a linking corridor of black wattles and other glider-friendly species to help support that local population.
You may be a farmer or otherwise involved in land management, or Rotarians planning a planting project. Including the idea of “rivers of green” where appropriate, to enhance or establish links between separated blocks of habitat, can really help support our fellow creatures without requiring large areas of land.
Incidentally, Andrew Stewart and wife Jill, who are the primary managers of “Yan Yan Gurt West”, were recently recipients of the Australian Government Landcare Farming Award for their decades-long commitment to development of their regenerative grazing and agroforestry property, and to Landcare generally.
Photo credits: K. Baines