ISSUE 174 Wallaman Falls Highlining Traversing Greenland’s Icecap The Battle for the Daintreee Profile: Tim Cope Bikepacking the ‘Stans Paddling Peru’s Rio Marañón Walking NZ’s Toughest Track Fraser Island Hiking Destination: Mt Arapiles Track Notes: Australia’s Biggest Climb
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W I L D.C O M. A U
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[ Tasmanian Land Conservancy ]
Tasmanian Land Conservancy’s Vale of Belvoir Reserve
Monitoring Nature The Tasmanian Land Conservancy does more than just buy and protect land; by undertaking important monitoring of reserves, the group helps ensure the survival of threatened species. Words Jane Rawson
ON THE VALE OF BELVOIR RESERVE, near Tasmania’s iconic Cradle Mountain National Park, TLC
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staff are monitoring the status of the threatened ptunarra brown butterfly (Oreixenica ptunarra). This delicately beautiful species is under threat because it is dependent on Poa grasslands, among the state’s most endangered vegetation types. By conserving the Vale of Belvoir, the TLC is protecting some of Tasmania’s best-condition native grasslands. The TLC began monitoring butterflies here in 2010, surveying every year since with the help of dedicated volunteers. This butterfly flies for only three weeks in mid-March, and only in temperatures of 18°C or above, with no rain, wind or too much cloud cover, between the hours of around 10am and 4pm—it makes for very civilised working conditions! Monitoring ensures the TLC’s management helps the persistence of the butterfly, as well as that of threatened grassland daisies for which the Vale is famous. Grassland ecosystems often require frequent, low-level disturbance (such as fire or grazing) to maintain species diversity and prevent encroachment by other vegetation
Guesswork isn’t enough to protect the land that Tasmania’s—and the world’s— species need to survive.” Image credit: Andy Townsend
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abitat loss and fragmentation and the spread of invasive species are major threats to biodiversity in Australia. Conserving habitat on private land is an important response to this threat. When private lands are protected for conservation, it increases the overall amount of preserved habitat and also increases connectivity between state-owned reserves such as national parks. The Tasmanian Land Conservancy (TLC) buys land and places it in reserves; works with private landholders to identify, protect and manage important areas on their own properties; and purchases, protects (with conservation covenants) and re-sells land. But buying land is just the first step. For conservation to be successful, the TLC needs to track the status of the species on these lands and take steps to ensure their continued ecological health.
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Image credit: Heath Holden
types. Before the TLC bought it, the Vale was managed as a summer grazing property for over 100 years; regular burns generated green pick for grazing cattle. Wanting to adopt the best management regime for native species diversity and persistence, the TLC has been reluctant to change this management program without a better understanding of the synergy between cattle grazing and burning. Monitoring ptunarra brown butterflies is part of a larger ecological monitoring program to ensure these changes don’t negatively affect the Vale of Belvoir Reserve’s unique natural values. IN JANUARY 2019, fire swept across Tasmania and the TLC’s beautiful Five Rivers Reserve in the Central Highlands wasn’t spared. Five Rivers is home to the cider gum (Eucalyptus gunnii), an endemic eucalypt brilliantly adapted to living in the highlands’ cold, wet conditions. Its sap, which is very high in sugar, is a natural antifreeze that helps the tree survive where less-welladapted species cannot grow. Unfortunately, the tree’s specialisation for cold, wet conditions leaves it vulnerable to fire and increased heat and dryness, and its palatable leaves and sugary sap are tempting treats for animals. In January and February, more than 5000 hectares of the reserve were impacted by fire. Fences were damaged and some key natural assets, including an eagle nest, were destroyed. Many older, more-mature cider gums were killed. But the TLC’s post-fire assessments in April and May showed the younger trees had survived and were re-sprouting. It would have been great news, except that their foliage was attracting hungry native species such as wallabies and wombats, along with feral fallow deer, all eating the cider gums faster than they could grow. The TLC’s response has been two-pronged: First, keep the browsers out by installing wire mesh cages; and second, learn more about who’s eating what! University of Tasmania PhD student Tom Guy is measuring fallow deer browsing, while TLC staff and wonderful volunteers have been building exclusion cages around the new growth, numb fingers wiring fencing together in snow, drizzle and Antarctic winds. About 50 cages have been built in the protection program’s first phase. Five Rivers is also the site of a world-first environmental account. From data collected over the past six years, the TLC has developed an Environmental Account, using an asset condition methodology created by the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists. This is the first case study developed on a private reserve in Australia that has converted ecological monitoring data into a common unit of measurement—the Econd. Using Econds allows the TLC to record, present and interpret monitoring data in a consistent way, comparing the health and condition of all its reserves. The organisation can track the effectiveness of management actions, identify which reserves or species need more attention, and plan their management accordingly.
Installing a song meter TLC staff and volunteers working to protect Five Rivers’ cider gums
ON BRUNY ISLAND, TLC’s Lutregala Marsh Reserve protects nearly 42 hectares of saltmarsh and coastal forest at The Neck. It’s a hotspot for birds, especially raptors, but feral cats and fallow deer have spread across the island, threatening the reserve’s integrity. Deer damage fences that keep stock out, they spread weeds, and they eat the saltmarsh vegetation as well as native trees that TLC volunteers have planted to regenerate the area. Cats, of course, are a significant threat to the reserve’s birds, potoroos, and eastern quolls. Before 2016, monitoring on Lutregala found numerous feral cats. By 2016, cat activity had been reduced due to the Kingborough Council’s cat program, but deer had begun appearing and have been on the reserve ever since. While cats are being actively managed, ongoing monitoring suggests deer grazing is now affecting woodland health. Monitoring points towards two important management activities: Removal of fallow deer from Bruny Island to properly conserve the reserve; and supporting the Bruny Island Cat Management Plan’s efforts to remove cats from this important island ecosystem. SETTING UP CAMERA TRAPS, counting weeds, and more novel approaches—such as reviewing data from images of wombats and Tasmanian devils to evaluate prevalence of and increases in mange and facial tumours—are key to ensuring our reserves keep doing the job they’ve been set up to do. Guesswork isn’t enough to protect the land that Tasmania’s—and the world’s—species need to survive. Buying habitat and leaving it to its own devices won’t do the job either. Managing reserves, and monitoring the results of that management, are a vital part of conservation. W CONTRIBUTOR: Jane Rawson is the (Communications and Marketing Co-ordinator for the Tasmanian Land Conservancy (TLC).
The TLC is a for-purpose, apolitical, science and community-based organisation that protects Tasmania’s rare ecosystems and the habitat of threatened plants and wildlife by working with landholders, and buying and managing private land in Tasmania. For more information about the TLC’s reserves, and to support the TLC’s work, visit www. tasland.org.au
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THE
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An expedition to rig one of the highest ever lines in Australia ventures to Queensland’s Wallaman Falls, the tallest in the country. Words & Photography Aidan Williams
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ow could the tallest single drop waterfall in Australia not have a highline on top of it? It was a simple question, posed by Ben Thegreywolf. Ben is a quiet-natured man, but when he speaks it is always time to listen. The problem was that he proposed resolving his question in just two weeks’ time. What’s more, when he asked it, I was sitting by a pool taking a very overdue holiday with my girlfriend, and this was not the most romantic thing to bring up. In a month, I was leaving the country for a project in Russia. But Ben hooked me. Waterfall highlines are one of the most prized forms of the art. And with me being a photographer by trade, I didn’t want to miss this opportunity for the world. Ben also spoke with Arthur Pera, an always smiling, always stoked Brazilian rope access worker based in Sydney. I would be—at 23 years old—the baby of the team. With no sponsorship or world records between us, we didn’t look like the most formidable team to take on the planet’s tenth highest waterfall. But in April 2019, the three of us, with huge ambitions and differing contributing skillsets, set out to pull off a piece of history. ------
Wallaman Falls—at 268m, Australia’s highest—is located in the majestic, beautiful but rugged Girringun National Park, 162km from Townsville. It was there, at Townsville Airport, two weeks after Ben first proposed the expedition, that the three of us met after flying in from various parts of NSW. It was, despite it being April and late in the afternoon, ferociously humid. We crammed into our rental Toyota Corolla like a full pack of Tim Tams melting in the sun, sweat pouring from our foreheads. We drove past cane fields and crocodile-infested waters, and dodged cane toads and cattle taking refuge in the centre of the road.
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Wallaman Falls, QUEENSL AND Look carefully, and you can see Ben Thegreywolf walking above Australia’s highest waterfall, 268m Wallaman Falls
Wallaman Falls
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Clockwise from top left The Murghab Plateau in eastern Tajikistan could very well be the surface of the moon. Here a lone cyclists transits it on the famed M41 Pamir Highway. Majestic mountain peaks at sunset from a campsite on the Murghab Plateau in Tajik National Park. The scariest moment of my whole trip was the crossing of the very high, very notbikeable Jiptik Pass over the Alai Mountains in far southern Kyrgyzstan. Even here at the top, there were hours more fear ahead. When I finally got down from the Jiptik Pass, these kids on horseback greeted me, very surprised to see a wild-eyed person on a bicycle ride down out of the high mountains into their camp. The sharp descent from the Murghab Plateau into the Bartang River Valley (visible in the background) began here. By the time I reached the river an hour later, my brakes were so hot that they quenched with an audible ssst when I rode through a stream.
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Bikepacking the ‘Stans
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