On Thursday the 29th of July, a small (and COVID safe) group from ASH partnered up with the Maffra and District Landcare Network (MDLN) to celebrate National Tree Day. To mark this special day, the group got involved in a ‘Plant a Tree Day’ event and managed to plant over 300 trees in just over one hour.
The team planted a variety of native trees and shrubs along a 200 metre stretch of the Gippsland Plains Rail Trail between Heyfield and Tinamba. MDLN and the Gippsland Plains Rail Trail Committee of Management prepared the site, ready for the group of 10 to plant and cover each seedling. The plants, sourced from John Topp at Gippsland Indigenous Plants, included a variety of local species including red gum, manna gum, casuarina, callistemon, lomandra and dianella. Wildflowers including everlasting daisy, bulbine lilies and trigger plants were also planted, adding diversity to the native grasses, blackwood and black wattle already growing in this section of Rail Trail, surrounded by dairy pasture.
We would like to thank everyone involved in the successful event! Not only was it a great bonding experience, but also allowed us to contribute to the community’s environment and improve habitat for native wildlife living along the trail.
It is also a good opportunity to highlight the forestry industry’s long history of regeneration in Victoria’s forests by replanting every tree that is sustainably harvested. Even recently, forest management’s extensive seed bank was used to regenerate the landscape after the Black Summer bushfires. Without it, Victoria would not have the seeds to regenerate 23,000ha of ash forest.
It is important to support forest management as it creates opportunities not only to offer support after bushfires, but manage the forest landscape, survey and support habitat and regenerate the forest.
