Factors Affecting Flora Conservation - Victorian Environmental ...

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prescriptions rather than reservation. These
ban harvesting or deliberate burning, and
require buffer areas to be maintained around
stands. Buffer widths range from 20 m
around 'linear', usually streamside, tracts to
40 m around larger, 'non-linear' stands. As
a result, the reserves listed above represent
only a small proportion of the area covered
by cool temperate rainforest in Melbourne
District 2 which, it should.be noted, contains
by far the majority of stands of the
community in Victoria.
Biologically significant stands of this
rainforest occur in the Board of Works water
catchments, the headwaters of the Yea,
Taggerty, Royston, Acheron, Torbreck,
Murrindindi, TanjU, Tyers, Toorongo, Ada,
and Bunyip Rivers, and Pioneer Creek.
rainforest species to recolonise. The result is
the reversion to non-rainforest species or, in
the case of roads, a permanent gap. The size
of buffer required to give long-term protection
to rainforest, and the sorts of activities
that should be permitted within these buffers,
have yet to be established scientifically.
Other threats include soil erosion, weed
invasion, and the effects of pathogens.
Wet sclerophyll forest
Protected mountain slopes in the high-rainfall
zone support large areas of this community.
Much of this zone was burnt in 1939. As a
result, the majority of stands are 50-year-old
regrowth.
Old-growth and older regrowth stands are
often small and scattered. By far the best are
located in the Board of Works catchments,
with large stands in the O'Shannassy
catchment, and smaller ones in Wallaby
Creek, Maroondah, and Watts River
catchments. Other noteworthy stands of oldgrowth
wet sclerophyll forest are scattered
around the Baw Baw Plateau, in the upper
Bunyip River catchment, parts of Dandenong
Ranges National Park, and isolated pockets in
the Cerberean Ranges.
Reserved areas of wet sclerophyll forest
include small stands in Dandenong Ranges
National Park and Kinglake National Park,
others within a number of reference areas in
the Board of Works Catchments, Hawthorn
Creek Reference Area, and a small patch in
Baw Baw National Park, south of Mt Erica.
The viability of both of the national parks for
wet sclerophyll forest is somewhat doubtful
given their high use for recreation, small size
of stands, and their proximity to urban areas
with their attendant problems regarding
introduced species. These reserved stands
amount to a small percentage of the
total covered by this community in the study
area.
Wet sclerophyll forest, much of which is 1939
regrowth
The major threats to cool temperate rainforest
are inadequate protection from fire, wind,
and physical disturbance (for example, road
constmction or the falling of trees). These
events create gaps in the rainforest canopy
diat are too large or exposed for the
Beyond the study area, wet sclerophyll forest
occurs in eastern Victoria, mainly south of
the Great Dividing Range, and in the Otway
Ranges. Since the clearing last century of the
extensive areas of wet sclerophyll forest in
South Gippsland, certain stands in the study
area have gained pre-eminence for their
conservation values, largely based on their
ecological maturity, integrity, and lack of
disturbance.