Protecting the Peatlands Together

Parks Victoria facilitated the gathering in the Victorian Alps, extending invites to members of the Victorian Alpine Peatlands Project Coordinating Committee (VAPPCC), Traditional Owner groups, and others working in Alpine Conservation. The gathering brought together people with diverse skills such as specialist alpine scientists and researchers, field teams who spend their 9-5 work days physically protecting alpine peatlands from threats like weeds, deer and fire, as well as Australian Government and Catchment Management Authority staff, who manage the Alpine Peatlands Project in accordance with the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.

The focus of the gathering was to form connections with one another, learn from each other's experiences, celebrate progress, and identify ways to coordinate more effectively to care for peatlands especially in a changing climate.

The gathering provided an opportunity to meet in person with colleagues working across the Victorian Alps region (with a few interstate blow-ins), at Howman's Gap near Falls Creek, from where we conducted field trips across the expansive Bogong High Plains.

During and post-COVID, our extended peatlands protection team reverted to meeting online, so this opportunity to come together was especially valued. With many field staff working remotely in isolated alpine pockets (including Mount Buffalo, Lake Mountain Alpine Resort and the Omeo/Dargo plains), bringing the group together was important. 

Parks Victoria Ranger, Elaine Thomas and Project Coordinator Anthony Thomas presented to the group, sharing their decade long mission to remediate the Spion Kopje Aqueduct Peatlands.

Anthony passed around a photo of the same location taken a decade prior. The contrast between the photo and present day could not have been more dramatic. Years ago, the site showed an outlook of disturbed vegetation, contracted peatlands, brown water and bare earth as a result of earthworks associated with the aqueduct. Looking around in person, we observed a plethora of flora and fauna including flowering trigger plants, a White Lipped Snake, carpets of moss, clear water, and an abundance of butterflies bouncing around in the white alpine daisies.

It was moving to spend time in these places with those who have spent decades working with the environment, removing threats and observing the ecosystem recover and self-sustain, and an important reminder to those who haven’t been working in the industry as long, that the actions we take now to protect the peatlands can and will create long-term benefits.

Dan Brown (Parks Victoria) shared findings from the recently completed Deer Control Trial. The trial not only demonstrated that deer control in the alps has been a worthwhile and effective action for protecting and improving the condition of the alpine peatlands, but also identified specific changes to expand the outcomes of future deer control works.

Data is really important. We need to conduct trials to monitor both control and treatment areas so we can fully understand the systems we work in, acknowledging all of the influencing factors.

Data reveals otherwise hidden trends and insights that we can't always spot through our subjective lenses. This trial teased out patterns in deer activity and movement across the landscape, both diurnally, and across the seasons. This information led to an adaptive change in our management practices.  Adoption of these new practices resulted in 2023 being an extremely effective control season, with high numbers of deer removed from the alpine landscape in north east Victoria. 

If you’re interested in learning more about the findings from the deer trial, this paper reports on deer activity in the alps.

A second paper is currently going through a peer-review process and will likely be published in the second half of 2023. Once available, the North East CMA will share via the NRM Update newsletter.

Dan also shared about the Black Summer Bushfires in the context of Alpine Peatlands Management, providing a recount on how peatlands were considered as a priority for protection by incident control teams.

Within the North East Catchment, only one peatland cluster was burned: Mount Buffalo's Cresta Valley. We spoke with Parks Victoria Rangers Elaine Thomas, Anthony Thomas, and Tom Sanchez about the specific bushfire recovery plans in place to remediate these affected areas.

After fires, weeds are of particular concern as they recolonise burned ground far quicker than native alpine flora. As a result, Parks Victoria's field crews immediately prioritised burned areas for weed control to reduce the re-emergence of exotic weeds like willow and soft rush. 

Director of the Research Centre for Applied Alpine Ecology, Ewen Silvester then took the group to visit the magnificent bryophyte (moss) pools located along Watchbed Creek's peatland cluster. Here, we were able to refocus our attention from thinking about big landscape-scale issues, to honing-in on the significance of these tiny living plants that comprise alpine peatlands.

Ewen gathered a sample of a type of moss named 'Blindia robusta' from one of the bryophyte (moss) pools. (As a side note, it has taken me a long time to fact check this moss’ name, because it seems I mis-heard Ewen speaking. I spent considerable time googling 'Belinda Moss' only to find out that there are in fact, a lot of people in the world named...Belinda Moss.)

Alas, Blindia (the moss), creates a soft deep green woven carpet, with tips protruding above the water's reflective surface.

I held the misconception that moss was simply one individual plant that spreads as it grows like a creeping vine, but as Ewen disentangled the moss to reveal one individual moss plant, I could see that, the mossy carpet was actually comprised of thousands of individual plant strings, all packed tightly together to form a colony.

Now, I see mosses very differently; they are a collective of individuals, enmeshed into a community to stay warm and sheltered. Peatlands by extension could be considered as a community of communities, woven together to cycle nutrients, form new organic soils, provide valuable habitat for flora and fauna alike, and filter fresh headwater stream flows into the catchments below.

By spending time closely observing and interacting with the mosses in these bryophyte pools, my colleagues and I shared a heightened sense of the vulnerability of these ecosystems. While mosses and other wetland species colonise every continent including Antarctica's harshest icy desert landscapes, they haven't evolved to compete with hard hooves, extended El Niño heat, and hyper-competitive weeds.

Kneeling on the fringes of these unique Australian alpine peatland pools with colleagues, gently examining these bright mosses, I couldn't help but think that hoof by hoof, and willow by willow, destruction can so easily sweep in and over-ride thousands of years of slow peat accumulation.

While our group have since returned to our respective regions to continue work, I am very glad to have come together to visit these areas where countless hours of very chilly, windy and sometimes lonely work has taken place.

At the end of the trip, many attendees expressed that they felt re-invigorated with new ideas and enthused to continue the conservation of their local peatlands; finding new ways to improve our actions in removing invasive weeds such as willow and soft rush, controlling pests such as feral deer and horses, and thinking about how to respond to future threats such as climate change and bushfire. This was lovely to hear, and I agree that by drawing together staff who often work alone, you shine a spotlight on why it is worth the effort to comb the landscape removing these threats one by one:

to let the peatlands flourish.