A Little Bit of Heaven in the Victorian Alps…

Nigel Watts is a Ranger with Parks Victoria based out of Mansfield. Nigel’s “little piece of dirt” to which he has responsibility for covers a vast area including a proportion of the Australian Alps Walking Track within the Alpine National Park.

Lying at the Western end of the Australian Alps National Parks, the Mansfield Workcentre, as part of the King, Howqua Unit of the Alpine National Park, is responsible for an interesting and spectacular patch of countryside that encompasses the headwaters of the King, Howqua and Jamieson Rivers. The area also contains an array of thought provoking names. Here are 3 areas of particular note.

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The Alps have grown…

What has a Minister of the Crown and a Tharwa meat pie have in common?

Not much, but in some ways the inclusion of Mount Buffalo National park into the Alps Memorandum of Understanding owes much to a chance meeting and a meat pie for lunch!

Some three months ago the Hon Marie Tehan, Minister for Conservation and Land Management (Victoria) was visiting the ACT and inspecting the northern section of the Australian Alps national parks.

While driving through the quaint village of Tharwa on the outskirts of Canberra, protocol demanded the procurement of one of the best pies in Tharwa (in fact the only pies available in Tharwa) for a Ministerial lunch!

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The Australian Alps Have Moved …

Well, not the actual mountains, but the management of the Australian Alps national parks cooperative program.

April saw a major change in the administration of the Australian Alps national parks program as Neville Byrne handed over the reins of Program Coordinator to Brett McNamara, formerly a ranger from Namadgi National Park (ACT).

Every two to four years the responsibility for coordinating this program rotates to a new conservation agency. It is traditional that each of the land management agencies involved in the Australian Alps takes a turn (in rotation) to sponsor the coordination of the Australian Alps program. With this rotation, the job of Program Coordinator also rotates to the new Agency – the ACT Parks and Conservation Service.

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Annual Field Workshop

Yet another Annual Field Workshop has come and gone with great success and lots of networking between rangers and others involved in management of the Australian Alps.

This year’s workshop concentrated on the theme of Community Education and Information, a topic that cuts across all areas of management of the natural and cultural resources of the Australian Alps national parks.

The key outcome of the workshop was to investigate the future direction of community education with respect to raising community awareness about the Australian Alps nation parks and about the co-operative arrangements between land managers that enable the Australian Alps to be managed as a biogeographic area.

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