I am about to shift up north of this great brown land and what I will miss most about Gippsland is this tiny pocket of this diverse piece of bush- The Morwell National Park. Aside from it’s spectacular neighbour, Tarra-Bulga National Park, it is the only piece of land that should be enjoying the full protection of the state. This national park sits amongst the one of the highest logged area in the Victoria, The Strzelecki Ranges and not far from the Latrobe Valley's coal burning power stations. Sadly, the condition it is in has never been worse. The park is being attacked from all angles, bushfire, lack of government funding, the increasing encroachment of pests like cats, foxes, weeds and the saddest of all humans with no respect for the importance of protecting a natural ecosystem.
Friends of the Morwell National Park vice president Matt Campbell agrees. He said the park is in a terrible state and the friends of volunteer group has had next to zero support from the government. “Parks Vic have suffered enormous amounts of funding cuts. The friends group used to get a lot of support in the past to run volunteer days with a ranger, now we use all our own tools and vehicles,” he said. For years, the friends group have contributed countless hours of labour and loving care in maintaining the park and keeping a watch on wildlife numbers.
He said the fragile ecosystems in the park are alos at risk from invasive species possibly even rogue deer not to mention the odd ignorant human.
"I have even seen trail bikers in there and people walking their dogs. Just a whiff of a dog can alter an ecosystem,” Matt said.
Matt said there has been trees covering track for months but the friends group do not have the right equipment to move some of the larger fallen trees. He cannot even ascertain when the last time the park was thoroughly assessed by a ranger and believes it could have even been before the Jeeralang bushfire in March. “…we used to have a regular patrol at least once a month.
Jacqui is my oldest friend. I thought she was really cool when we were younger because her dad was the Morwell National Park ranger and she actually got to live in the national park. Thirty years plus later we find ourselves back here, wandering around these beautiful tracks interlaced with so many memories. Home to more than 40 species of native orchids, so many koalas you are guaranteed to spot at least one, a lot of evidence wombats are around and possibly a couple of wallabies but we have both not come across a goanna since we were kids. We met up recently to check out the fire-affected parts of Stringybark Track, hoping to find some rare orchids that may have been spurred on by a fire event.
It was bittersweet walking through the track with the northern section as Jacqui couldn’t help noticing the lack of track maintenance. At one point we came to a fork in the track and there wasn’t even a sign to indicate which way was the track and which we assumed was for the ranger’s maintenance road. Lucky she knew the place inside out but we wondered how the family we spotted in front of us, would know which way to go. It was so nice to actually see some other people getting out in nature but the state of care for this special place is no where near what it used to be. National parks are important places to for biodiversity and often the only refuge for fragile species to survive. They also provide humans with a counter to all our destruction of nature. Not just by capturing pollutants and cleaning our air but give us important mental clarity and spiritual connection to earth. If our public purse cannot appreciate their value there is something rotten in our system.
Surrounded by a sea of Industrial and farming use land, the park was the 20th to be declared National Park protection in 1966 due to its biodiversity and in particular rare orchids. “Because of its small size and the delicate nature of some of its precious contents, Morwell National Park will require very careful management,” the Victorian National Parks Authority director Dr. L.H. Smith, said at the time.
Sadly, instead of the park growing and getting more protection, things have deteriorated since then. Only last month I saw a cat in the middle of the park jumping down from a gum tree. The week before I was walking with my daughter and a women was running through the park with her dog, when I challenged her about being in a National Park with a dog, she scoffed at me and rolled her eyes. Earlier in the year in a different section of the park I saw horse droppings and trail. And in March we almost lost the whole park to a bushfire. We heard it had got into the park burnt the southern section, we thought we were bound to lose the whole lot if it were not for our amazing local fire-fighters.
