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THCixx420

Acacia Phlebophylla - Mt Buffalo National Park Victoria

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Hello all.

It was a nice morning here yesterday and I decided to go on one of my regular hikes up the side of Mt Buffalo with a couple of friends.

There has recently been a fair amount of rain and the waterfalls cascading down the side of the mountain looked stunning.

Many of our favourite acacias are flowering and seeing the pockets of yellow flowers all over the side of the mountain was a very heartening expereince.

After a couple hours of hiking up the 'Big Walk' in pristine Alpine country taking in all the beauty that was we came up on the area around Mackeys lookout. If anyone knows Mt Buffalo this is one of the spots where the 'big walk' crosses the road. If you drive up it is the area where the main road comes up and turns back on itself a couple of times right where the trees become sparse and lots of rock begins. There is a reason for describing where it is.

Where the 'big walk' crosses the road there is a parking area on the downward side of the slope for parks vehicles and a parking area for the public up around the bend on the side of the road. It's here where people stop and take photo's and go for a little walk to the lookout and take some more photo's of the view and drive away. It's also here that there are a couple pockets of phleb.

In this area close to the road we began to come across 2-3ft long pruned brances. We had a discussion and thought maybe parks had been doing a tidy up along the trail. We didn't need to walk or look very far to see that it was not a parks prune up. Phlebs have been cut to pieces all over this area in the last month. The visual evidence we found was that the trees are being cut up with pruning shears, bundled up and carted off to a vehicle on the road. There are a lot of sick Phlebs and the whole area looks shit.

Whether the tree was big or small didn't seem to matter to the harvester/s. 3+m Phlebs and little what would not have been 2ft high Phlebs.... pruned off and cut back.

I'm speechless as to what to say to these people. The only thing that really comes to mind is rapist.

I hope parks get some camera's up in this area or I come across them on one of my hikes.

Assholes.

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1 example but by no means the worst.

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Acacia Longiflolia is actively targeted in my area by Parks and CVA for clearing. Particularly from walking tacks and tourist car parks.

Apparently it is too "adaptable" and threatens the health of the local national park. I think its just nature doing what nature does best....

here's a link

http://www.worldwidewattle.com/socgroups/asg/newsletters/120.pdf

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1 example but by no means the worst.

attachicon.gifpruned3.jpg

Fuckin' grots need their arses reamed ... :ana:

Obviously not capable of growing a plant themselves ... dumbass dickheads.

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Fucken sacrilege!

A lot of us from northern states and other parts of the country would love to go there just to see the Phlebs but don't get the opportunity. It's looked upon like a pilgrimage comparable to the haj or going to see where they reckon Jesus was born for religious types.

The cunts have defiled the symbol of what binds us all together - our most sacred local species.

They should be strung up by the testicles, stoned to death, drawn and quartered and their remains thrown to the hounds.

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Does anyone here know if Parks knows what's going on?

If not, and if this is becoming an issue, then maybe its time to fill them in. A couple of cameras (one recording licence plates) and a well-worded sign ought to dissuade most of the morons.

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One can only hope the bad karma manifests in the trip these morons are hoping to have.

If they are silly enough to mix it with mother ayahuasca , she will sort em out.

Keep your walks regular THC, be great to catch em.

Sounds like I need to make my pilgrimage whilst there is still some nice unspoilt plants to revere.

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Yes not very good news defiling rare sacred trees like that, harvesting a few seed pods would have been the better option and then they could grow there own little orchard.

And what a barbaric pruning job, hopefully they will get some heavy talking to on one of there next trips and promise not do this again.

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Greedy, lazy and self obsessed.

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If the people who are doing this are reading this thread, or people who may be considering doing something like this, I write this as an explanation of why this behaviour is not appropriate.

Those wounds are ugly, may provide infection points, and the shape of the plant has been totally ruined. It will undoubtedly affect the plants ability to flower fully and may have set back growth for a whole season - too much of this will significantly impact it's ability to reproduce effectively in it's native habitat and may reduce it;s ability to compete against other species in the area. This plant is already rare and endangered and grows in one small area so it is possible that large scale actions like this together with natural disasters could make this species extinct within the next 20-50 years.

In addition, hack jobs and ruined plants will turn the eye of the park rangers and visitors towards our community and it will damage it significantly.

I urge you, if you are reading this, please stop and all will be forgiven.

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I think any further attention drawn this won't help a lot, is it possible this thread is worth putting in the restricted section? Sometimes it feels like the more attention this topic receives, the more it'll happen and the more likely it is that some authoritative doofus might just decide to poison the lot of them and whallah 'problem solved'. Our community respects these trees, so it'd be nice if they became lost and forgotten to the greater world, known only to the few that love and admire them... I guess that's the 'shove it under the carpet and hope it goes away attitude' but it's hard to decide how to go about this one. It only takes a few to ruin it for the many.

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I think the damange has been done already on other sites, and i wouldnt think this SAB thread would contibute much to the threat already posed.

If anything i think the fact that we publicy demonstrate our concerns and there are very aware and proactive members may be a good thing.

But, the fact that there is damage going on is a concern. It may have been brought up in other threads but what is genetic health of the population, and how much genetic diversity is there. Perhaps a good Honours or even PhD project for some-one here who wants to study molecular ecology.

Edited by obtuse
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people need to have a bit of respect for endangered species, this style of exploitation for personal gain is what is undermining the resilience of life on this, our mother planet.

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It isn't just the very disrespectful and exploitative attitude to the plants that worries me. If people are irresponsible enough to do this, then they do not have the best interests of this community at heart, no matter what they have deluded themselves into thinking.

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I just got back from doing the big walk in all it's entirety, and then back again....

The parts which the OP states is in absolute peril. fungus infections on every tree, EVERY TREE. Not to mention the plants have once again been hacked at since last august, the wounds are merely a mth old. No seed was to be seen in this area and no plant was thriving. (Keep in mind this section of the park is used heavily by walkers and climbers alike so the transfer of the infection is inevitable I think?) the plant pruning is unacceptable tho and blatantly obvious.

I managed to spot a lot of pockets in VERY remote areas which seemed to be thriving and free of any infection. I also spotted many seed baring plants and plants in flower in these areas (via expensive binoculars). The good news is only a climber with very good gear and a lot of experience can access these plants, hopefully these plants can seed out the surrounding areas and ledges.

All in all a TERRIBLE sight along the majority of the walk. It's even worse when I drove 2hrs towards the coast and saw 1000s of obtusifolia coming up in the logging forests... Surely it's NOT worth the effort for these people if they are only chasing the light? /Angrypost

Edited by prioritise
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.. how is this a sacred species to any of you ? why, because it contains 'light'? read some Terrence McKenna and think it's a 'teacher plant' ? Mt Buffalo is sacred - to Indigenous people, for reasons relating to ceremony, marriages, the summer bogong moth feasts, as a species phlebophylla is an ancestor tree to certain skin groups for local tribes. This has been the case for tens of thousands of years. the fuck can any of you hold even a candle to this.

people have been taking from this site for a long time. There was a period when a group of well known American 'ethnobotany enthusiasts' would fund trips to Aus by bringing back vegemite jars full of phleb 'light'. Ask torsten, the situation's been a lot worse than it is now. it's not presently listed as an endangered species. Ross, J.H. (2000) found phlebophylla to be naturalised in 2 other locations, with each of these locations contains 6-8000 adult specimens. The OP is horrendous to see, and it's a rotten sore on the face of Australian ethnobotany. But the same can be said of certain stands of obtusifolia in the blue mountains (n.b why is ethnobotany a spelling mistake). people are doing more harm than good to rabbit on about how 'our sacred phleb is so endangered, stay away from it'. There's no better publicity than a censor, and a there are certain other juliflorae that are in a much more dire state than the phleb.

for all those playing along at home, there is a 'light' containing wattle within 2 hours of where you live, irrespective of where you are. if you live in town, search for a common cultivator called acacia floribunda, it will probably be growing in the front yard of someone who, if you ask, would probably be happy to let you prune it. look up any number of psychoactive acacia lists, there are a plethora of viable candidates. it is egregious, culturally disrespectful, lazy, and just fucking nasty to take from Mt Buffalo.

Edited by Seldom

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Sorry if I offended you seldom... I was just simply commenting on the issue as I saw it on my hike. I agree that any nasty pruning and harvesting sucks, I hate to see it anywhere, especially somewhere a lot of people find valuable and important to their culture. Myself? Just an avid bush walker on a road trip disgusted by the current conditions of what I saw, especially when I had to fill my bag with rubbish from the whole length of the trail also and haul it back! No natural area should be like that, no matter if it happens to fall under in an ethnobotany "holy site".

It's great to hear it thriving elsewhere too, thanks for all that info I appreciate it. It sounds like your familiar with the area and I was only commenting on the big hike, like I said I spotted vibrant pockets and ledges via binoculars.

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Last Jan when I was up there at Buffallo, everything looked fine. I didn't notice any sign of anyone taking phyllodes or doing any pruning. I noticed some fungas, and lots of thriving trees. So I'm surprised to hear this. In fact, it seemed to me to be shame that the phyllodes would just rot away under the trees and nobody bothering to constructively utilise them!

In the Australian ethnobotany community, I would say that the general vibe is one of over-preciousness, zealousness and often worked up about something they often have little first hand knowledge of and often what they do know is just flat out propaganda. Nen has been telling people of obutisfolias slaughtered as far as the eye can see, like the last of the buffalos! I've never seen anything like this whatsoever. There are so many obtusifolias out there and most of them human beings have no way of getting to.

All these Acacias, even the micro-endemic species, are doing really well. Only if humans get as industrious and systematic as they did with trees like the Red Cedars or Marbleswod, will those populations ever be compromised. And I very much doubt that will ever happen.

I'd much prefer that we are in a situation where anyone who wants to connect with particular plant teachers, were freely able to go out there and pick it themselves without any public disapproval. That would be nice.


Julian.

Edited by folias

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Seldom, The problem with Floribunda is that it is variable. I spent a fair bit of time last year trying to look into Victorian candidates and came up with zip. (which obviously does not mean that there are not some out there which could be viable candidates)

The real problem is there is very little easy access for Victorians to tryptamine bearing trees.

I think what we really need is for people to crack the code of Acacia Mearnsii.

Edited by folias

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Thanks for the post folias I enjoyed that. It'd be great to have someone else go up there and have a look who is more familiar with the area and it's cycles... Hopefully I've just bought the hype you talk about!

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priotise, I think its good you went up there to check it out and reported back the damage you saw. more information and knowledge about the (possibly) precarious state of this species is only going to be beneficial.

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