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​Deep in wild and rugged gorge country, Blackwood was the perfect spot for the launch in October of a new guidebook on the 84km-long Lerderderg Track between Daylesford and Bacchus Marsh. 
 
Launched by the Moorabool Shire Councillor, Moira Berry, the guidebook was published on behalf of volunteer walking group and builders of the Lerderderg Track, the Great Dividing Trail Association (GDTA). It is expected to become an essential companion for walkers, bike riders and tourists wanting to experience the remote beauty of the LerderdergRiver and its V-shaped gorge, as well as the region’s rich cultural heritage.
 
“With the publication of the Lerderderg Track Walk or Ride Guide, we now have complete map and track note coverage of the whole of the 300km-long Great Dividing Trail Network captured within a sturdy wiro-bound guidebook format,” said the guidebook’s editor and publisher, Gib Wettenhall.
 
The Lerderderg Track guidebook will act as a companion to the GDTA’s highly successful, award-winning Goldfields Track Walk or Ride Guide, also published by em PRESS. More than map spreads, the new guidebook follows a similar style and format, sandwiching the large scale 1:17,500 ratio maps & accompanying track notes between essays on the Lerderderg’s wildly diverse natural beauty and vivid slices of its cultural heritage, people and places.
 
“Although close to Melbourne, the Lerderderg’s formidable, complex terrain has rendered it largely inaccessible – until now,” commented the GDTA President, Tim Bach.

​The launch was preceded by a GDTA-guided walk of Blackwood’s top heritage spots from its unique suite of miners’ log cabins to hotels (both still standing and in ruins) and the picturesque cemetery. This is one of seven short circuit walks devised by GDTA members contained within the new Lerderderg Track Walk or Ride Guide. 

Five new interpretive signage placards in Blackwood prepared by Sue Donnelly and Arie Baelde are set to join existing GDTA placards that are already in place along the length of the Lerderderg Track – with the aid of the Blackwood & District Historical Society and the Blackwood Progress Association.
 
"The publishing of the Lerderderg Track guidebook is timely," pointed out Tim Bach.  After three years consideration, the Victorian Government finally proclaimed in early September the formation of the new 44,860-hectare Wombat- Lerderderg National Park, which will double the area under state parks, and embraces the whole of the Lerderderg Track.
 
Significant new features in the Lerderderg Track guidebook are Welcomes to Country from the two Kulin Nation language groups whose traditional lands encompass the Lerderderg Track – the Dja Dja Wurrung in the north and the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung in the south. These Traditional Owners are expected to co-manage with Parks Victoria the new Wombat-Lerderderg National Park, when declared in 2026. 
 
Both of the track’s shire councils, Moorabool and Hepburn, provided funding support for the guidebook, as have two of the local Bendigo banks, Bacchus Marsh and Daylesford.

The "unsettling" historical legacies behind six of the most iconic peaks in central Victoria are laid bare in a new book by Great Dividing Trail Association (GDTA) founder and Honorary Professor, Barry Golding. Launching the book Six Peaks Speak  in Castlemaine in December 2024, the former Mayor of Hepburn Shire, Brian Hood remarked that  “the book was not only massive size, but massive in importance.”
 
In the early stages of research for the book, Gib Wettenhall climbed some of the peaks with Barry. The latter then went on to obtain a State Library of Victoria fellowship and spend a year digging through the archives to find the stories behind each of the peaks, many of them disturbing tales of dispossession and environmental degradation.

 Rodney Carter, CEO of DJAARA, the corporation for TOs of the Dja Dja Wurrung  was full of praise. He said the book is “helping us reframe a pretty traumatic period of our history. It offers a means of letting go of our misconceptions, and to help our children move forward... It gives my homeland a chance to heal.”  

Barry responded that “today is about giving back, especially to Djaara.” He commented that the State Library  saw the book as “a great aid towards navigating our way to Treaty in Victoria” (due for conclusion in early 2026 prior to the next state election).  

Barry acknowledged that “while the conclusions are mine” his good friend and co-author Clive Willman was an excellent sounding board and “very good at weeding out the rubbish” in his early drafts.  

​Barry ended his speech saying that after the defeat of the Voice, “what has happened is still unsettled.” What we need to do is “Listen,” which is the last word in the book – a comment that was given to him by a fellow Professor, Tony Dreise, Pro Vice Chancellor, Indigenous Engagement at Charles Sturt University. 

Six Peaks Speak has been published by Common Ground in the US as an e-book and limited hard copy numbers are available for $84 plus postage from Barry Golding if you contact him via email: b.golding@federation.edu.au

Living With Wildlife is a book dedicated to navigating the challenges of how we share our homes and backyards with native wildlife. Written by a local ecologist and prolific science writer, Tanya Loos, this is her second book and is published by CSIRO Publishing.  The first that she wrote over ten years ago was a nature journal following the true Australian seasonal cycle in central Victoria of six seasons.  A lyrical little effort, Daylesford Nature Diary was published by em PRESS and edited by Gib Wettenhall. It sold particularly well around Xmas, which probably reflects poorly on the title and how literally some people take them.

This manual is a much more professional affair, complete with footnotes  backing up Tanya's tips on stopping birds flying into windows (try a sheen of clayey mud) or wrens attacking car side mirrors (put a sock over it). Invariably, she sides with the animal, urging as little intervention as possible. I fully agree that we humans already take up far too much space, and that showing appreciation and kindness for all our fellow inhabitants of Earth from spiders to flying foxes is well overdue. 

The University of the South Pacific (USP) and the Australian Centre for International Agriculture Research (ACIAR) jointly launched Raising Trees & Livelihoods in Fiji last September. Co-edited by Professor Digby Race, the Dean of the Graduate School at USP, and Gib Wettenhall from em PRESS, the book aims to bridge the gap between traditional forestry and agriculture practices by showcasing the benefits of integrating trees into farming systems. It draws on South Pacific, Asia, Africa, and Latin America case studies.

The book offers a comprehensive insight into the community-scale and national-scale potential of agroforestry, within the tropical regions of the world. Supported by ACIAR, the book draws on a decade’s worth of findings from more than 15 ACIAR-supported projects in tropical countries around the world. It provides a holistic analysis of how agroforestry can address challenges faced by smallholders who, according to statistics, manage less than two hectares of land, yet produce about one-third of the world’s food in the face of climate change, land degradation, and market volatility.

This is the second book Gib has co-edited with Digby.  The first reviewed the results of joint Australian and Indonesian agroforestry research with smallholders in Indonesia – visit Adding Value to the Farmers' Trees in Reviews.
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For more information and to order a copy,  visit the University of the South Pacific Book Centre or contact Professor Digby Race on digby.race@usp.ac.fj

This updated and expanded Second Edition builds on 15 years of hard-won experience in rethinking revegetation strategies to match ten key design principles, as observed in nature by the author and ecologist, Stephen Murphy. The Second Edition includes three new chapters, along with revisions based on further observation of nature in action since 2009. In a new chapter highlighting personal case studies, many landholders attest to having applied Stephens’ design principles and the results are now in – wildlife, in all its wonderful diversity, is returning.

​We have all read about the relentless decline of Australia’s plants and animals and the need to repair the natural habitats we have lost. Stephen’s binary response to this challenging dilemma involves planting wider ‘biorich’ plantations that mimic nature, while integrating ‘useful’ plants for human harvest. Incorporating 20% of plants in revegetation for personal use makes significantly wider biodiversity plantations attractive to landowners and provides a lifeline for Australia’s flora & fauna. Stephen writes a regular blog on the environment, which is posted on his website www.recreatingthecountry.com.au

‘Writing with passion, commitment and insight, Murphy emphasises the need to mimic nature and that working with nature requires a long-term perspective. It’s an important reminder that the actions we take today will shape the country that future generations will inherit.’
- Andrew Bennett, Adjunct Professor in Ecology, La Trobe University

In 2019, the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape was inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage list – the first Indigenous-led nomination from Australia. Out now, the Second Edition of The People of Budj Bim takes up the story since 2010.
The new edition describes the painstaking nomination process over a 17 year period, culminating in the inscribing ceremony for the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape at the 43rd World Heritage Congress session in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Another added chapter looks at how the Gunditjmara have ably stepped up in healing Country, culture and the people themselves.
It was great to work once again with designer Max Marks; and I'd like to acknowledge the calm and consistent guidance offered by Denis Rose at the Gunditjmara end.
Published by em PRESS in late June 2022.

Woodsman Lachie Park has moved on to build a tiny one room hut out of green wood from locally sourced timbers and materials. It's in a clearing in the 15ha biorich plantation Lal Lal, SW Victoria, managed by Ballarat Region Treegrowers (BRT). Lachie's updated the traditional Aussie invention of the drop slab hut, so it not only celebrates localism, but is another beautiful example of pegging timbers the old, slow way.
In the process of going local and going slow, he reduced carbon emissions. Where combined with avoiding processed products, going local and slow leads to going carbon low. There's a slogan in there.

​Visit BRT's biorich plantation website for an essay on the rationale behind building the drop slab hut – see also the earlier essay on this website called Raising A Green Wood Shed.

Published by em PRESS, each of the 20 walks and 10 bike rides in the Central Victorian Highlands Walk and Ride Circuits guide is supported by full colour, large scale contour maps alongside detailed accompanying track notes. It’s sturdy, wiro bound and well-designed – features that replicate the style of the award-winning Goldfields Track guide. Graded from easy to hard, the circuits are scattered around all points of the compass within a 25km radius from Daylesford.
 
A team of five Great Dividing Trail Association (GDTA) members with vast collective experience specifically devised the walk and ride circuits, all of which are short enough to complete in around four hours. And because all of the routes presented are circuits, there’s no fiddling around with car shuttles.

Visit the GDTA's online SHOP to purchase for $24.99