Blundells Flat, Ex-coupe 424, ACT. VAST-2: Tracking the Transformation of Australia's Vegetated Landscapes

The aim of this project is to compile land use and management practices and their observed and measured impacts and effects on vegetation condition. The results provide land managers and researchers with a tool for reporting and monitoring spatial and temporal transformations of Australia’s native vegetated landscapes due to changes in land use and management practices. Following are the details about site in Blundells Flat, ex-coupe 424, ACT.

Pre-European benchmark-analogue vegetation: The site was originally a brown barrel (Eucalyptus fastigata), growing in association with ribbon gum (E. viminalis).

Brief chronology of changes in land use and management:
1788: Unmodified and intact tall open eucalypt forest; forest unaffected
1915: Water catchment area declared for Canberra - forest unaffected
1955: Commenced selective logging of mainly brown barrel (E. fastigata)
1956: Clear-felled remaining wet sclerophyll forest and pushed timber into windrows with a bulldozer
1958: Felled timber burnt in February
1958: 1st rotation radiata or Monterey pine (Pinus radiata) planted by hand
1960: Controlled competing regrowth native vegetation, manually with axes, slashers, or hoes
1986: 1st rotation P. radiata harvested with crawler tractors
1987: Coupe was treated using a crusher roller weighing 17 tonnes towed by a D8 bulldozer
1988: Coupe was ripped and mounded. 2nd rotation P. radiata seedlings planted by hand with a mattock. Fertilized every seedling by hand
1990: Controlled competing regrowth native vegetation using brush hooks e.g. eucalypts, acacia and 1st rotation pine seedlings
2002: 14 year old 2nd rotation was thinned and pruned to around 450 stems / ha. Thinnings were left on the ground to decay
2003: Area burnt by severe wildfire killed all pines. Sterile rye grass was sown across the coupe using light aircraft to stabilise erodible soils. Killed pines and native regrowth pushed over and windrowed with a bulldozer
2004: Windrowed timber was burnt. Site declared minimal use - rehabilitation
2005: Contractors were engaged to manually remove pine wildlings
2005-2012: Site left to rehabilitate.