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Man of the trees

17/10/2022

14 Comments

 
PictureSally McNiece goes bush with arborist Ringo Gannon and learns that
when it comes to significant trees size isn’t everything.
Ringo with sons Makani and Indra, and Sally.
By Sally McNiece
 
FOR the bloke driving past us down Stanley Road, there’s a strong chance that when he looked out the window he just saw “bush”.
 
Not Ringo. Pulled over on the side of the road he has us hanging out the ute windows looking intently across an expanse of Western Port Woodlands, just before Adam’s Estate. “See there, past the tree with the hollows? There with the smooth bark? It’s the last line of manna gums [Eucalyptus viminalis]. From here on you only see the shorter hybrid known as the Gippsland manna gum [Eucalyptus pryoriana].”

Ringo Gannon knows trees. An arborist by trade, he grew up in Adam’s Estate. The woods have watched him and he has watched the woods as he has grown into the man he is today. We – the children of the 1990s who grew up in Grantville – were an eclectic bunch. Not town kids, not farm kids, not beach kids, we were the middle-of-nowhere kids in a town with no infrastructure for us. We were responsible for creating our own entertainment and fun. Like so many of us, Ringo often turned to the woodlands in the time between getting home from school and when dinner hit the table. While he doesn’t ride a postie bike at the old quarry like he did as a kid, it remains a part of him.
 
He meets us with his two young sons, Indra and Makani, to show us his forest. “I’m Indra! I’m three and a half!” his eldest declares, spelling his name for me (with a bit of help with the d and the a). It is very clear that these woodlands remain a family affair for the Gannons. Ringo’s dad, Mick, actively opposed the expansion of mining in the woodlands in the 1990s and Ringo is taking up the mantle today. He meets us to explain his concern for the trees throughout the estate, for the habitat they create and the greater role they play in the health of the woodland ecology.
As you look from the family home you can see the face of the estate is changing. Some blocks have been clear felled; the only signs of the great trees that once stood are the piles of stacked firewood. Other owners have removed the understorey but left the gums and there are new compressed driveways. These actions alter the watercourse and the amount of water retained in the soil. Ringo explains that the remnant narrow leaf peppermints (Eucalyptus radiata) on multiple blocks stand naked of leaves, dying, because their feet have become too wet. It is clear the neighbours were unaware of the narrow leaf peppermint’s sensitivity. Greater education and community planning may have saved them. If this is what a driveway can do, what will a sand mine do to the neighbouring woodland and its waterways? 

​A five-metre stump stands without branches in a neighbour’s house. Ringo laments: “I refused to cut it. This was a remnant messmate [
Eucalyptus obliqua]. It was a significant habitat tree, it posed no fire risk to the house.” Arborists make their living removing trees; if they inspect a tree and turn down the job they are taking food off their own table

​
Under state government legislation you can legally remove trees within a 10m radius of a dwelling and all lower storey vegetation to a 30m radius. But this stump stands more than 10m from the house. Some vacant blocks have been clear felled of all vegetation despite the absence of a dwelling.
 
Bass Coast Shire Council is developing a Significant Tree Register that will come into effect early next year, but any protections have come too late for many of the old trees and the colony of Leadbeater possums that lived at Adam’s Estate when Ringo was a child. Let’s hope they found nicer lodgings in the surrounding woodlands.
Protecting significant trees
Whether we are talking about Adam’s Estate, Inverloch or Wonthaggi, our significant and ancient trees are being cleared from urban settings. Formerly, under state law, you could clear your land of any vegetation, including remnant, as long as the property is under 4000 square metres (just under an acre, so almost all residential blocks) with no permit. Their only protection is the time it takes to mix petrol and oil to fill a chainsaw.
  Bass Coast Shire Council in the past has provided limited and inconsistent protections for remnant trees on private land. Vegetation Protection Overlays exist in parts of Inverloch, Cape Paterson, Tenby Point and the entire Phillip Island. If you wish to remove a tree of an identified species on the overlay a qualified arborist needs to identify a reason (eg disease). One of the issues is that there is an incentive for the arborist to find the tree requires removal.
  Protections for large trees will become uniform across the shire in early 2023 with the creation of a Significant Tree Register. Protected trees are defined as having a circumference of at least 155cm, measured 1 metre off the ground. The chances are that scraggly remnant narrow leaf peppermints, no matter how old, will be too small to be considered significant.
  The ability to enforce such rules will rely on the observations of the community, whether the penalty is enough to deter homeowners and would-be developers from illegally removing trees and how much an arborist needs the work that week.
  The council is also developing an Urban Forest Strategy which will address remnant trees. Simon Woodland, the council’s manager of sustainable environment, says remnant trees play a critical role in urban areas. “Our urban forests are one of the most cost effective, efficient, and appealing mechanisms for adapting our townships to climate change.”
“How old are these trees?” we ask, looking at a skinny narrow leaf peppermint and a robust messmate.
 
Ringo shakes his head, wishing he could answer. “You can’t tell. They’re remnant, so they have to be over 200 years. But look at what they grow on.” He scrapes his foot across the ground. “Sand, gravel … there’s no nutrients in it. They can’t grow quickly.” To emphasise his point he looks us in the eye. “There’s a painting of William Bligh landing at Two Tree Point at Bruny Island and it has two Tasmanian blue gums [Eucalyptus globulus] in it. It was painted 230 odd years ago. Those trees would have been at least 100 years old, making them over 300 years old today. I went there and found them. They’re still there, but they haven’t changed. They grow on rock, sand, gravel.”

​There’s a perception that a tree’s age and value can be measured by its size. Some of these small, unassuming trees, though many decades old, are no bigger than some of the reveg trees I planted seven years ago in Inverloch. This deception does the trees no favours. Imagine how long it will take to replace their hollows.

 
Ringo was away from Victoria when Adam’s Estate came under threat in the Grantville fire of 2019 but watched live footage as his mum, Jan, defended the family home. It was only the intervention of the CFA and bombing helicopters that stopped the fire as it approached the back of the property. But Ringo is adamant that large remnant trees still have a place in the estate. He believes they pose a minimal fire risk to dwellings as long as canopies are not connected and are not within the 10m radius of the dwelling.
Picture
We approach the woodlands at the end of Stanley Road and Ringo asks passers-by in a tractor whether we will be able to get down the muddy old farm track. Like the water sitting on every surface of the ground, there are sand mining work authorities in every direction. Ringo knows each mining company, the location of their sites, the name of the owner and their phone number. He is not afraid to call and ask what is going on.
 
We walk along the firebreak, which rolls down the hillside towards the banks of the Bass River approximately 200 metres away. Any ground water in the mine would eventually reach the river. We take a short walk off the fire break into the forest, past a small stand of uniform melaleuca and bracken, turkey tail fungi and young ferns. There before us stands the largest tree I have seen in our area.

​Affectionately called ‘Old Grumpy’ by Ringo and his boys, this messmate certainly deserves a name. Giving you an estimated height and girth won’t help you to determine its age or its value. Its bark is gnarled and covered in burls. It was whispered to in the BoonWurrung language. It was present when settlers clear felled the mountains to the south of their blue gum forests and the rainforest of the Bass River. But it still stands. This tree pollinates hundreds if not thousands of others and has the potential to seed a new forest in the ashes of those already lost. 

​As we leave, a wallaby watches us from the bottom of the hill we have ascended and Indra asks what bush food is around.

​I ask Ringo if he always wanted to be an arborist. He says he only chose it to satisfy his parents’ demands that he should choose a trade, a direction in life, but the more he learned the more he wanted to know. Now his knowledge and love of trees and the woodlands have entwined themselves into his identity, consciously or not.

 
His life has been shaped by growing up surrounded by Western Port Woodlands. I can only hope it will provide just as richly for Indra and Makani as it has for Ringo.​
Picture
14 Comments
Joy Button
18/10/2022 08:26:15 am

Thank you Sally for such a fabulous story and hopefully it will encourage more people to stand up for our precious woodlands.

Reply
Anne Caulfield
18/10/2022 09:00:41 am

Wonderful article Sally! We desperately need Ringo to stand for public office! Let’s start with Bass Council!!

Reply
Jan Eriksen
18/10/2022 10:44:55 am

Wonderfully written, super difficult to read. Left me in tears of frustration and enormous disappointment that people just don’t understand. Take away trees and you get such strong winds. Move soil and you get different water ways etc etc. please please stand up and stop this massacre of our beautiful heritage.

Reply
steve edge
18/10/2022 12:27:39 pm

Great read. I thought I already appreciated Messmates but the respect has grown. Perhaps a "significant" tree is not just determined by its name but also its history, location, and character. We live in a beautiful part of the world and Ringo and his family just help to enrich it :)

Reply
Meryl & Hartley Tobin link
18/10/2022 12:52:34 pm

Thank you for a great write up of a special area in Bass Coast, Sally. It is good to see Ringo and other locals standing up for our precious woodlands and sharing their knowledge with others. Some trees are already being cut down or dug up or have a work permit granted for the area they grow on to be mined. If we don’t speak up, especially at election time, and let politicians know we want our woodlands protected, much of our remnant native bush will continue to be or be at risk of being cut down and or dug up to provide Melbourne with ‘cheap’ sand.

Reply
April
18/10/2022 10:34:09 pm

Beautifully written Sally. Heartfelt and thought-provoking. What a wealth of knowledge Ringo has and it's inspiring to have people like him and yourselves speaking out to protect these woodlands.

Reply
Kathy
19/10/2022 12:53:05 am

When l built here in the Adams Estate there was an abundance of gum trees and you were not permitted to cut down gum trees that would not endanger your home now people buy up here for bush blocks and the Council permits and tells them to cut down 80% of trees on their properties. So now all l can see is houses whereas before l was surrounded by gums and tea trees. So hear what you are saying Ringo. Just letting you know l have heaps of possums on my property and vacant block behind me.

Reply
Daryl Hook
21/10/2022 03:35:47 pm

You’re Right Ringo,Endangered bog gums will never reach size requirements.But they are still valuable in our environment.

Reply
Linda Cuttriss
22/10/2022 09:10:19 am

A really important and powerful article Sally. I hope our local member reads it and makes a last minute change of heart. Hope we hear the announcement we’ve been waiting for that Labor will (like the other candidates) take action to protect our rare and precious Woodlands and all the trees and creatures living there.

Reply
Stephen
22/10/2022 01:12:23 pm

Have known Ringo since he was a little fella and admire his knowledge of the local environment and his attitude to conservation. Hope he inspires those he works for and convinces those who see the bush as an area to be felled then mown every other weekend of the error of their poor attitude!

Reply
Anne Heath Mennell
27/10/2022 02:26:21 pm

Thank you, Sally for a brilliant profile. Like Jan, I thought it was beautifully written but difficult to read. Trees are the very best friends we have in these times for many, many reasons - physical, mental, spiritual and more. So, why do humans seem hellbent on destroying every last one? And for what? Thank heavens for people like you, Ringo, These must be very difficult times in which to be an ethical arborist.

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Tony Marshall
7/11/2022 09:00:07 am

It is incredibly important for somebody like Ringo to speak to us all on behalf of the trees and the ecosystems they support. It takes just minutes to chop a tree down but generations to grow one. Forests are one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

Reply
Deb
7/11/2022 12:19:41 pm

I have lived in Adams estate for years and it is annoying to c so many trees removed I understand if u need to build a house and she'd but I have seen a block completey cleared of trees then they sold it we need to look after the bush here for our rare native a animals I have had a 7 ft lace moniter in my yard 10/15 plus years ago u don't c them any more we do have owls possums still I would like to hope that future generations will get to enjoy what I have thax for ur article Sally and Ringo thax for looking out for the bush.

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Howard McNiece
9/11/2022 01:54:24 pm

Great article Sally! If we continue to see our natural resources as an infinite way to reap cash without consequences we are on the path of extinction. Listen to Mother Earth for the answer is there.

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