Ecology
Location
“Calamia” is situated on the upper reaches of the Richmond River. The entire river was cleared for agriculture in the early 20th Century, after cedar-getters had scoured the rainforest (or “scrub” as they called it) for valuable red cedar trees, which they chopped down and floated down the river in the late 1800s.
The river is bounded to the north by the rugged McPherson Ranges, which were formed by the volcanism that has left us with Mt Warning to the east, and Mt Lindesay and Mt Barney to the west. Much of this land now forms the Border Ranges National park. It is possible to walk from Calamia to the “finger” of the park that projects to the south, next to the border loop.
To the south lies Toonumbar National Park. Before the farm was cleared in about 1908, the river flat was rainforest, forming part of “Boyd’s Scrub”. A remnant of this rainforest lies a kilometre upstream, now known as Moore Park Nature Reserve. A large Moreton Bay Fig is a feature of Moore park.
We see Calamia as a bridge between these parks, and plan to enhance the environment to facilitate movement of animals and birds (and plant seeds in their stomachs) between these areas. Of course, this is not a completely altruistic vision; we hope to see more birds and animals on the farm, so we don’t have to trek into the forest.
Hub, Rim and Spokes
Calamia lies in a large bend in the river, which forms more than three quarters of a great ‘wheel’ about 1 km in diameter. Near the centre is the ‘hub’, a large remnant Fig tree, where “uncle Jim used to spell his bullocks”, as we were often told as children. It is already a focal point for birds and flying foxes.
Some stretches of the river are already forested by a mixture of natural Casuarina stands, self-regenerating rainforest and plantations of rainforest trees dating from 1993. This ribbon of trees forms the rim of the wheel. The reforestation of the river has already stabilised the soft earthen banks against erosion and brought back species of birds that have not been seen in the area for a generation. We aim to continue the reforestation of the river, so that we will eventually have a two kilometre stretch of riverine forest on our doorstep.
The next major ecological program will be the planting of the ’spokes’, strips of trees joining the fig tree with the river at three or four places. This should have great benefits at two scales: locally, it will allow much greater bird traffic between the river an the fig tree (which, conveniently, is close to the house, so that we will be able to watch the birds from the veranda); on a larger scale, it should create a stronger ecological corridor between the National Parks to the north and south, as well as supporting the ecology of Moore Park.