A two-page leaflet in a series on “Threatened Vegetation Communities, this was published in 1998 by the Trust for Nature, Victoria.
Review Status: Pending
Textual narratives explaining key concepts and specific subjects. Cascading from general to specific, eventually they will include variously concept summaries, subject summaries and geographic summaries.
A two-page leaflet in a series on “Threatened Vegetation Communities, this was published in 1998 by the Trust for Nature, Victoria.
This two-page leaflet dated 2000 by Aboriginal Affairs Victoria describes shell middens, where they can be found and the regulations protecting them.
This two-page leaflet of uncertain date lists 64 Ramsar sites, including the first in the world declared under the 1971 Ramsar convention (Cobourg Peninsula, 1974).
This four-page leaflet was published in 1977 by the Department for Environment, Housing and Community Development.
This two-page leaflet describes restrictions, the rationale behind them and the difference in restrictions in some specific areas. Victoria’s parks, reserves and forests.
A four-page leaflet published in March 1993 by the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service.
This eight-page booklet Revegetation in Rural Landscapes outlines the results of research in western Victoria, funded by Deakin University and the Glenelg-Hopkins Catchment Management Authority.
The Victorian Ministry fro Conservation in 1979 published a 16-page half-A4 guide to environmentally friendly urban street design, Streets Ahead. As with many or most such practical guidelines, the principles are relevant more widely than to just one State.
This leaflet outlines incentives available under a National Landcare Program initiative.
This four-page leaflet depicts new parks – Murray-Sunset and major extensions to Wyperfeld – in north-western Victoria proclaimed in June 1881.
A review of the comparative ecology of Red and Western Grey
Kangaroo in Australian Rangelands: An evaluation of the likely impact on the vegetation at Hattah-Kulkyne National Park. An 18-page report by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Flora Fauna and Fisheries Unit, Mildura Office, North West Area. April 1994.
By Queensland-based Astronomer Peter Anderson
Whilst many of us visit nearby National Parks on day tours, we may also make trips to special National Parks a distance away requiring a traveller to spend a night nearby, or even better within the park when facilities are available. This provides a wonderful opportunity to explore the night sky.
Astronomical tourism is also encouraged in a number of country areas promoting ‘dark sky’ sites so, if you find yourself out under a dark, star-spangled, country night sky you can explore the wonders of the galaxy. How do you begin, and what do you look at? What equipment do you need?
I suggest that in advance you could download the free planetarium programme ‘Stellarium’ developed by enthusiasts and in wide use. It operates from a single screen and you are able to set up your location, date and time. It is great to explore all manner of astronomical phenomena in the past, present, and future (stellarium.org). It is easy to check out what that bright star you are seeing in the sky happens to be.
Of course I recommend a telescope, but a wonderful start is a pair of binoculars that many readers may already own. A standard pair that has magnifications between 7 and 10 will suffice nicely. The magnification is the first figure on the numbers displayed on it. For example 7X50 means 7 magnifications and 50mm diameter main lenses.
With binoculars you will readily be able to see the larger craters on the Moon, the four bright moons of Jupiter orbiting it, some of the wider double stars, many brighter star clusters and a number of glowing gaseous nebulae, especially along the Milky Way. The wider field of view of binoculars compared to telescopes, can be very beneficial in appreciating extended objects and virtually all amateur astronomers have a pair (or more) handy.
Astronomy is a fascinating subject but it does require some understanding. Nowadays one can purchase and set up ‘go to’ telescopes that will automatically find an object. One disadvantage is the extra expense, and another is that the owner will have learned very little about the night sky. I submit it is better to have learned the basics of celestial mechanics, and like riding a bicycle, the knowledge will stay with you forever. A good start would be to familiarise yourself with Stellarium and then perhaps some basic text on astronomy. The internet can also be a good source, especially ‘Wikipedia’.
But, let us assume that sometime in the next three months you find yourself outside under a dark night moonless sky in the early to mid evening and wonder what you might look at. I suggest that you face south and locate the Southern Cross. If you are not certain please refer to the photograph that will act as the guide.
Below are images taken with a 500mm focus lens and this approximates the binocular view that I describe. All are to the same scale so are easy to relate to your view. It is extremely disheartening to the reader if the supporting images were taken using large telescopes that have little relationship to the visual appearance in a small telescope or binoculars.
Once you have found the Southern Cross, you will see a small dark area beside it. This is a cloud of obscuring material in front of the bright Milky Way beyond and is called ‘The Coalsack’.
Stars have a huge range in intrinsic brightness as will be demonstrated by some of the statistics quoted. Our nearest star is of course the Sun and we are the third planet from it. Our distance to the Sun is eight light minutes. This contrasts sharply with the distances to stars that I express in light years, namely the distance that light travels in a year, sometimes in the hundreds and thousands. To the left or lower left of the Southern Cross there are two bright stars that point towards it, joined by a line on the image. The brighter one furthest away is Alpha Centauri, yellowish in colour and a little over four light years distant from us. The other pointer at the right is Beta Centauri 360 light years distant and hotter, being blue-white in colour. This difference in distance between 4 and 360 light years gives a good indication of their relative output of radiation since they seem fairly similar in brightness in our skies.
Alpha Centauri is a double star. Two stars are in an 80 year orbit about each other but a telescope is needed to show them. Marginally closer to us but a little over two degrees away from Alpha in the sky and gravitationally linked to it, is the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our solar system. Even at such a relatively close distance it is very faint, beyond the reach of binoculars.
Next to the Cross near the Coalsack, binoculars will reveal a small triangular cluster of stars that is called the Jewelbox because in a telescope a number of its stars display different colours. The different colours of stars is caused by different surface temperatures akin to the colour and temperature of flames. Look for stars of different colours and you will certainly see the colours blue-white, white, yellow, and some orange among the brighter ones.
The bright star at the base of the Cross, Alpha Crucis (Acrux), 348 light years distant, is also a double star when seen through a telescope and these stars are blue-white. There is a nearby star (much fainter) that you will see in binoculars as being very close. It is considered to be part of the system but is more than 20 times further away than the inner pair.
Well above the Cross in the image, you can find Omega Centauri as you sweep up your binoculars. This will appear as an unresolved blob, brighter at the centre. In a telescope this is resolved into many thousands of gravitationally bound stars. Objects of this type are called Globular Clusters, but Omega Centauri is of a huge size and may be the core of a dwarf galaxy that was captured and torn apart by the Milky Way. It is a considerable distance away – around 17,000 light years. (The final image shows an image of Omega Centauri taken with a 15cm aperture telescope. This size of telescope is in common use by amateur astronomers and the image approximates what you might expect to see in such a telescope under dark sky conditions. Of course the larger the telescope, the more light that is gathered – as well as increased resolution for seeing finer detail.)
On the other side of the Cross is a bright area of the Milky Way where you will find several star clusters. You can sweep through this area looking for them. The largest and most prominent is NGC 3532 at 1,321 light years away from us. These stars have a common origin and star clusters generally dissipate after several hundred million years due to various galactic gravitational influences.
At the far side of this bright area lies the Eta Carinae nebula at 7,500 light years distant. It is a huge conglomeration of bright gas excited by the giant close double star Eta Carinae. Dark material roughly divides it into three segments. Eta Carinae itself could ‘go supernova’ at any moment. Briefly in an eruption in 1843, it became the second brightest star in the night sky. The gas and material ejected by this eruption produced the small doll shaped ‘homunculus’ nebula around it visible in telescopes.
Near the bottom of the image is the star cluster around Theta Carinae. The stars are more widely spaced and there is an interesting ‘M’ or ‘W’ alignment of a group within it that draws immediate attention.
I hope this brief introduction into some of the wonders of the night sky will encourage your further interest in astronomy.
25 April 2026
For a printable or downloadable pdf of this article, click here.
This 34 page roneoed memoir has earned a place in PaRC because of the references in it to areas that are now National Park – Kulkyne, Wyperfeld-Albacutya and others.
The initials in the top right corner of the first page are of Robert Charles Anderson, an officer of the National Parks Service, joined in the late 1970s.
This small booklet was produced in 1976 by a team led by John Landy, one-time Technical Officer for the fledgling National Parks Authority and later Governor of Victoria, under the auspices of the Australian Institute of Agricultural Science (Victorian Branch).
It was launched in the rooms of the Royal Society of Victoria.
An official publication from 1961.
This rather quaint, reflective seven-page memo was written by Frank Gibbons (FR Gibbons), a soil conservationist with the Soil Conservation Authority of Victoria, housed in premises at Cotham Road Kew. “Quaint” by the standards of environmental assessment in 2025, but reflective of the times (1970).
Also, the memo offers a justification from within Christian ethics for nature conservation, respect for the earth and a modern stewardship. This is in contrast with the fundamentalist Christian position that would welcome apocalyptic collapse, a position based on the book of Revelation.
The file when originally scanned was titled “FR_Gibbons_Public_Land_Use_Guidelines_Aust_Christian_Movement_1970.pdf”. The document was apparently a manuscript for a magazine article. Anyone who knows more about the eventual outcome of the essay is invited to contact PaRC.
Frank Gibbons was a quiet, quietly spoken and unassuming officer who carries no little credit for the abandonment of the land clearing scheme in the Little Desert of 1968-1970. Among other agitation, he addressed the students in Dr EHM (Tim) Ealey’s applied ecology lectures at Monash University in 1969 and the students through the Biological Society took an active part in the campaign, including handing out leaflets in the Melbourne City Square.
Many, many individuals and groups of course contributed to a momentum of that campaign. Frank Gibbons’s contribution to orderly land-use planning was another level above quiet agitation. With his colleagues at the Soil Conservation Authority, and RG Downes its Director not least, the scientists involved in land assessment lay the groundwork for the land-use studies of the Land Conservation Council established by legislation in 1970. Therein lies a tale! For more, read Libby Robin’s book on the saga!
This page is a placeholder for accounts of trails and corridors and recreational use of them.
In the meantime, check the excellent websites Trail Hiking Australia and Rail Trails Australia. Rail Trails Australia lists 191 trails, such as The Red Gum Track, Hamilton to Coleraine, Victoria.
ABC Rural published an account of the Mary Valley Trail in Queensland in 2024.
This comprehensive guide of ~150 pages was prepared through collaboration between the authorities in Queensland and New South Wales as well as the University of Queensland. To access this authoritative material:
Open the Monitoring Visitors to Natural Areas index pdf which explains the structure of the report (and contains hotlinks to the individual subject sections, but the links have not yet been activated).
Open the Monitoring Visitors to Natural Areas assembled report, including Glossary, References and Appendices.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of tables iv
List of figures v
Abbreviations vi
Acknowledgements vii
Preface viii
PART 1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Managing Natural Areas: Balancing Dual Responsibilities 1
1.2 Visitor Monitoring: Bridging the Gap 2
1.3 Objectives of the Manual 3
1.4 The Visitor Monitoring System 3
PART 2 GUIDELINES FOR ESTIMATING VISITOR USE 5
2.1 Introduction 5
2.2 Standardising Measurement Units 5
2.3 The Visitor Use Monitoring Process 5
2.3.1 Phase 1: Preliminary Design Considerations 5
2.3.1.1 Step 1: Clearly define the rationale for data collection 5
2.3.1.2 Step 2: Determine objectives of monitoring visitor use 7
2.3.1.3 Step 3: Familiarise yourself with the area 7
2.3.1.4 Step 4: Design a sampling plan 7
2.3.1.5 Step 5: Review alternative methods for monitoring use 10
2.3.1.6 Step 6: Select the most appropriate method(s) 15
2.3.2 Phase 2: Program Development 16
2.3.2.1 Step 7: Design a visitor use monitoring program 16
2.3.3 Phase 3: Data Analysis and Reporting 16
2.3.3.1 Step 8: Data preparation, analysis, reporting and storage 16
PART 3 GUIDELINES FOR VISITOR SURVEYS 19
3.1 Introduction 19
3.2 The Visitor Survey Process 19
3.2.1 Phase 1: Questionnaire Development 19
3.2.1.1 Step 1: Define survey objectives, resources and constraints 19
3.2.1.2 Step 2: Review methods of data collection 19
3.2.1.3 Step 3: Compare and evaluate survey modes 25
3.2.1.4 Step 4: Select the most appropriate method 29
3.2.1.5 Step 5: Determine survey questions 30
3.2.1.6 Step 6: Establish questionnaire layout and flow 39
3.2.1.7 Step 7: Evaluate the questionnaire 42
3.2.1.8 Step 8: Pre-test the questionnaire 43
3.2.2 Phase 2: Design A Sampling Strategy 44
3.2.2.1 Step 9: Determine the target population 45
3.2.2.2 Step 10: Determine the sample frame 45
3.2.2.3 Step 11: Select a sampling method 46
3.2.2.4 Step 12: Determine sample size 47
3.2.2.5 Step 13: Dealing with non-response 51
3.2.3 Phase 3: Administration of Questionnaires 53
3.2.3.1 Step 14: Scheduling the survey 53
3.2.3.2 Step 15: Select survey locations 54
3.2.3.3 Step 16: Determine staffing requirements 54
3.2.3.4 Step 17: Pre-survey preparation 56
3.2.3.5 Step 18: Distribute questionnaires 57
3.2.3.6 Step 19: Data management 59
3.2.4 Phase 4: Data Analysis and Reporting 61
3.2.4.1 Step 20: Prepare data for analysis 61
3.2.4.2 Step 21: Data entry 63
3.2.4.3 Step 22: Data analysis 64
3.2.4.4 Step 23: Report generation 67
3.2.4.5 Step 24: Data storage and retrieval 68
3.3 Survey Research: Ethical Issues 69
3.3.1 Informing Respondents 69
3.3.2 Protecting Respondents 69
3.3.3 Benefits to Respondents 70
3.3.4 Ethical Responsibilities to Interviewers 70
PART 4 CORE QUESTIONS MODULE 71
PART 5 QUESTION BANK MODULES:
STANDARD QUESTIONS 73
5.1 Visitor Characteristics Sub-module 73
5.2 Travel Characteristics Sub-module 74
5.3 Nature of the Visit Sub-module 76
5.4 Interpretation and Education Sub-module 86
5.5 Visitor Spending Sub-module 87
5.6 Visitor Satisfaction Sub-module 93
5.7 Natural Area Management Sub-module 94
PART 6 QUESTION BANK MODULES:
BEST PRACTICE QUESTIONS 95
6.1 Visitor Characteristics Sub-module 95
6.2 Travel Characteristics Sub-module 99
6.3 Nature of the Visit Sub-module 103
6.4 Interpretation and Education Sub-module 105
6.5 Visitor Spending Sub-module 106
6.6 Visitor Satisfaction Sub-module 108
REFERENCES 111
APPENDICES 115
APPENDIX I: Probability and Nonprobability Sampling Methods 116
APPENDIX II: Kondalilla National Park Visitor Survey: Format and Layout 119
APPENDIX III: Interview-administered Front End Interview Form 125
APPENDIX IV: Self-administered Front End Interview Form 127
APPENDIX V: Questionnaire Response Rate Form 129
APPENDIX VI: Reminder Letter Template for Follow-up Mailings 131
GLOSSARY 133
The Australian Protected Areas Congress 2008 was held at Twin Waters Resort, Queensland.
Read the consolidated proceedings Protected Areas in the Century of Change, ~279 pages, here. A wealth of information, from a formidable cast of knowledgeable people.
Masterclass
The Congress included a Masterclass on “Management Effectiveness Evaluation” of protected areas. The aims were to:
Participants (minus email addresses, but PaRC holds a copy)
Design and analysis issues for ME evaluations
Process guidelines for indicator selection for Protected Area Management Effectiveness Evaluations
Management Effectiveness Evaluation within State of the Parks Assessment and Reporting Systems: Draft Principles
Ridgeline, the newsletter of the Australian Research Council (ARC) linkage project titled “Building capacity for adaptive management in protected areas through improved systems for monitoring and evaluation”:
Presentations
Introductory presentation. Marc Hockings and Fiona Leverington.
Linking management effectiveness evaluations with on-ground management activities: An example from the NSW State of the Parks Program. Andrew Growcock.
Designing Reliable Management Effectiveness Assessments. Carly Cook.
Linking evaluation to the needs of managers. Chris Jacobson.
Great Parks Network Benchmarks: An analysis of membership management performance. Parks Forum.
Spatial tools for understanding performance within a landscape context. Josie Kelman.
Effectively managing management effectiveness. Peter Stathis et al.
Performance Assessments in Western Australia. Conservation Council of Western Australia.
Linking short-term and longer term evaluation. Tony Varcoe.
Discussion
Slides of the discussion – consolidated
Findings – with shorter list of participants, email addresses deleted.
Queensland will be hosting the 2032 Olympic Games. A few people with experience of parks and planning in the past 30 years have been concerned at the absence of any strategic plan for enhancing the liveability of the South East Queensland region. The advent of the Games offers an opportunity to bequeath a first-class network of parks, reserves and open space as well as enhancing Queensland’s reputation as a liveable community. ‘Liveability’ includes ensuring that new urban development is steered towards locations not unduly constrained by topography, biodiversity, scenic amenity or other planning criteria.
The liveability of Queensland’s urban settlements has been compromised by four significant policy milestones:
A new campaign called “SEQ Green Space Strategy 2032” was born in March 2026. This page accesses documentary materials relevant to the campaign.
For background materials, prior to March 2026, see Open space in SEQ 1994-2021; ROSS supplementary materials; and a chronology of 2004-2012 by the SEQ Community Alliance, as well as numerous other relevant documents in the twin PaRC collections. See also the website of the SEQ Community Alliance.