Land and Food Resources Dookie Campus

Dookie Bushland Reserve

The Dookie Bushland Reserve is an area of 270 ha of Grey and White Box grassy woodland located at the centre of the campus farm. It is the single largest and most diverse area of Grey and While Box grassy woodland in Victoria, and the largest of its kind on an Australian university campus. The Dookie Bushland Reserve was declared in 1992 and since then has been protected and carefully managed according to conservation objectives. The Dookie Bushland Reserve is also an important resource for natural resource management subjects and courses offered on campus, as well as the central seed collection point for the Goulburn Broken Indigenous Seedbank, also located on campus.

The Reserve has had a varied land use history, with no agricultural impact until the 1960s, when some areas were used for grazing, however the central area has had little or no impact since white settlement. Adjacent areas of the campus farm have undergone clearing since the 1890s. Some areas of the Bushland Reserve were used for timber harvesting, and small areas for gravel extraction.

Since 1992 a feral animal perimeter fence has been completed and maintained, there has been on-going pest animal and plant management, a dramatic improvement in habitat quality due largely to natural regeneration, and the removal of grazing pressure. The Reserve today is a large and high quality remnant of some of the original vegetation of the northern plains of Victoria, particularly the threatened ecological vegetation class of Low Rises Grassy Woodlands and Box-Ironbark Woodland. It is highly valued for these community associations, the diversity of its flora and fauna (including many threatened species), and as a consequence, is listed as an indicative site on the Register of the National Estate.

Follow the links for more information on the the Dookie Bushland Reserve:

 

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