Victorian Volcanic Plain
Bioregion: Victorian Volcanic Plain

The Bioregional Landscape
The Natural Capital of the Landscape
Land Management Themes
Biodiversity Condition
Management Responses
Tables and Charts for the Victorian Voclanic Plain

The Bioregional Landscape
The Victorian Volcanic Plain is an area of flat to undulating plains in south-western Victoria, stretching from Melbourne west to Portland, south to Colac and north to Beaufort. It is characterised by vast open areas of grasslands, small patches of open woodland, stony rises denoting old lava flows, the low peaks of long extinct volcanoes dotting the landscape and numerous scattered large shallow lakes. Few major rivers cross the Victorian Volcanic Plain, although the Hopkins River system is a prominent landscape feature. The major land use is agriculture, especially sheep and cattle grazing and cropping.

Settlement on the Victorian Volcanic Plain is generally sparse, although denser in areas on the outskirts of Melbourne, Geelong and Ballarat. Being one of the first areas settled for agriculture in Victoria, there is very little public land, and consequently parks and conservation reserves are generally small and scattered. Important parks and reserves include Mount Napier State Park, Mount Eccles National Park, Inverleigh Common, and Cobra Killuc and Derrimut reserves. Nine lakes in the Victorian Volcanic Plain, including Lake Corangamite and Lake Murdeduke, are included in the Ramsar Convention on wetlands of international importance. Several of the Victorian Volcanic Plain lakes are also popular duck hunting reserves.

Aboriginal people of seven language groups inhabited the Victorian Volcanic Plain before European settlement. The Girai wurrung, Dhauwurd wurrung and Djab wurrung were in the west, the Djargurd wurrung and Gulidjan around Lake Corangamite, and the Watha wurrung and Woi wurrung in the eastern part of the plain. Their use of fire to encourage new growth, which attracted game, and in hunting greatly influenced the diversity of species and may have assisted in maintaining the open plains landscape.

Major regional centres include Camperdown, Hamilton and Portland. The bioregion covers parts of many local government areas and parts of the Corangamite CMA, South West CMA and Port Phillip CaLP areas, with a small part in the Wimmera CMA area.

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The Natural Capital of the Landscape
The most prominent BVTs in this bioregion were grass lands and associated communities. Other vegetation included woodlands, shrublands, riparian vegetation and extensive wetlands. The grassland communities are floristically rich, usually dominated by Kangaroo Grass with a wide variety of perennial herbs. The bioregion supports a wide variety of reptiles, birds of prey, waterbirds and several ground-dwelling birds, but few mammal species. Several species including Eastern Barred Bandicoot, Corangamite Water Skink and Basalt Rustyhood Orchid are endemic to the Victorian Volcanic Plain, and the Striped Legless Lizard is most strongly associated with this bioregion.

Only a handful of small conservation reserves, including Cobra Killuc Wildlife Reserve and Derrimut Grassland Reserve preserve small remnants of native grassland. Several of the larger lakes are important sites for colonial nesting waterbirds including Australian Pelican and Gull-billed Tern, while tens of thousands of water birds and waders occur on Lake Goldsmith in some years. The remaining native ecosystems, particularly those severely depleted such as grasslands, woodlands and shallow freshwater wetlands, are all highly significant and vital for biodiversity conservation in the bioregion.

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Land Management Themes
The open and fertile grassy plains provided ready opportunities for pastoralism, and early settlers soon moved into the district. As a result, the Victorian Volcanic Plain is now largely private land used almost entirely for agriculture, particularly grazing and cropping. The bioregion supports some of the most productive grazing country in Australia. As a consequence there is very little public land, other than road and rail reserves, in the area. Almost all of the native ecosystems have been severely depleted, with remnants occurring in small and isolated patches. Some of the larger grassland remnants and most of the shallow freshwater wetlands are on private land, whereas most of the deeper permanent wetlands are public reserves. The heavy basaltic soils of the plains and the frequent fires of pre-European times resulted in extensive areas of open grassland, and many grassland plants are adapted to frequent burning and grazing by native herbivores. Fire management of the dissected remnants remains one of the major problems facing conservation managers today.

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Biodiversity Condition
Once the major habitat covering many thousands of square kilometres of the Victorian Volcanic Plain, native grasslands are now reduced to a few thousand hectares in extent, with much of this in small fragmented road and rail reserves and cemeteries. A few larger patches remain on private land. Much of the riparian habitat has been removed or reduced to narrow bands of trees with little regeneration. Almost all of the woodlands have been cleared, with little regeneration of remaining areas on private land because of grazing and cropping. Over 75 per cent of the shallow freshwater wetlands have also been lost or extensively modified through drainage. Most of the larger deep, usually permanent wetlands remain, although much of the original shoreline vegetation has been removed. Changes in catchment hydrology of some of the larger lakes has caused problems due to altered runoff from cleared and drained lands. The remnant habitats are under threat from weed invasion, grazing, cropping, vehicle movement and soil disturbance. Urban, industrial and major project developments to Melbourne’s west are also placing pressure on some remnant grasslands. Dryland salinity and increasing salinity of some lakes is a problem.

Extensive habitat loss has resulted in many plants and animals becoming extinct or threatened; these include the Eastern Barred Bandicoot, Plains-wanderer, Brolga, Striped Legless Lizard, Southern Lined Earless Dragon, Dwarf Spider Orchid and Basalt Rustyhood. The Victorian Volcanic Plain has a high proportion of extinct or threatened flora and fauna relative to the rest of Victoria. The remaining grassland areas are crucial to the conservation of many threatened species. Small and restricted plant populations are extremely vulnerable to the slightest disturbance such as a vehicle driving on the site. The lake systems, particularly the Ramsar listed wetlands, are important for waterbird conservation. Lake Corangamite has one of very few Australian Pelican breeding colonies in Victoria. The protection of colonial breeding and roosting sites is very important for the conservation of a range of waterbirds.

With much of the Victorian Volcanic Plain in private ownership and relatively few conservation reserves, biodiversity conservation will require the cooperation of private land owners and managers. Many of the threatened plant species now restricted to narrow road or rail reserves will depend for their conservation on the sympathetic management of these areas. Land for Wildlife and Public Authority Management Agreements (PAMAs) are already being used to promote the protection of these areas on private and public land, and some significant sites are protected under these arrangements.

Of the 119 known threatened species and undetermined number of threatened ecological communities in this bioregion there are:

• 80 listed vertebrates and plants, of which 19 have Action Statements;
• two listed invertebrates, of which one has an Action Statement;
• two listed communities, of which one has an Action Statement.

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Management Responses
The extensive depletion and fragmentation of many of the bioregion’s ecosystems means that the remaining areas are highly significant for biodiversity conservation. Given the large proportion of private land in the Victorian Volcanic Plain and the scattered small conservation reserves, biodiversity conservation will rely heavily on the owners and managers of private land and the network of road and rail reserves and other public land. The emphasis will be on working with landowners and managers to identify and protect these remnants and the threatened species, communities and critical habitats of the region through schemes such as Land for Wildlife. The Regional Vegetation Plans of the Catchment Management Authorities in this bioregion will provide a focus for the protection, restoration and revegetation of depleted habitats. Early identification of threatened communities will be encouraged, so that this information can be included in planning and approval processes. There is already considerable interest from the local community in conservation initiatives such as the Eastern Barred Bandicoot reintroductions and the Striped Legless Lizard recovery program.

The approach will be to build on these strengths, by providing incentives and assistance for the protection of remnant grasslands, woodlands and shallow freshwater wetlands on private land and using PAMAs and roadside vegetation protection mechanisms for protection of significant habitats on other public land. Emphasis will be given to protecting and enhancing riparian corridors. Management plans will be prepared and implemented for all significant conservation reserves, including Ramsar wetlands. FFG Act processes and native vegetation retention regulations will also be used to protect threatened species and communities.

Concentrated predator and environmental weed control is vital where small, fragmented habitats and population and colonial breedings sites persist.

Together with the state-wide key directions outlined earlier, land and water managers and planners in the bioregion should consider the following priorities.

• Implement a grasslands conservation program, with particular emphasis on a reserve system supplemented by off-reserve components (landholders and property management, road and rail sides) and management of environmental weeds. Emphasis should be placed on long-term viability, thus there should be concentration on larger sites away from urban areas.
• Finalise management plans for significant wetlands, including all Ramsar wetlands.
• Identify all sites of biological significance in the rural landscape in conjunction with local government and encourage appropriate use of this information in local planning schemes.
• Target Land for Wildlife and property management planning extension to properties with native grasslands and wetlands, particularly those likely to support threatened species.
• Focus revegetation and rehabilitation efforts on the riparian environments.
• Maintain appropriate water regimes for freshwater wetlands.
• Focus efforts on threatened species that are endemic or for which the volcanic plains are important (e.g. Eastern Barred Bandicoot, Corangamite Water Skink) and encourage habitat protection (e.g. prevention of rock removal at Striped Legless Lizard sites) and rehabilitation.
• Protect forest areas (e.g. Stony Rises) from fragmentation.