Black Mountain Symposium

[Paul Fennell <>]

Members may be interested in attending this historic gathering!

Friday 24 August at CSIRO Discovery Centre Theatre 

Saturday 25 August, themed walks on Black Mountain

Black Mountain is an iconic Canberra location, visible from across the city and surrounding suburbs as a navigation point and an area of native bush only two kilometres from the city centre. It has been home for Indigenous people for tens of thousands of years and for European settlers for just under two centuries, and featured prominently in Walter Burley Griffin's winning design for the new national capital. Over the last 12 months 15 local experts have collated a huge amount of information from government archives, libraries, institutional records and scientific and other publications about the historical, cultural and natural values of the Black Mountain area. All the information has been synthesised in more than 20 background papers written specially for the symposium to underpin its presentations.

Symposium themes

People and place will cover:

• Aboriginal history and usage and European settlement patterns and uses until 1970

• how the area came to be declared a conservation reserve in 1970 and its management over the

  decades since

• Canberran's attachment to Black Mountain since 1970 as reflected in their use of the area for

  education, recreation and artistic purposes and in protest movements to protect it

• the activity of professional and citizen scientists since the 1920s to document the area's biophysical

  characteristics and understand its ecology.

  Black Mountain, the biophysical place will cover the area's geological evolution, landforms and soils, and its vegetation and plant ecology.

  Natural history and values will cover plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates and fire ecology, with speaker's examining:

• what do we know about the diversity of Black Mountain's biota now?

• how has that biodiversity changed over the last five decades and what caused the changes?

• what lessons are there for the area's management over the next five decades?

  We probably know more about Black Mountain's plant and animal diversity than any other area of comparable size in the ACT, much of it due to decades of work by staff at the ANBG and CSIRO collecting institutions. Attend the symposium to learn more about this iconic place and get some close-up knowledge of it during one of the themed walks.

  Register for the symposium now via the website http://www.friendsofblackmountain.org.au/Symposium

Symposium Background Papers: biophysical

Finlayson, D (2018) Geological evolution and features of the Black Mountain Nature Reserve, Canberra. Black Mountain Symposium 2018 Background Paper No. 1.

Tongway, D (2018) Landforms and soils of Black Mountain. Black Mountain Symposium 2018 Background Paper No. 2.

Doherty, MD (2018) Vegetation types and vegetation dynamics on Black Mountain. Black Mountain Symposium 2018 Background Paper No. 3.

Purdie, RW (2018) Non-vascular flora of Black Mountain: macrofungi, lichens, hornworts, liverworts and mosses. Black Mountain Symposium 2018 Background Paper No. 4.

Purdie, RW (2018) Vascular plants of Black Mountain, 1969–2017. Black Mountain Symposium 2018 Background Paper No. 5.

Mulvaney, M (2018) Rare plants on Black Mountain Sandstone. Black Mountain Symposium 2018 Background Paper No. 6.

Evans, M (2018) The mammal fauna of Black Mountain. Black Mountain Symposium 2018 Background Paper No. 7.

Fennell, P (2018) Birds of Black Mountain, 1964–2016. Black Mountain Symposium 2018 Background Paper No. 8.

Osborne, W and Hoefer, AM (2018) Frogs and reptiles found at Black Mountain: fifty years of records, from museum collections to community-based photo mapping. Black Mountain Symposium 2018 Background Paper No. 9.

Pullen, K (2018) Invertebrate animals of Black Mountain, Canberra, ACT. Black Mountain Symposium 2018 Background Paper No. 10.

Doherty, MD (2018). Fire ecology on Black Mountain. Black Mountain Symposium 2018 Background Paper No. 11.

Symposium Background Papers: cultural

Hogg, D (2108) Use of Black Mountain for orienteering and other competitive activities. Black Mountain Symposium 2018 Background Paper No. 12.

Hogg, D (2108) Black Mountain and the Gungahlin Drive Extension. Black Mountain Symposium 2018 Background Paper No. 13.

Purdie, RW (2018) Black Mountain plant collections and collectors, 1927–2017. Black Mountain Symposium 2018 Background Paper No. 14.

Purdie, RW (2018) Quick guide to biophysical research on Black Mountain: an overview of literature. Black Mountain Symposium 2018 Background Paper No. 15.

Purdie, RW (2018) Scientific collecting, monitoring and research on Black Mountain. Black Mountain Symposium 2018 Background Paper No. 16.

Purdie, RW (2018) Black Mountain educational, recreational and creative activities. Black Mountain Symposium 2018 Background Paper No.17.

Beveridge, L (2018) Friends of Black Mountain: golden threads in community awareness. Black Mountain Symposium 2018 Background Paper No. 18.

Butz, M (2018) History and uses from deep time to 1970. Black Mountain Symposium 2018 Background Paper No. 19.

Hotchin, J (2018) Black Mountain a place of protest: tower, gondola and highway. Black Mountain Symposium 2018 Background Paper No. 20.

Hotchin, J (2018) Quick guide to creative/artistic material relating to Black Mountain. Black Mountain Symposium 2018 Background Paper No. 21. 

Paul Fennell
Editor, COG Annual Bird Report
0407105460