About Us

About this website

The objective of this website is to save the unique Snobs Creek and Fish Hatchery from the imminent threat posed by clear-fell logging within its catchment.

Continued Clear-fell logging in the Snobs Creek valley poses a danger to:

1. Water yield
2. Water quality
3. Soil loss
4. Carbon release
5. Climate Change
6. State-wide recreational Angling

• We invite you to read the information provided and to then take your own form of action.
• The views expressed in this website are opinions formed, based on evidence.
• Our evidence is often based on first hand observation and conclusions drawn from the study of scientific research papers.
• Where possible the information upon which opinions are formed are hyperlinked to relevant reports and research papers. The conclusions we reach are based on fact rather than speculation, however where obvious outcomes are the conclusions, then we do not hesitate to state our opinion.
• This website will assist the reader in forming your own opinion. We have shown our pathway through the scientific literature and by our checking and testing of the veracity of opinions we have formed.
• Opinions are useless unless you draw your own similar conclusions that will inform and guide your own thoughts and actions. The opinions of the authors of the text should be tested and challenged however at the same time, if they are found to be verifiable and the conclusions drawn in the light of the evidence are fair and reasonable, then these opinions should assist you to move to the next stage: ACTION.
• Action by individuals can change things. Your personal action is invited. Do not feel helpless or powerless as the critical mass of individual action can shift mountains. You are now free to create your own creative response to the threat to your children and children’s children.
• The potency of this website is in the potential participation and connectivity it creates.
• This website aims to be accountable above all. Use connectivity to link it to all your friends and invite their actions. This website can grow exponentially. Send a link to organisations, schools, universities, student associations, individuals, businesses and other organisations.
• This chain reaction will create a wave of opposition to the deniers of climate change, and affirm the subsequent madness of clear-fell logging of our water catchments.
• Chase down the websites and email addresses of people who have been responsible for water and forests and send a link to this website.
• The greatest feature of this website is that you now own it. You can make it grow. It is a force that is expandable. The individual can take it and devise their own actionable connections through their mobile phones, workstations, laptops and other devices.
• USE THE TECHNOLOGY. We can say NO! to clear-fell logging our native forests.
• Consider our plan for the ALTERNATIVE.  The creation of a forest recreation reserve for everyone.

Rod Falconer

The Snobs Creek and the Rubicon Valley is my homeland. It is my Spirit of place.

I was born and bred within a one kilometre radius to where I live now, on Snobs Creek, close to the small township of Eildon in North Central Victoria, where its pristine tannin coloured waters have drifted forever into the Goulburn River since time immemorial.

The water integrity of the creek – its consistent low water temperatures and water purity; low evaporation rate (due to the heavily timbered slopes and steepness of Snobs Creek valley); together with its year-round water supply were the reasons why the Victorian Government in the late 1940’s proposed the site for the construction of the largest – state owned – fresh water fish hatchery in the Southern Hemisphere.

This hatchery produces Brown & Rainbow Trout, Chinook Salmon, Murray Cod, Macquarie Perch & Trout Cod in record numbers. The hatchery provides fish to over 200 rivers, lakes and impoundments across Victoria which, in turn, supports a huge recreational fishing community.

My late father – Derek Falconer – spent his life time work as manager of the facility, fiercely protecting the integrity of its waters and surrounding forests from the heavy human footprint, realizing that it was in the careful stewardship of the forest, where the mineral rich cold oxygenated waters – ideal to produce fresh water fish – would spring from.

As a boy who was raised at the fish hatchery and as a former Science teacher, I am acutely aware that our forests are the filters for our waterways. They serve as natural sponges, collecting and filtering rainfall and releasing it slowly into our streams and rivers.

The idea for this website was seeded over 12 months ago, when I started to be concerned about the increased turbidity (cloudiness) of the water.

Turbidity of Snobs Creek water below the hatchery occurs from time to time dependent on what maintenance (flushing out of filters etc.) is occurring at the facility. However, these events are infrequent, and when – in this case – it lasted a series of days, it was time for me to investigate.

In a journey up Snobs Creek Road and into the Rubicon Valley and approximately 10km above the fish hatchery, I was horrified to discover a huge clear-felled logging coup with its steep boundary only meters from the Creek. Raining at the time, I witnessed torrents of filthy brown and charcoaled stained water making its way unimpeded into the waterway.

From where I stood on this day and, for hundreds of meters either side of me, the forest was unable to complete its function of being a natural filter and sponge for the polluted water that drained into its catchment.

At this very moment in time, with tears in my eyes and mixed emotions of bewilderment and outrage, I made my firm resolve to ACT and to bring those responsible for this environmental vandalism to account.

For close to 80 years – until on relatively recently -logging of the Snobs Creek and Rubicon Valley has NEVER permanently impacted on the water quality of our rivers.

The past selective logging practices that occurred in our valleys, kept the soil and understory undisturbed, allowing our forests to continue their function of being a sink for pollution, helping to trap and filter sediment, nutrients, and other pollutants into our once, prized waterways.

Now with the practice of clear-fell logging in the catchment things have changed and it is time to ACT.

Geoff Hall

• 76 years old, retired but still guiding. Teacher of 28 years, 25 years as a Business operator. TSTC (AVC) Grad. Dip. Ceramic Design.
• Co-Founder – Goulburn Valley Fly Fishing Centre with 25 years’ experience as a Professional Fly Fishing Guide and DOC registered Guide- South Island, New Zealand.
• Swift Water Rescue and Wilderness First Aid

      Committees involved in:

• VR Fish Council (freshwater Committee)
• President of Australian Trout Foundation
• Fisheries Co – management Council (inland waters) which advised to Government
• Member of Professional Fishing Guides and Instructors Australia (PFIGA)
• Holder of Aquaculture licence and water diversion permit.
• Recreational Angling representative at the National Gap Conference
• Geoff has had extensive experience in recreational angling in Aust. NZ .and in the western states of USA (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Yellowstone regions.
• Geoff embodies a lifetime of experience in recreational angling, having taught fly fishing to hundreds of people ranging from school groups, corporate groups, politicians, lawyers, doctors and captains of industry. In fact, individuals from all walks of life.

He continues to guide and teach. Above all he is a fighter to protect and enhance the life-giving waters that enables the world of fly fishing.