MAISIE'S PLOTS

Maisie’s Plots, two Alpine ecology monitoring sites, one at Rocky Valley and one at Pretty Valley, consisting of fenced exclusion plots and unfenced control plots.

Criterion A
Importance to the course, or pattern, of Victoria's cultural history.

Criterion F
Importance in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period

Criterion G
Strong or special association with a particular present-day community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons.

Criterion H
Special association with the life or works of a person, or group of persons, of importance in Victoria’s history.

Maisie’s Plots are historically significant as one of the longest continual ecological monitoring experiments in Australia and Victoria. It is amongst the longest continual grassland monitoring project?s in the world. Established on the Bogong High Plains by botanist Maisie Fawcett between 1945-47, Maisie’s Plots yielded valuable data about the impact of cattle grazing on alpine vegetation and soils. Published initially with colleague Professor John Turner in 1959, the plots continue to contribute to ecological science to this day. The project demonstrated that grazing was detrimental to the sustenance of native vegetation and encouraged soil erosion. This and subsequent longitudinal data contributed to the original controls of licensed grazing, and its eventual cessation in the Alpine National Park in 2005–06. [Criterion A]

Maisie’s Plots are historically significant for their importance in demonstrating a high degree of scientific achievement by pioneering ecologist Maisie Fawcett. Her use of the exclosure technique was highly innovative for its time and facilitated robust, long-term data collection. Her work has been pivotal in developing a sound ecological understanding of alpine vegetation dynamics in Victoria. [Criterion F]

Maisie’s Plots are socially significant within the Victorian scientific community as place where Victoria’s earliest ecological data collection methods can be viewed in action. Generations of students and researchers have been educated at Maisie’s Plots and the place is highly valued, visited and written about by botanists and ecological scientists in Victoria and around the world. Their fondness for the place is evident in the name ‘Maisie’s Plots’. [Criterion G]

Maisie’s Plots is of historical significance to Victoria for its association with Masie Fawcett. Fawcett made a strong and influential contribution to the course of Victoria’s history through her pioneering role in the botanical and ecological sciences from the mid-twentieth century. At Maisie’s Plots, Fawcett established longitudinal studies about soil erosion which have provided information about how land, soil, water, animals, the natural environment and agriculture can be sustainably managed. These plots are thought by many within the scientific community to be one of the foundations of Australian ecology. Fawcett's methodologies and data have been built on and analysed by generations of successive scientists. [Criterion H]