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Forrestry
Find or submit original online articles about Forrestry within the Agriculture Category
at GoArticles Australia |
Vulnerability of Tasmanian giant trees 
Published : July 12, 2010 | Author : Republished | Unrated |
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 Tasmania’s giant trees are among the world’s tallest flowering
plants and Australia’s greatest eucalypts. However, they are not
well protected in National Parks or extensive reserves.
Of the 69 known trees that meet the official criteria for protection
as giants, almost 90% are in State forests managed for wood
harvesting. Several of the giants are within coupes that were
scheduled for clearfelling under the Tasmanian 2004–2007 threeyear
wood production plan, and recent harvesting operations have
threatened or killed several others.
Fifty-five per cent (38) of the known Tasmanian giants, including
the tallest trees, the tallest stand, the tallest stringybark, and the
second most massive stringybark, exist in the middle of the Styx
Valley. Harvesting and regeneration burning operations indirectly
threaten most of these trees, because they stand close to scheduled
or recently clearfelled coupes. More importantly, increasing the
proportion of young, dense, highly flammable eucalypt regrowth
forest, at the expense and fragmentation of less flammable oldgrowth
forest, seriously exacerbates the risk of wildfire, and
invites annihilation of all the Styx Valley giants.
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Native forests under fire
Published : July 12, 2010 | Author : Republished | Unrated |
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The interaction between man, forests and fire in
Australia has altered radically over the past 200 years,
bringing about a decline in some ecosystems.
Australia’s eucalyptdominated
forests and woodland ecosystems are among the most fire-prone places in the world. The dry, fire-maintained nature of much
of Australia’s landscape is in
stark contrast to the moister,
greener landscapes of Europe
and tropical Asia from which
the majority of our population
has migrated. Our native flora
and fauna have evolved with
fire over millions of years.
In Australia, man, fire and
forests have interacted over
30 to 40 millennia. Aboriginal
people used fire extensively,
particularly in grasslands,
grassy woodlands and
forests. Fire was used for
smoke signals, to clear ground
for walking, to expose burrows
and more easily track animals,
to protect and nurture specific plant communities, for rituals
and for warfare. The pattern
of burning that resulted was
a fine mosaic of small patches
of recently burned areas with
low fuel loads that limited
the spread of severe fires that
could threaten safety or food.
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