This is my first trip to Tassie. I have sat through speeches from the Prime Minister and Premier Paul Lennon and today watched a helicopter carrying Kim Beazley rise above the Tahune Forest Reserve.
What I will probably remember most though,is the sheer size of the trees.
I am still coming to grips with the size of what I have always called black wattle but what is know here as blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon). The Tassie blackwoods are so straight and tall but at around 30m, not tall by Tassie tree standards.
Tasmania has a tallest tree registry with more than 50 individual trees registered.
I was fascinated by the height and girth of the stringybarks (Eucalyptus obliqua) in the wet Eucaptus forests of the Huon valley. I saw perhaps the tallest stringybark in Australia at 87 metres – and shrinking. The tree is dying from the top and predicted to lose about 3 metres in height over the next 5 years.
And Premier Lennon probably included this tree in the 100 million trees that he proudly declared on Saturday would be “protected forever”!
The tallest Tassie trees are the swamp gums (E. regnans) and apparently even taller in Victoria. The world’s tallest ever tree was perhaps a swamp gum felled at Watt’s River Victoria in 1872, however, the height of 133 metres is disputed.
But none of these trees can apparently ever qualify as the tallest Christmas tree – irrespecive of how well they might be decorated.
Anyway, the forests I saw today were extensive, magnificent and very tall.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
The tall tree register mentioned in the link to the media release finding Three giant Stringy-barks in the Beech Creek area (Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park) and including the tallest Stringy-bark yet recorded at 86 metres, has now been replaced by a giant tree register and can be cound at http://www.gianttrees.com.au/
And further to the Premier Paul Lennon proudly announcing that over 100 million trees will be protected forever – it is certainly not forever. We need to remember that even though the trees may be protected from harvesting forever – they are not protected from fire, lightening strikes or death and a lot of the trees protected in the Styx Valley are quite old and commencing the early stages of death! So what exactly are we protecting for future generations? The stags of eucalypts in amongst rainforests that once were wet eucalypt forests! We should really think hard about what the future ramifications are for “protecting” living organisms before we support polices that provide a “warm fuzzy sensation” and deliver very little else! Where will you buy your next piece of myrtle furniture from? You probably won’t – it will more likely be a piece of furniture made from rainforest timbers imported from a third world country using cheap labour…hmm…yep good thing we continue to lock up Tasmania’s forests – at the peril of international forests!
How is Tall Tree Longivety Assure without Human Intervention?
The tall trees viewed must be taken into context that on European occupation of Tasmania (Van Diemans Land)these trees were in fact regrowth a little over half grown. Tasman and other European early visitors noted the numerous pattern of fires obvously started by the First People for hunting, travel,preparation of herbivore gardens and fire control.
One must ask in 20, 50, 100 or 200 years time what is predicted to happen to these tall tree areas if human co-exists using either fire or planned thinning does not occur? Is it an OBBF (One Bloody Big Fire)taking all before it killing thousands of uneque biota.
Was the establishment of the International World Heritage concept designed to protect existing biota or is it to permit the genercide of existing biota in pursuit of the hard core environmentalist dream of creating a new Jurasic Park by killing off the eucalypt weeds? An OBBF of extreme heat will ensure the loss of the thin surface soils if current rainfalls hit after the fire around 2000mm.
Having fought two very large and robust fires in rainforest be assured that when they take hold only an act of God will temporarily halt them then human intervention is required to flood or trench underground peats and extinguish standing and fallen stags bordering the fire line.
Note the Conservation movement during the 2003-2004 fire in the Tarkine did not assist or cry about the loss (around 80,000 hectares) they publicaly said it is alright as something orginal will grow back over the next 400 years.
Cheers Mike Grey
Some relevant web sites:
http://www.forestrytas.com.au/forestrytas/index.html
http://www.warra.com/warra/
http://www.gianttrees.com.au/