Canberra, Friday 3 May 2002

Forest ecologist research says STOP but who's listening?

New research released today by the ANU Centre for Resource and Environment Studies provides strong evidence on the major negative ecological effects of the development of charcoal and biomass plants or any so-called cleaning up processes of forest and woodland areas. Even firewood collection is not a trivial problem.

Breakthrough research in forestry ecology and management by Dr David Lindenmayer has revealed tree and log hollows are a pivotal land management issue for the preservation 305 native vertebrates.

For the first time an inventory has been established of animals and birds that rely on tree hollows to exist; for food, shelter and breeding. 100 threatened Australian species use tree hollows.

The forestry industry, farmers and other land managers have not fully recognised that old trees, fallen trees and trees with hollows are habitat for many animals and birds. The destruction of this habitat cannot be remedied easily and these hollows cannot be naively replaced by nesting boxes. Eucalypts take up to 120 to 150 years to develop hollows, and larger species up to 220 years and the effects of inappropriate management decisions will take a very long time to rectify.

"We now know what we have to do and have new methods for forest management which will protect our native fauna and allow the careful harvesting of trees for timber. Intensive forest harvesting like that for the proposed Mogo charcoal plant does not constitute sensible forest management," said David Lindenmayer.

"The bottom line is that the sort of intensive wood product harvesting we are doing now created major ecological problems in North America and Scandinavia and we have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. Those countries are now spending huge amounts of money trying to fix bad decisions."

"The vast amounts of wood that will be required to run the charcoal plant will threaten not only biodiversity but also the sawlog industry. In essence, it won't be a sawlog driven industry but a charcoal driven industry - the tail will wag the dog."

"Australia now has a clear choice to make on forest management - we can adopt retrograde, third world practices or we can arrest the situation now by identifying and marking the hollows which gliders, possums and ground foraging birds use and by providing our forest and land managers with current information and better methods for timber harvesting," said Dr Lindenmayer.

Further information: Dr David Lindenmayer, ANU Centre for Resource and Environment Studies, 6125 0654 or 0427 770 593; Genevieve Turville, ANU Public Affairs, 02 6125 6125 or 0416 249 245

No 53/2002

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The Australian National University.
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Last Modified Tue, July 16, 2002