A blog about ecolgically responsible farm forestry. A property in NSW aiming to restore health to the Native Forest through Restoration forestry. Logging of timber with the aim of freeing up forest, managing weed infestation and adding to the biodiversity of plant and animal communities.
As a land owner it is necessary to cover the costs of owning that land but difficult to do this in an ecologically sustainable way
If a tree falls in the forest and no one uses it does it have any value?
A common misconception amongst those who love a good fire during the winter months is that the firewood being burnt is a better option than burning coal for heat and that the timber used is a good use of timber that has died an no longer serves any purpose. I'm not going to argue the whole coal/energy debate but understanding the role a tree plays in forest ecology after its death is vital in understanding and assessing forest health.
A living growing tree in the forest is in just the first stage of its life and is providing just the first round of benefits it provides to the forest. Once a tree dies its role takes on new forms. The first is as a home for mammals, birds and reptiles. The benefits are obvious as it houses species that we are familar with.
The second stage occurs as the tree falls to the ground and begins to decay. This is where an unseen level of species diversity really begins. The tree now becomes host to microbes and fungi which can have protective effects on surrounding living trees.
I once heard a land owner say that when he cuts firewood from fallen trees he takes half and leaves the other half for the forest. Advocates of fire for heating should note that not all timber is collected in this way, in fact so high is the demand for quality firewood in cities that some operators will fell trees specifically for allowing to dry and using as firewood.
Most hardwood firewood used in a standard Aussie home would come from trees that range from 30 years to 100 years old with some much older than that.
Everyone in Australia has seen lantana, next to Sir Walter Buffalo grass its probably the most common plant here. I've heard a wide range of comments about this plant, mostly of hatred but also from those that don't know what it is of appreciation. "Hasn't it got a beautiful flower!", "Wow, isn't this forest green!"
It was the attractiveness of the flower which drew the attention of botanists and led it to be shipped from Mexico to be grown in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens in 1841 where it soon escaped and proceeded to take over the local landscape. It seems to have a special capacity to grow uncontrolled in Australia and its ability to chemically stop other native seeds in the soil from germinating ensures that other plant species never take hold.
I grew up understanding that this plant was a menace, it was always present and cutting it, slashing it, in fact doing pretty much anything to it only makes it come back more. Take a look a video that I took a few months ago of an infested site on the property.
You can see that lantana has dominated the landscape and what might look to some people as a healthy forest is little more than a few trees struggling to grow and one introduced species. Not that all introduced species are necessarily a menace but with the majority of forests in Australia affected by lantana at some level it is a significant cause of loss of biodiversity.
But Lantana isn't the only culprit, in fact Lantana generally takes hold best where there has been some kind of disturbance, particularly disturbance that opens up a forest canopy and lets in light and nothing does this better than aggressively logging a forest for its biggest and best trees.Once a canopy has been removed lantana is usually the first respond and once its established little else can compete for sunlight.
The above video is of a section of the property that was aggressively logged, "clear felled" over 20 years ago and its unlikely that without assistance it will ever return to a true "forest" with a canopy and a substory of native vegetation.
So what can be done?
Firstly I'd like to point out that when some people that all Native Forests (not just Old Growth) should be preserved that a forest just like this is included and without some way of generating financial capacity form the forest landowners are in no position to treat an area like this.
In a small section of land you could and some people have removed the lantana by hand. They cut and ripped the lantana out and from an ecological perspective this is ideal. In this case though its not a small area, I've estimated that there is at least 150 acres of land like this on the property and many areas where there is a lot of lantana but not as thick as this. You'd need an army to treat it this way , and a million bucks to pay for it and when you had finished it would be time to start the process again.
You could start again. That is you could bulldoze the whole lot and replant with native species that formed a canopy blocking sunlight to the lantana, again it would become a major financial task and not 100% effective. In order to justify the expense you would put in a plantation that you intended to log in the future, which unless you changed the current financial model would put you in the same position in 30 years time. Of course even if it worked in theory you are not allowed to do this in NSW in most cases. Even areas of heavy lantana infestation are considered native forest and there are strict regulations around clearing and logging these areas. Usually because so little trees are standing there is actually no way to take out the trees you might need to cover the cost of removing the lantana.
The last option which is distasteful to many but absolutely necessary to most farmers is chemical treatment. The use of Glycophosphate in this case is one of the easiest and most cost effective ways to treat lantana. The relatively new technique used in the video below makes spraying lantana an easier prospect.
You can see now that native seeds lying on the forest floor will now have access to sunlight and the opportunity to reach for the canopy, if this occurs the lantana will not get a chance to establish.
Of course there is still a cost to this (not just the gazillion scratches on my arms) and my goal is that the forest will pay for its own restoration over time. This means that trees in more resilient parts of the forest will have to be removed to pay for activities like this.
There is a morale ambiguity to all of this. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't plagued by doubts about the outcome of logging a forest that hasn't been touched by a bulldozer in close to 30 years. However, I keep coming back to the state that the forest is in now which is by no means healthy. It seems that leaving forests to fend for themselves after logging just doesn't work.
Once we intervene in natural ecosystems we have a duty to continue to interact with them. Locking forests away for eternity like some kind of museum exhibit is flawed thinking. We need to find a middle ground where the relationship we have with forests is respected and people who understand and can interact with forests are given the opportunity to bring our forests back into a healthier condition.
