Rare Trees

Flower of Eucalyptus recurva - one of the oldest and rarest plants on Earth

We keep discovering more about the Australian bush.

Once we had the tallest trees on Earth.  We have our Wollemi pines, survivors from the age of the dinosaurs, discovered in the 1990s to the astonishment of the world.

High on the slopes of Tasmania's Mount Read, beside the small glacial Lake Johnston, there is a patch of huon pine approximately 1 hectare in extent. At an altitude of 1000 metres, it is the highest occurrence of huon pine recorded.

In 1995 (the same year as the discovery of the wollemi pine), researchers were astonished to find not only that all the trees in this stand were male, but that DNA tests showed them to be genetically identical. They were clones of the one tree, evidently spreading as branches made contact with the soil and a fresh trunk sprouted. Huon pine pollen samples from Lake Johnston's sediments were dated at 10,500 years.

The oldest individual trunk in this colony may be 2000 years old, but the lonely male organism as a whole is in excess of 10,500 years old, probably having become established before the last glacial period, maybe as long ago as 30,000 years.

Perhaps the rarest eucalypt is Eucalyptus recurva - discovered in the 1980s and also known as the Ice Age Gum or the Mongarlowe Mallee. It is a mallee, with many stems sprouting from a single lignotuber (underground root ball).

The species is known from only four sites on the southern tablelands of NSW - three of the sites having just a single individual, and the other having two. Some of these five individuals are genetically identical.

The oldest of these plants, near Windellama, south east of Goulburn, is considered to be 13,000 years old and a relic of the ice age. It is possibly the oldest plant on Earth.

Because of the plant's extreme rarity, the exact locations of each known specimen is a closely guarded secret - although all are on private property.

Another particularly rare mallee - this time in Western Australia - is the Meelup Mallee (Eucalyptus phylacis). It was also discovered in the 1980s and is currently known from a single clonal population comprising 27 genetically identical individuals over a range of .09 hectares in the Shire of Busselton. The distance between the ramets (i.e. clonal individuals) suggests that this plant is also very old, and the estimate is between 6,380 years and 6,660 years. Its lignotuber extends for some 40 metres.

Eucalypts are difficult to classify. Species seem to blend into each other, and often different species can appear quite similar, and the same species can have very different appearances. Scientists now recognise three distinct genera of eucalypts: Angophora, Corymbia and Eucalyptus.

There have been many new species of eucalypt described to science in recent years, such as the Wollemi stringybark (as distinct from the pine), named in 2011, or the two species of eucalypt from northern NSW first described to science in 1999 - Eucalyptus quinniorum and E. oresbia, just two years after five new species were discovered in the same State. In 2001 a further species was discovered in NSW - E. boliviana - confined to a small stand near the crest of a single hill.

In 2009 scientists at Kew Gardens in London announced they had identified two new species of eucalypt from Western Australia. And more seem to be discovered all the time.

Often these new species are identified in small, isolated clumps of trees. Historically, and into the present day, many such clumps have been routinely cleared or logged, and in the process we have lost unguessed riches from our land's biodiversity.

We whitefellas are newcomers to this land, and have not yet learned all that it has to offer. The rare and wonderful secrets it is gradually revealing encourage us to treat it with profound respect.

The Real Forest Debate - protecting our native forests and jobs

I attend the Real Forest Debate at RMIT in Melbourne last night.  It was great to see so many people at this important event.

Here is video of me speaking.

Science has found recently that Victoria’s native forests are among the most carbon dense in the world.  Our forests produce most of our water, and contribute to the oxygen we breathe.

We appreciate their rich biodiversity and their beauty.  In short, they are unique and wonderful. Yet in 2010, we still clearfell and burn them.

Labor has broken their 2006 election promise to “protect the last significant stands of old growth forest available to logging”.

Brown Mountain and other old growth forests were recently logged. The Brumby government is actually in the logging business via their agency VicForests.  The Supreme Court found this year the Victorian Government to be in breach of the law for not ensuring threatened species surveys were conducted prior to logging.

Only about one quarter of the paltry 40,000 hectares the Labor government eventually protected this year is actually old growth.

Logging in Victoria's water catchments also continues despite clear scientific evidence it is decreasing water supplies across the state.

It is worth noting that most of our native forests logged, around 80%, ends up as low value woodchips, not timber. Less than 2% is furniture grade.

Despite the ongoing logging of our native forests, jobs have dwindled in this sector.  Three decades ago there were around 40 sawmills operating in Gippsland.  Today there are only 6 or 7.

Only this week, Bob Humphries from the Cann River saw mill said "The writing is on the wall - we are not going to survive"

Yet the best John Brumby and Minister Jennings can do is to offer to facilitate "peace talks", while the Liberals have committed to continued logging that will destroy our remaining forests.

Labor and the Coalition have both abdicated responsibility to save our forests despite overwhelming community support for this.

Its no surprise then that support is rising for the Greens as we are committed to an immediate logging industry transition out of native forests to plantations.  There are enough hardwood and softwood plantations for this immediate transition to occur. This transition is 10 years overdue.

We need action on protecting our remaining native forests, not more broken promises and subterfuge from our governments.

This is the UN International Year of Biodiversity. We the Greens will protect our remaining native forests from logging so that their biodiversity, the carbon they store, the water they produce is safeguarded.

We will promote a vibrant jobs-rich timber industry based on existing hardwood and softwood plantations that are available right now.  Our vision is for East Gippsland’s forests to be protected and part of World Heritage area with long term prosperity from nature-based tourism.

Finding Our Way

It is an enchanted memory. After two days of walking, Chris Baxter and I reached trackless, tangled country where we would have to thread our course with pinpoint precision between a series of ambiguous landmarks.

Using the map and compass, we set our course and made our way to the first point. Then we recalibrated the compass and set off again - and again.

As the golden light of the afternoon flooded the bush around us, it seemed we floated from one point to the next, feeling the lie of the land beneath our feet as if it were part of us, carrying us. Both Chris and I felt a growing exhilaration as we picked our way through the forest, using the land itself to help us on our way, and finally reaching the exact point we had hoped to find.

I have never used a GPS, although I’d quite like to have one. They’d be particularly handy for the high rolling tops in places like South West Tasmania, where cloud cover can swirl in and leave you quickly disoriented. But I do use a map and compass; navigational aids are only common sense for serious walking. Be careful about trusting to a “sense of direction”. We do not have some homing pigeon part of our brains which tells us where we need to go. Knowing where you are is a product of careful observation as you pass through the landscape.

Careful observation when we navigate can also provide us with wonderful moments – such as the afternoon Chris and I spent - where we come to experience the bush in a special way.

Bernard O’Reilly, in Green Mountains - his classic account of his search for the Stinson wreck in the Lamington Ranges of southern Queensland in 1937 - writes of navigating through dense, untracked rainforest:

“And how do you keep a straight course?” perhaps you are asking. Well, no course in this country can be exactly straight; you tack about to find the easiest way down the cliffs and the easiest grade up the other side of the gorge, but you know by your map that the big lateral ranges are running from south to north, so if you cut them at right angles, you must be going west. Then, too, the jungle is full of other signs to tell you the points of the compass. Northern and eastern slopes are always matted with the heaviest growths of lawyer and raspberry vine, while southern slopes give way to forests of fern trees and great clusters of lilies. Also, the southern side of a tree is heavily covered with lichen and moss, while the northern side shows a smooth bole. It is a great help to have a knowledge of trees and shrubs which bloom in this area. Down in the lower jungles at the foot of the ranges, a certain species of tree will bloom six weeks earlier than the same species on the loftiest heights. At the lower levels, the tree will be going to seed, while at two thousand feet it will be blooming, at four thousand feet it will be in early bud. So with a good knowledge of plants, it is possible to estimate your altitude very accurately, and since altitudes are marked on the map this is a very important thing. The same sliding scale applies to the nesting of birds, so that all nature is willing and anxious to help, if you will only take the trouble to notice.

Australian bush is remarkably varied, but the dense forests are wild places. When the eminent wilderness photographer David Tatnall goes into forests like those of East Gippsland to create photographs, one piece of equipment he carries is a step ladder. He needs that to elevate himself above the dense understorey so that the camera can take a photograph which has some perspective. Bush like that is not a place for a Sunday stroll – to go into it requires the kind of robust commitment that helps you feel alive.

Europeans come to the forests of Australia with a legacy of myth and story which sees the forest as a dangerous place – a place of savage beasts and dangerous monsters. Hansel and Gretel encountered the cannibalistic witch when lost in the forest – having been left there to die. Red Riding Hood was rescued from the wolf by her father – a wood cutter. In the great German saga The Ring of the Niebelung, the dragon Fafner brooded in his forest lair. Forests were the haunt of outlaws like Robin Hood.

In our western psyche, the forest – the bush – is the dark side of civilization. It is a place to pass through quickly, where the forces of nature are untamed, mysterious, wild.

So why does anyone go bushwalking? After all, the bush can indeed be dangerous. People have been lost in the Australian bush, and never found. You can suffer injury there, or bad weather, or run out of water. When you spend time in it, the bush can seem friendly, hostile, or immensely indifferent.

But how lost can people find themselves in the bewildering byways of our civilization – with its corporate jungles, political swamps, and dark valleys of loneliness?

To sojourn in the bush – away from the man-made comforts of civilization – is to confront the wildness in oneself. One reason we go off into the bush – and the one which draws me back again and again - is to engage in a journey of self-discovery.

The indigenous peoples of the North West Pacific area of America lived in the vast forests that covered that region. The advice of elders to young initiates as to what to do when lost in that immense wilderness is encapsulated in a poem by David Wagoner:

LOST

Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you

Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,

I have made this place around you.

If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or bush does is lost on you,

You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows

Where you are. You must let it find you.

Time for loggers to leave Victoria's forests

The endangered Leadbeater's possum - Victoria's faunal emblem

Australia's largest logging company, Gunns Ltd, has announced that it will get out of native forest logging in Australia.

CEO Greg L'Estrange said at a conference in Melbourne in Thursday "Native forest is not part of our future."

The reasons he gave were telling:

We see that the conflict largely has to end. Our employees and the communities we operate in have been collateral damage to this process. We want to move our business to a plantation-based business. The vast support of the Australian population is with the environmental non-government organisations.

This is a huge win for the environment.

The Gunns commitment is not only for Tasmania, but for the whole of Australia.

Here in Victoria, Gunns have been the biggest player in native forest logging ever since they took over Neville Smith Timber a few years ago.

Native forest logging employs only a few hundred people, and since there is a labour shortage in the plantation sector, those jobs can be absorbed there.

The industry has not been driven by sawlog production for years, and according to ABARE figures, plantations produce three times the volume of sawlogs as native forest - and rising.

The industry is booming - in plantations. And there is no shortage of timber at all - in plantations.

There is no part of a house that must be built with native forest timber.

The plantation sector must compete with the government sector. Native forest loggers do not have to buy the land, do not have to grow the trees, do not have to pay rates, do not have to pay land tax, do not have to build access roads - do not have to pay for any of the normal commercial infrastructure their enterprise uses. This means that the Victorians who own the trees are giving them away at subsidized prices.

Following the decision in the Brown Mountain case, it is clear that Vicforests has not been doing its job of protecting high conservation value forests. They do not deserve any further chance.

We know that logging causes massive loss of water and massive carbon pollution, and we know that logging increases fire risk because the regrowth is drier and more fire prone.

So now it's time for native forest to end in Victoria once and for all. The industry should be restructured so that it moves out of publicly owned native forest immediately and relies solely on the huge plantation resource.

External links

• The Wilderness Society
• Age report
• Choosing a future for Victoria's forests - pdf download of an excellent report
• Brown Mountain case
• ANU studies on Victoria's forests

Goolengook

Just after Bob Brown was elected a Senator in 1996, I walked out of court at lunchtime. I was in Hobart, prosecuting orange roughy fishermen for fraudulently understating their catch.

I turned on my mobile and it rang. It was Margaret Blakers, Bob Brown’s personal assistant. She told me Bob had just been charged with obstructing lawful forest operations at Goolengook forest in East Gippsland.

As it happened, I already knew that, because his photo was all over the front page of the papers that morning.

Now it was for me to act for him.

The first concern was the prospect that if he was convicted of any serious offence, he might be disqualified from taking his seat in the senate. When I later met with Bob and his advisers, there was discussion about how the court case could be used to highlight the plight of the forests, but I had a different perspective: the way to get good publicity was to win the case, and I thought we could.

I had a good team, with fellow barristers Klaus Mueller and Brad Baker, and some diligent instructing solicitors, including Bill Coady and Bill Lambros.

Goolengook was spectacular forest, and had been the site of a long running logging blockade.

The charge was obstructing lawful forest operations. In fact, there was no logging occurring at the time, and nothing to obstruct. But more importantly, the prosecution would have to prove that the logging was lawful, and I was not sure that it was: the logging on which the police relied was carried out next to the Goolengook River - listed as a heritage river under the Heritage Rivers Act.

The Heritage Rivers Act recognised the Goolengook River as having the best continuum of rainforest in Victoria, and made logging unlawful in the area it had protected. That area was defined by reference to a map. We had to go to the Surveyor-General's office to obtain a copy of the map which was referred to in the Act.

Looking at the map, and looking at the logging coupe plans, one thing leapt out at me: the Act required that there be 200 metre buffer zone either side of the river, but the coupe plan purported to allow logging to within 100 metres of the river.

The logging was in breach of the Heritage Rivers Act, and Parliament had set out in the Heritage Rivers Act (s 15 of the Act at that time) that the Act was to prevail over other Acts, and any instrument (ie document) authorising a contravention of the Heritage Rivers Act was "void".

In due course we travelled to Moe Court to defend Bob Brown and two others who had been charged with him. The fate of several hundred other protesters - who had also been charged - would depend on this case.

The police witnesses gave their evidence. They included the foresters who had drawn up the coupe plans and authorised the logging. None of them had considered the Heritage Rivers Act, and none of them had looked at the map which Parliament had said should prevail over any other logging rules.

It was clear that the prosecution could not prove that the logging was lawful, and after three days of hearing (extending into early 1998) the case was thrown out.

The Kennett government was embarrassed by the outcome. It dropped the charges against all those who were charged, and suspended logging in East Gippsland for the remainder of the summer - the court ruling meant that the East Gippsland Forest Management Plan was "void" in its entirety, and they had to start again.

The government introduced legislation to retrospectively validate the logging plans, and to amend the strong protection in the Heritage Rivers Act. It reduced the buffer zone from 200 metres to 100 metres. The government also introduced legislation making it an offence to enter a "forest operation zone" - large areas where logging might or might not occur.

They also appealed to the Supreme Court against the dismissal of the charge against Bob Brown.

The Supreme Court hearing came on late in 1998. I was opposed by Susan Crennan QC, now a High Court Justice. Justice Kellam reserved his decision, and we came back on 23rd October (which happened to be my wife Sally's birthday) to hear the result.

Justice Kellam found that the prosecution argument faced "insuperable obstacles" and threw out the appeal. He confirmed that the charge against Bob Brown remained dismissed, and ordered costs against the prosecution.

It took many more years to save Goolengook, but that night, at least, we all went out to a restaurant in Southbank and celebrated!

External Links

• DPP v Brown (Supreme Court)
• Heritage Rivers Act 1992 (as now amended)
• Save Goolengook
• Goolengook - TWS

The Gunns 20

The Gunns 20 in Hobart

In mid 2004 I had lunch with Bob Brown to discuss some legal issues, and I gave him a copy of my book "Slapping on the Writs" about the use of strategic litigation to silence community groups.

On 13th December 2004 I was on my way up to Brisbane with my family for my niece's wedding. Our first night's stay was to be at Dubbo. I was just starting to unwind after a long drive, when I turned on my phone. It lit up with missed calls.

Then it rang: it was Bob Brown's adviser Marg Blakers. Had I heard the news? Australia’s biggest woodchipper and Tasmania’s largest company, Gunns Ltd, had just issued a writ out of the Supreme Court of Victoria against 20 (mostly Tasmanian) environmentalists, including Senator Bob Brown and the Wilderness Society. The writ claimed damages of more than $6 million for “corporate vilification” and “conspiracy to injure by unlawful means”.

I did some media interviews that night, and I'm sure I annoyed my family on that trip with long calls about strategy to various people whenever we were in mobile phone range.

My friend Dr Suresh Pathy, an anaesthetist, rang me when we were somewhere near Armidale. He was the secretary of Doctors for Native Forests - a Victorian group, and the twentieth Defendant: "They've got the wrong party!" he said. "We don't operate in Tasmania. The 19th Defendant is supposed to have said something on our behalf, but we don't know him. He's not part of our group, and he wasn't speaking for us."

In Tasmania, there is another group called "Doctors for Forests" which operates in Tasmania - there are no formal links between the two groups.

On 15th December 2004, two days after the writ was served, Gunns announced that it intended to build a large pulp mill in the Tamar valley. The reason for the issue of the writ now became obvious: it was intended to distract and silence opponents to its project.

The "Gunns 2o" as Bob Brown called the defendants, stood together in Hobart with tape over their mouths to symbolize the attempt to silence them. Many knew they stood to lose their homes from this litigation, and were in deep distress.

In due course I was briefed, along with Noel Russell, to act for Doctors for Native Forests. Vanessa Bleyer was our instructing solicitor.

The writ was extremely lengthy (227 pages). In the "Statement of Claim" which set out its allegations in detail, Gunns took exception, amongst other things, to conservationists’ correspondence with the Japanese buyers of Gunns’ woodchips in which they were asked to “review and cease … sourcing of native woodchips from Tasmania”. There was a complaint that representations were made to the Banksia environmental awards to oppose Gunns being included as a finalist. There were many complaints about public statements by opponents to logging.

All these actions of engaged citizens participating in the decisions that affected them were labelled conspiracy - it was a neat trick, redefining democracy as "conspiracy".

The statement of claim was bizarre, and included completely novel causes of action.

We wrote to EMA Legal, the solicitors for Gunns, and told them they had sued the wrong party.

Eventually a lengthy reply came, denying any mistake, and demanding damages and referring to a private email Suresh Pathy had sent to members of the group.

We asked them to pay half our costs to date, and gave them 7 days to think about it.

The first question to ask yourself about a statement of claim is: "Can I understand it? Do I know what the allegations are?"

It did not take long, looking at this convoluted and confused document, to realize that we had no hope of mastering what the case was against our client - Doctors for Native Forests - and we did not think any other defendant would be in any better position.

A team of counsel assembled to defend the writ. Most other counsel in the case were at first reluctant to take the step of applying to have the Statement of Claim struck out. In a long meeting in the chambers of Mark Dreyfus, Noel and I finally prevailed, and it was agreed by (most) other counsel to join us in the application to strike out the pleading.

The hearing was listed for 4th July 2005 - a Monday. After 5 pm on Friday 1st July (the last business day before the hearing) Gunns served us with a proposed amended Statement of Claim. This time it was 360 pages long, and even more complex.

Gunns expected us to seek an adjournment. They wanted to keep the bird aloft a bit longer, even though it didn't have a feather to fly with.

All weekend, to all hours, we worked on mastering the new document.

On the Monday morning counsel for Gunns announced that there would be yet further amendments, by way of "particulars" (this is where more detail is provided of specific allegations), and said that the material ought to be considered as a whole. He did not make clear what he was asking for but after ten pages of transcript the judge asked:

So you're seeking an adjournment effectively of today's application?

In a long answer, counsel for Gunns eventually conceded that he was. Counsel for the defendants opposed the adjournment, pointing out that we had been asking for particulars for months and had effectively received nothing, and did not expect anything further now.

The adjournment was refused.

We then argued the case for the remainder of the week. On 18th July the judge delivered his damming assessment of the Gunns writ - in both forms. It was struck out. The judge described it as "embarrassing", "confusing", "complex" and "unintelligible".

A third Statement of Claim was then delivered some months later. Again, we applied to have it struck out, and again the judge threw it out with a damning assessment.

The Gunns case was now in serious trouble. The adverse publicity had seen the Gunns share price plummet. Gunns sacked its lawyers and hired a new team.

At this point Gunns dropped the case against Doctors for Native Forests, and agreed to pay all costs.

The case then collapsed against a number of other defendants, including Bob Brown, and bit by bit the Gunns litigation unravelled.

Finally, on 1st February 2010, Gunns abandoned the case against the remaining four defendants, and agreed to pay them over $150,ooo in costs.

Gunns ended up paying several millions of dollars in costs to the defendants, to say nothing of what it paid to its own lawyers. But for many of the defendants it was an immense strain, imposing real financial and personal costs - just because they had stood up to a powerful company.

The Gunns litigation was a try on by well resourced plaintiffs who were determined to tie up their political enemies in court for as long as possible and as expensively as possible.

Litigation like this brings our legal system into disrepute, and should be outlawed by legislation.

External links

• Bush Lawyer's Guide to further information on SLAPPs
• Draft Bill submitted to the Victorian Attorney-General
• earlier post on SLAPP suits
• Being Forest Friendly
• The National Interest
• Parliamentary Debate on SLAPP suits
• Stop the SLAPP
• Bob Brown's view
• Gunns 20 website

Brian speaking about forest protection, campaigns and the law

Brian speaking about forest protection, campaigns and the law at the Feast for Forests fundraising dinner in Yarraville

Visiting Licola

Adrian Whitehead after being bashed by a logger wielding an axe handle

In the foothills of the alps nestles the small settlement of Licola. Occasional vehicles rumble across the timber bridge that spans the Macalister River, and the only shop is a general store.

I have been visiting this store for over 30 years, generally going to and from bushwalking trips. A few years ago - before flood and fire made big changes to Licola - my family stopped there to buy soft drinks. There were a few hats and souvenirs for sale, and items for campers and travelers. But also on prominent display, evidently for sale, were a number of stickers: “Don’t bugger the bush – bugger a greenie instead” read one. Another proclaimed “The only wilderness is the space between a greenie’s ears.” Another read “Fertilize the bush – doze in a greenie.”

In life, it's good to try and laugh off these jokes. This time, I couldn't.

Imagine, for a moment, replacing the word “greenie” in each of these stickers with “black”, or “gay”, and you will have some idea how offensive I found them. This kind of attack is very ugly - and it is not confined to words.

On 20^th February 2000, some 40 to 50 loggers - some with their children - converged from Orbost and Bombala on a conservationists’ camp in the forest of East Gippsland. They trashed the camp and beat up a Canadian tourist who was there. A carload of conservationists drove up. The conservationists were violently attacked and the car reduced to a wreck. The loggers threatened to rape those present and caused severe injuries to two persons.

Much of this was recorded on audio, and it makes chilling listening. The out of control ranting of the loggers, the smashing of iron bars against machinery and people – and the futile attempts of the conservationists to calm the loggers down.

Some of the loggers were identified and later convicted.

This is no isolated incident. There have now been several violent attacks by loggers against environmentalists, some of which have resulted in convictions.

In December 1998 Adrian Whitehead (above) was assaulted with an axe handle by a logger. He had been conducting a botanical survey at the time. Despite having an independent witness, the police refused to lay charges.

After midnight on 3^rd December 1998 a group of loggers smashed up a campsite of conservationists in the Otways, yelled threats, and drove a vehicle into a tent occupied by two female conservationists who feared for their lives. One logger was subsequently charged and convicted in relation to this incident.

In December 1998 Peter Stienke (“Fisherman Pete”) was by himself minding a conservationists’ camp at Goolengook over Christmas. His car was found at the camp with the door open and food and drinks on the passenger seat. Despite a search by police, Fisherman Pete was never found and is missing, presumed dead. He left a 14 year old son

There is nothing funny about the obscene stickers in the General Store in Licola. Exhortations to violence – whether against greenies, blacks, women, Jews, gays, or any other group in society – are shameful.

External links

• Forest violence filmed - The Mercury
• Violence in the forest - Tasmanian Times
• Adrian Whitehead bashed by logger

Tall trees

A century ago, Gippsland settlers stand proudly round a giant tree they have ringbarked.

In 2008, in Tasmania’s southern forests, surveyors found the tallest known tree in Australia today. Standing 101 metres high, it is a magnificent find – higher than any tree we have known about for many decades. It is not, as some reports have suggested, the second tallest tree in the world - there are 16 trees in the US over 110 m in height, let alone 101. But Australia once had much taller trees.

On 21st February 1872, Victorian government surveyor and Inspector of State Forests William Ferguson reported to Mr Clement Hodgkinson, Assistant Commissioner of State Forests, on his inspection of “areas that had not been penetrated by the timber splitter or the woodcutter”: 


Some places, where the trees are fewer and at a lower altitude, the timber is much larger in diameter, averaging from 6 to 10 feet and frequently trees to 15 feet in diameter are met with on alluvial flats near the river. These trees average about ten per acre: their size, sometimes, is enormous. Many of the trees that have fallen by decay and by bush fires measure 350 feet in length, with girth in proportion. In one instance I measured with the tape line one huge specimen that lay prostrate across a tributary of the Watts and found it to be 435 feet from the roots to the top of its trunk. At 5 feet from the ground it measures 18 feet in diameter. At the extreme end where it has broken in its fall, it (the trunk) is 3 feet in diameter. This tree has been much burnt by fire, and I fully believe that before it fell it must have been more than 500 feet high. As it now lies it forms a complete bridge across a narrow ravine.

In other words, Ferguson measured the tree (in an area near Healesville) from its base to the point where it had broken off in its fall to be 435 feet (133 m) and did not measure its crown. Even at 435 feet, there is no tree on Earth known ever to have surpassed it. However, the information that the tree was still 3 feet in diameter at this point supports the estimate that the tree had been over 500 feet (152 m) high. This tree has become known as “the Ferguson tree”.

The tree found in Tasmania, like the Ferguson tree, is a mountain ash, although in that State they use the less impressive name “swamp gum”. Mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans – monarch of the eucalypts) is still today the world’s tallest hardwood and the world’s tallest flowering plant, but there were several nineteenth century trees any one of which, if alive today, would be the tallest tree in the world, and the largest of all was the Ferguson tree - listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the tallest recorded tree.

The tallest Californian redwood currently standing is the newly-discovered ‘Hyperion’ of the Redwood State Park, standing 115.55 m tall (379 feet). The tallest North American tree ever known was a Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) measured at 400 feet (122 m). Unlike Australia’s Ferguson Tree, the giant Douglas fir was not professionally measured, so must remain a tantalizing anecdote.

Other Australian trees of which we have reliable records from the nineteenth century are: 


• A tree at Mt Baw Baw measured by surveyor G W Robinson prior to 1889 to be 470 feet (143 m). 

• The Centennial Exhibition Tree from the Menzies Creek area, which was measured after felling at 400 feet (122 m). This tree was felled so that its spectacular trunk could be dismantled and then reassembled to form a display in the 1888 centennial exhibition in Melbourne. 
There are good photographs of this tree in the State Library of Victoria.
• Fallen tree in the Dandenong ranges measured by surveyor David Boyle in 1862 to be 392 feet (119 m). Again the tree had broken in its fall, and Boyle estimated that the top would be another 30 feet, giving a total height of about 420 feet (128 m).

Trees which were huge but which would not top the highest remaining trees in North America are: 


• Thorpdale tree in South Gippsland, felled in 1880 and then accurately measured by surveyor G Cornthwaite to be 375 feet high (114 m) 

• Olongolah tree near Beech Forest in the Otways, which was measured by an unnamed Colac Shire Engineer on an unknown date prior to 1900 to be 347 feet (106 m). 

• The “Neerim Giant” was measured by a government surveyor to be 325 feet (99 m). It had a broken top, however, and must once have been considerably taller. It was destroyed by fire early in the 20th century.

In 1939 in Toorongo Forest, Noojee, another fallen tree was measured by Inspector of Forests, F G Gerraty to be 348 feet (106 m).

It is a source of shame for Australians that our forefathers destroyed giant trees which, if they were living today, would be wonders of the world. Many huge trees were destroyed, and for many there are no measurements. In some cases, the trees were cut down and simply burnt, often in places so inaccessible that they would never be useful for grazing.

Trees were hunted down, and the challenge of destroying these ancient giants was taken on with gusto. Old photographs of people in the forest almost always show an axe present. It was as if this was a statement of manhood against the uncivilised immensity of the forest.

What does it take to have tall trees grow? One factor is time. Hundreds of years are needed for the trees to grow, but this is after millennia of nutrients building up as trees grow and decay. Another factor is a large area of forest. Trees grow upwards when competing for light, and can grow very tall when protected from wind and storm by a large number of other tall trees.

Might there be still taller trees out there? Perhaps the tallest tree in the world? Who knows? In the past few years we have discovered several new species of trees in East Gippsland, the Wollemi Pine in the Blue Mountains, and the world’s oldest known tree on Mt Read in Tasmania. And now we have found a tree which tops any tree found in Australia for many decades. We are still finding things in the Australian bush that we do not expect.

But we have lost so much already. In the nineteenth century people knew no better, but we know otherwise now. We know that logging causes a loss of water yield for up to 150 years, we know that there are very few people employed by the industry, we know that the industry enjoys substantial public subsidies, we know that endangered species are killed by logging. And we know, following studies by Professor Brendan Mackey and his team at ANU that for each hectare we log we lose an average of 1000 tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere – after taking replanting into account. We know there are ready and viable alternatives, including the use of plantation timber. We know that the alienation of our nation from its land is causing immense environmental and personal damage, with logging providing the most dramatic illustration.

It is time to stop.

External Links

• Green Carbon - ABC's National Interest
• Eucalyptus regnans
• Hyperion
• The recently discovered Tasmanian tree - YouTube
• Some photographs of historic tall trees - DPI
• Greg Barber MLC speaks in parliament
• New species of stringybark found in East Gippsland
• New species of banksia found in East Gippsland
• New species of eucalypt found in East Gippsland

Will Julia succeed?

Will Julia Gillard succeed as Prime Minister in dealing with the issues facing Australia?

Kevin Rudd lost the trust of the Australian people - and his Prime Ministership - because he failed to take action on the climate crisis. Julia Gillard faces the same test.

Many people in the Melbourne electorate have told me they want real and immediate action on climate change and carbon emissions.

Here's some things she could do:

• Pick up the phone and negotiate with the Greens for a proper solution to the climate crisis.

• Join with the Greens (and at least two Coalition Senators) to pass a carbon tax - this would apply across all industries, not just mining, with the funds directed towards transitioning to a low carbon economy.

• Remove perverse taxes that encourage fossil fuel use - such as car leases that require minimum kilometres to be driven, the diesel fuel rebate, and sundry others.

• Allow tax deductions and/or salary packaging for people who cycle to work.

• Ditch the $2 billion+ corporate welfare funding for "Clean Coal" geo-sequestration pipe dreams that defy the basic laws of physics, and direct this towards a 100% clean energy program based on concentrated solar with salt storage and wind power.

• Commence planning for a very fast train project to link Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane.

• Introduce national building standards for 6 Star Rated buildings and retrofit of existing building stock (remembering that proper management of these schemes is basic).

• Protect native forests from logging to keep their carbon where it is, (and to secure our water supplies and to provide habitat for endangered species).

• Outlaw the burning of native forest woodchips as a "renewable energy source" - it clearly is not renewable and our forests are worth much more than woodchips.

• Commence an initiative to transition Australia to net zero emissions by 2020 - as outlined, for example, in the Zero Carbon Australia 2020 Stationary Energy Plan produced by Beyond Zero Emissions

Over to you, Julia. You can do it, and you will be praised by history - and our grandchildren - if you do.