The Greater Blue Mountains Area (click here) consists of 1.03 million ha of sandstone plateaux, escarpments and gorges dominated by temperate eucalypt forest. The site, comprised of eight protected areas, is noted for its representation of the evolutionary adaptation and diversification of the eucalypts in post-Gondwana isolation on the Australian continent. Ninety-one eucalypt taxa occur within the Greater Blue Mountains Area which is also outstanding for its exceptional expression of the structural and ecological diversity of the eucalypts associated with its wide range of habitats. The site provides significant representation of Australia's biodiversity with ten percent of the vascular flora as well as significant numbers of rare or threatened species, including endemic and evolutionary relict species, such as the Wollemi pine, which have persisted in highly-restricted microsites.
This is what the USA does to their old growth forests. They argue about the right for the trees to exist while it's indicator species becomes dangerously endangered. It doesn't matter the forest exists and is beautiful and important, the blasted land isn't producing as much PROFITS as it SHOULD.
By Chuck Bolsinger
Published: Saturday, October 15, 2011, 12:03 PM
As Oregonians (click here) once again debate the topic of forest management, an old question comes up: How much old-growth forest was here before Europeans arrived? Some believe the whole Northwest was a sea of old trees, an impression one could get reading Stewart Holbrook's books, "Burning an Empire" and "Fifty Years in the Timber," though he did not say as much. At the other extreme are those who insist there were more brushfields and young stands than old-growth when Europeans arrived.One might ask, Who cares? Why can't folks agree on a number and move on? Actually, the old-growth disagreement is a fallout of the philosophical differences between environmentalists and the timber industry, and the notion some hold that public forests should be managed to preserve as much old-growth in perpetuity as they "originally" had. Which would encourage industry folks to promote the idea of little original old-growth, and environmentalists to favor a lot....
Who cares if all that beautiful land was forested with dense forest, it is OLD GROWTH and sustainable. Forests always start out as small crops of trees and GUESS WHAT, they produce seeds that are carried by wind, water or animal vectors and the forest becomes larger and larger over decades and then centuries.
How many Americans know the size of the Redwoods and Sequoias were the size of the entire continent of trees within North America? The longer a tree lives, no matter the species of trees it enters Old Age and have incredible diameters and an upper canopy that touches the sky. The argument of the lumber industry only PROVES they can't wait for a tree to reach it's minimal girth in order to cut it down. The lumber industry has no clue as to what a real forest actually looks like. In this case in Oregon, their argument is completely void of competency, knowledge or morality.
