Tree stories

Australian Geographic Tree Stories. Peter Solness. Australian Geographic Pty Ltd. PO Box 321, Terry Hills NSW. Australia.

Peter Solness tells the stories of many of the most famous trees in Australia in this beautiful book. Meeting trees; trees used to slaughter animals; hanging trees for killing criminals; memorial trees, to the dead in Australia’s wars, to victims of roads accidents and other tragedies; as well as many other famous and not so famous trees about which someone has a story to tell. He ends with the stories of some of the tallest and largest trees in the subcontinent, and his photographs illustrate each story. It is a lovely idea and an ideal gift for any nature lover.

The only blemish is Solness’s doom laden text. He is an ex Greenpeace warrior and he slips repeatedly into the easy pessimism typical of so many environmentalists. This would not matter too much if it just made his readers shed a sentimental tear for the trees of their childhood. Unfortunately it leads him, as so often with knee-jerk Greens, to demand that governments do something to make things better. He should look more closely at the country he is photographing.

He starts by lamenting the fact that people look after trees that have significance for them such as those in their gardens, in memorial avenues or that are useful for recreation, but neglect the rest, the anonymous tress in the Australian bush. “It seems” he says “that trees, like other native flaura and fauna, are considered only in human terms.” Precisely. That is exactly why people look after trees.

It is crazy to argue that this is the wrong reason to look after trees. It is because people are beginning to value trees more, that more are being preserved and forests are expanding. We care about old growth forest because some of us like to hike through it, and others care about genetic diversity. We are also learning about the economic benefits of trees in maintaining our comfort in more general ways; purifying water, preventing erosion and water run-off, and possibly even preventing global warming. These are new reasons to look after trees, but we are still doing so for our own good. Even “deep ecologists” who want to maintain genetic diversity for its own sake are following their own priorities.

“[urban] trees create a sort of resting place, a special place to be, for people, and are humanising for the city. They have an air of permanence about them, which buildings never quite create in themselves. These places are vital for city workers to unwind, unload, and brush the cobwebs away… Modern equipment could remove this fig tree in a day, even though it has taken 200 years to grow. It seems the best way to ensure that trees like these are fully respected is to put a cash value on them. If you put a cash value on a tree then, then you have the city engineers and other decision makers identifying the tree as an asset and they may then consider them very seriously.”

Solness is good on local government and the tree environment. He describes both the splendid avenues that some local authorities planted, such as the eucalyptus in Kings Park in Perth, and the craziness that occasionally overtakes them in the populist search to be seen as “eco-friendly”. In 1996 Brisbane council transplanted two 40-ton fig trees threatened by a road-widening scheme at a cost of $100,000. In 1997 90 fig trees were transplanted by boat to the Sydney Olympic site at a cost of $2.3 million. In 1989 a 50-ton Moreton bay fig was floated down the Brisbane River and transplanted as the centrepiece of a new shopping centre. It died and had to be removed in 1998. The survival of the other trees is still in doubt. More usually Australian councils prefer to transplant palm trees, which provide instant greenery but little resistance to future development. For comparison he also tells us two stories about the Hordern department store’s privately imported Sydney Oaks. Read about them here.

I had expected to find trees which hosted famous political meetings in the “Campaign trees” section, but I was wrong. This is devoted to the story tree rescue campaigns, some successful, others not. The “Green ban” figs in the Sydney Opera House car park (saved), the Lea tree, a Huon pine, (burnt down by construction workers in the aftermath of the Franklin dam campaign), the Touchwood tree which became a symbol for the campaign to create the Errinundra national park but which died a natural death a few years later. The story of the battle between the developers of the Hinchinbrook resort on the border of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area, and the people who wished to stop them replacing the mangrove swamps with coconut palms will be repeated many times.

The battle between the developers of Armadale shopping centre in Perth WA, and the locals who wished to preserve the Old Jarrah Tree that stood in their way, is a fine example of how these things should not be done. The State Government granted a conservation order saving the tree and limiting the shopping development, but disgruntled supporters of the development came in the dead of night and killed the tree by ringing with a meat cleaver. The development then proceeded around the dying tree - the worst of both worlds.

How much better if those who wished to save the tree had raised money to compensate the developer for the costs they wished to impose on him. The developer would have been happy and would have not vandalised the tree. If they could not raise the money, then perhaps it was better that this tree were allowed to go.

Fighting to save individual trees may sometimes be worthwhile but it usually involves infringing someone else’s freedom, and probably does little long-term environmental good. The real campaigners we should applaud are those who quietly go off and create a plantation, which will only come to maturity long after their death.

“As we get older, some people feel a sudden urge to practice "an old man's folly", as David Malouf coins it in his poem Evergreen - to plant trees, often in large numbers and mostly slow-maturing species, despite the fact that we will not see them reach their fullest glory.

This notion is well portrayed in the French classic The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono. The story details the vision of Elzeard Bouffier, a hermit-shepherd who planted thousands of oak, birch and beech trees in the barren country near the Alps in Provence, France, during World Wars I and II. Bouffier is portrayed as an almost saintly figure who, unperturbed by the calamity of war and without fanfare or material benefit, single-handedly reafforested large tracts of land. His work was a spiritual healing for post-war Europe and ensured a rich legacy that endured beyond his own lifetime.

In Australia the practice is also popular, though more often performed on rural acreages by retired professionals - doctors, lawyers and corporate executives - than by humble peasants living in rudimentary shelters.”

Solness provides no information on the recent changes in forest area in Australia, and although nearly every interviewee deplores tree cutting and deforestation, none of them provide any data either. Only Eric Rolls, mentions that his tree would once have been isolated but now stands in new forest. Click here for the article.

The popularity of this book suggests that forest cover is likely increase soon in Australia, and the data bear this out.

According to official Australian sources, deforestation by land clearing is already more than balanced by reforestation. The Dept of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestryd Australia (DAFFA) report that forest cover entered a long decline from about 252 million hectares (ha) in the late 18^th century up to about 170 million ha in the early the early part of the 20^th century. The rate of decline then fell and by the late 20^th century forest cover was stable at around 155 million ha, and may even have increased since 1995.

The National Greenhouse Gas Inventory (click here for details) has most accurately measured the overall new growth/destruction balance. This suggests that forest growth outweighs forest harvesting and provides a net annual carbon sink of 23.1 Mt[1].

The area of new plantations particularly hardwood has increased every year since 1995, when 19,000 hectares of hardwood were established. This figure reached 85,000 hectares in 1999 (National Forest Inventory 2000). However since the most rapid growth and carbon sequestration generally does not occur until trees are several years old, this increase in plantation area has not yet made any significant contribution to the 1999 forestry sinks.

To summarise. Poor people tend to practice slash and burn agriculture. As they get richer they clear land for animal farming, but as they get richer still and their farming requires less land, forests return. Rich people also care more about primeval forest than poorer ones, who have more important things on their minds. They start planting forests with an eye to the future long after their deaths.

Buy this book and enjoy the stories of some of Australia’s great trees. But don’t let it depress you. The worst deforestation is probably already over and people like you are doing a lot to make things better still. If you have money to spare buy some land and let it return to forest. Your grandchildren will thank you.

[1] To put this in perspective Australia’s total carbon emissions in 1999 were 529.9 Mt. Forest growth is a small contribution to the carbon balance but it is nevertheless a net benefit

Send mail to enquiries@igreens.org.uk with questions or comments about this web site. Last modified: February 11, 2006

Send mail to enquiries@igreens.org.uk with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: February 11, 2006