Our first stop Sunday was up in the Styx Valley to look at a recent "coupe" (or "cut" in french!) designed to return the forest to its natural ecology through harvesting, followed by fire and regeneration.
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| "Coupe" area after harvesting, burning & reseeding. |
They follow a strict Forest Practices Code and use the code to develop a comprehensive, area specific plan that goes from road construction to get to the planned area, all the way to future plantations. Areas are chosen based on animal populations, the age of the forest, etc and they try to do burns in patches so they have a variety of age classes in an area and enough long term retention of old growth trees.Then the area is pretty much clear cut using conventional and sometimes cable harvesting.
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Mark Neeland talks about harvest, burning and
regeneration. Behind him is a 6 year old project. |
They get construction timber, high quality veneer timber and pulp timber out of it. They also follow the code rules for harvesting seeds from the area, some of all the natural species in the area, to be used during re-seeding. Then they burn - using hand lighting, drip torches and heli-torch methods. They light very hot in the center and get a good convection column going so it pulls inward, and then light the edges.
About 10 days after the burn, but before it rains, they use an aerial re-seeder to replant the native seeds they harvested.
The biggest problem is Wallabies. They prefer the regrowth and can wipe out an effort to reseed.
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Burn & regen project
from the 1960's. |
They tried a chemical called 1080 to poison the Wallabies but since it did not discriminate which mammals it killed and public outcry, it was banned. They are allowed to use traps but those only kill one at a time, are very expensive and have been relatively ineffective on the population. Successful reseeding remains a challenge.
Mark Neeland says they try to model the burns after what happens naturally in the ecosystem. They don't have fires often but when they do, they burn intensely and burn everything. And that's whats needed by the eucalypts seeds: bare ground with a good ash bed and sunlight. They've used research to prove to the public that very hot fires are the best way to regenerate the forest. We also stopped to see a section that was burned in the 60's. It's amazing how fast things grow - some of the stringy bark trees were 60 meters tall in 40 or 50 years.
Just before lunch, we stopped and walked through the Styx State Forest, home of "The Big Tree."
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| The Styx State Forest |
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Juan, Kevin and Brooke look up
at the "Big Tree." |
Some pictures here, but more are in the dropbox. The big tree is a Eucalypt species called Mountain Ash, also known here as Swamp Gum. Amazing and beautiful rain forest with a mix of the usual rain forest flora as well as huge Eucalypts. The Big Tree and the Bigger Tree were nearly 90 meters tall and last burned 400 years ago. Eventually, since the Eucalypts need to burn to regenerate, the forest will need fire. If not, the Eucalypts will die and all that will remain is rain forest.
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Tony shows us the right way to
look at the big tree! |
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Russell Falls at Mt Field
National Park. |
Lunch was at Mt Field National Park (a state park) where we went for a walk to Russell Waterfall. Gorgeous falls about a 10 minute walk through what looks like a Jurassic rain forest. Do see more pictures in the drop box link to the right.
And then back on the bus to go to McPartlan Pass, maybe 1000 feet in elevation and a complete change in fuel types. As high desert as it looks. the area gets 3000 millimeters of rain a year and even wet grasses burn the predominant fuel is Button Grass, but there is sedge, scrub Eucalypt and tree type Eucalypt, all mixed with stands of rain forest.
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| McPartlan Pass |
Because the area burns easily and is so remote, they use prescribed fires to lessen the spread of large fires and protect fire sensitive vegetation. Although the only real fire risk is from lightning, they are often busy with other fires in more critical areas and don't get to these remote fires until they are fairly large. They use the rain forests as fuel breaks and count on "moisture of extinction" or high nighttime RH, to finally put the fires out.
Last stop was Lake Pedder, created in 1971 to become the largest water catchment in Australia. It is used exclusively for hydroelectric power, although fishing and boating is allowed, as well as dipping for use on wildfires.
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| Lake Pedder Water Catchment |
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| Had to post the Wallaby picture since we saw one! |
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