Saturday, 6 July 2013

Kings Fall (2013)

When the first colonialist arrived on the shores of Australia from 1788, there was a God-given, blinkered perception that the forests and woodlands of the mainland’s Eastern Seaboard, Tasmania and South-Western Australia were an inexhaustible bounty. New Holland as it was known was also seen as an unruly place, untamed and where the Devil roamed, seen through European eyes it was a far cry from the lush green pastures of the mother land. With this in mind a campaign was founded to “acclimatise” the land so too that England could further its boundaries, augmenting the alien landscape to a more familiar terrain to be freely colonised.

In the forested mountains the largest of the trees were of course targeted for felling, namely Eucalyptus regnans (Mountain Ash in Victoria or Swamp Gum in Tasmania) the tallest flowering plant in the world, hence the species name which in Latin refers to the regal or kingly nature of their lordship over the mountain forests. The tallest recorded was found in the Watts River region of Victoria around 1871, an alleged 132.6 metres, however this has been disputed as an unreliable account and a specimen felled in Thorpdale (Vic) measured on the ground at 114.3 metres has been accepted as a realistic documentation.

Pic 1: Canopy shot of Mountain Ash forest in the Great Otway National Park, Victoria (pic:Nick Noodle).

 The ecology of these cool temperate forests is temporally dynamic. Mountain Ash live for approximately 400 years and as patches of forest dominated by this species move further through time unscathed by fire, the forest structure moves into a mixed rainforest of Nothofagus cunninghamii (Myrtle Beech) and Atherosperma moschatum (Southern Sassafras) with a much lower density of Eucalypt species. 


Pic 2: Myrtle Beech forest floor, Great Otway National Park, Victoria (pic:Nick Noodle).


Myrtle Beech are a longer lived species (approx. 500+ years) quite sensitive to fire and if damaged by dropped limbs or by logging machinery become susceptible to the pathogenic fungus Myrtle Wilt (Chalara australis) which is the most common cause of death of this species. 

Pic 3: Gnarled base of a Myrtle Beech, Great Otway National Park, Victoria (pic:Nick Noodle).

Mountain Ash forests are also prime habitat for Leadbetter's Possum (Gymnobelideus leadbeateri) which is currently listed as Threatened under the Fauna and Flora Guarantee Act 1988 in Victoria. These small omnivorous arboreal marsupials utilize the hollows bourne in Mountain Ash trees approximately 150 years, however logging in these forests has reduced habitat range which has compromised the successional mosaic of different aged patches of Mountain Ash dominated forest. Under the current forestry regime Leadbetter's Possum may become extinct in the wild within 20 years.
Pic 4: Leadbeater's Possum (pic stolen from Australian Geographic)

Kings Fall
Seemingly endless,
From the sea to the hills,
In the name of the Crown,
Tame the Devil’s Land.
Senicide!
Ecocide!
Giganticide!
Regicide!
Desist!!!

Slayers of Giants,
The Prehistorics robbed,
The Disease of Ents,
Gnarled stories lost.
Senicide!
Ecocide!
Giganticide!
Regicide!
Desist!!!

Millennia past,
In Beech’s Keep,
No flame, no blade,
Till Sanctum breached.
Senicide!
Ecocide!
Giganticide!
Regicide!
Desist!!!


Massacre of Ash,
Shatter the hollows,
The Kings of Mountain High,
Shall be slain.

Kings fall!
Kings fall!

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