A few simple facts about forests

Riparian 'wet' forest - Toorongo Falls Reserve

 

·       Forests absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen.

·       In one year, a hectare of forest will produce enough oxygen to sustain more than 30 people annually.

·       Forests take up water and transpire it back into the air to make rain.

·       Forests provide habitat for a myriad of animals.

·       Forests store carbon to help mitigate climate change.

·       Forests provide biodiversity – resilience, variety and number – the foundation of all ecosystems.

·       Forests often have important cultural, historical and recreational worth.

·       Forests are a source of food and timber products.

·       Australia’s forests, about 130 million hectares, represent around 3% of the world’s forests.

·       13 million hectares of the world’s forests are lost each year.

 

In Australia, a forest is defined as an area of land dominated by trees that have a height of at least 2 metres and a crown cover of 20% or more. Our forests consist mostly of Eucalypt (75%), Acacia (8%), Melaleuca (5%) and other – Callitris, Casuarina, Mangrove, etc (12%). (Australian Forest Profiles ABARES)

Alpine forest - Mt Baw Baw

 

Forests face many pressures: land clearing, urban development, mining, bushfire, climate change, weeds, pests and disease.

 

Coastal forest bushfire recovery - Grantville NCR

Well might we condemn the massive scale of deforestation in Brazil, Borneo, Indonesia, et al, but we are pretty good at chopping down trees ourselves. In 2015, the WWF Forests Report has Australia as the only western nation in the top ten countries for land clearing.

Land clearing for urban development - Drouin

 

“Queensland clears more land each year than the rest of Australia put together, and the rate at which it is destroying its vegetation is comparable with the infamous deforestation that occurs in the Brazilian Amazon.” (The Guardian March 2018)

 

Since European settlement in Australia, 29 mammals have become extinct and 1700 others are described as endangered or threatened. The greatest threat to wildlife survival in Australia is by far habitat loss due to land clearing.

Urban 'woodland' forest - Elizabeth Cl Drouin

 

Because of the wide range of ecological, economic and social benefits that forests provide, it is vital we employ the optimum sustainable forest management practices to protect them.

Forest-urban boundary - Drouin

 

Take a breath and thank a tree.