Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for February 3, 2008

Blue Gums in Grose Valley Healthy After Back-Burning

By

Just over a year ago media reports indicated the Blue Gum Forest of the Grose Valley was “hanging in the balance” because of a wildfire made “more intense, unpredictable and extensive by massive backburning operations”.

I trekked into the forest today and was surprised and pleased to see a beautiful forest with little evidence of fire damage.

Blog Forest 040.jpg
The Blue Gum Forest, Grose Valley, Blue Mountains, Australia, February 3, 2008. Looking to the south-east.

Blog Forest 053.jpg
The Blue Gum Forest, Grose Valley, Blue Mountains, Australia, February 3, 2008. Looking to the north-west.

Blog Forest 071.jpg
The Blue Gum Forest, Grose Valley, Blue Mountains, Australia, February 3, 2008. At junction of Grose River and Govett Creek, looking to the north.

As I struggled up the steep escarpment on my way out of the valley, I passed a couple descending into the valley and I asked if they were planning to visit the Blue Gum Forest.

“Yes,” replied the women, “At least what is left of it”.

Like me, and so many Australians, she believed the media reports that the forest had been badly damaged. As we passed I suggested she would be pleasantly surprised by what she saw.

Why has reporting in the popular press been so negative? Was the state of this iconic forest misrepresented as part of a wider campaign against back-burning?

———————————–
Additional Notes and Links

Link to picture of burnt forest in Sydney Morning Herald:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-ghosts-of-an-enchanted-forest-demand-answers/2006/12/10/1165685553891.html

Link to earlier blog post with a question from Bill in Melbourne about the state of the forest:
https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/002620.html

The Blue Gums in the Grose Valley are Mountain Blue Gums Eucalyptus deanii, here are some links to the more common Tasmanian Blue Gum, Eucalptus globulus:
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s1702968.htm
http://www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/cgi-bin/arr_html?Eucalyptus+globulus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus_globulus

The Giant White-tailed Rat

By

Uromys.jpg

One of Australia’s largest native rodents, the Giant White-tailed Rat (Uromys caudimaculatus) has such formidable teeth and jaw strength, they have been known to eat through steel garbage bins. They are also capable of dispersing large-seeded tree species in Australian tropical rain forests, including some that have no alternate vector, such as the magnificent Yellow Walnut (Beilschmiedia bancrofti) (Lauraceae).

Bielschmedia.jpg

When I first settled into the Daintree rainforest, I was surprised by the local council’s provision of free rodenticide for “vermin control”. Never mind that these were protected species and inhabitants of World Heritage estate, apparently they were rats first and foremost and therefore vermin.

There is quite a diversity of native rodent fauna in the Daintree rainforest, but as far as I know, no introduced species. The Bush Rat (Rattus fuscipes coracius) looks most like the notorious Black Rat (Rattus rattus) of bubonic infamy, but even these are protected by legislation.

Over the years, newcomers settling into the rainforest have expressed dismay at the intrusion of rodents with not the slightest regard for the meticulously installed barriers of fly-wire mesh. Aggrieved home-owners almost invariably resort to trapping the trespassers, as sensitively as possible, and transporting them to a remote corner of the Daintree for release. Like-minded counterparts could very possibly be doing the same thing, from the opposite direction and it would be interesting to know how this shuttling of rats around the rainforest affected their social dynamics, for it most certainly does not affect the continued breaching of residential boundaries. Residents either accepted the inevitable or leave.