Australia's Unique Forests
Australia has a total forested area of more than 164 million hectares, or around 21% of the country’s total land area. This is made up of mostly native forest, along with approximately 1.8 million hectares of plantations.
Photo: Timber Queensland
Australia’s native forests are strikingly different from those found elsewhere in the world, with more than 2,800 tree species that are endemic only to Australia. Ranging from tropical rainforests to mulga scrub, Australian forests are also amazingly diverse in their species composition, structure and fauna.
The distinctive ecology of Australia’s forests has evolved from ancient origins. Around 135 million years ago, the Australian continent broke away from the landmass of Gondwana. As it moved north and became dryer, Australia’s abundant rainforests were gradually replaced by hard-leaved vegetation such as eucalypts and acacias. By two million years ago, most of the original Gondwanan forests had disappeared, although some remnants can still be found today in the rainforests of Tasmania and on the eastern and northern coasts of mainland Australia.
Fire has also had a significant impact on the composition and structure of Australian forests. Carbon dating of ancient charcoal deposits has revealed that bushfires have occurred naturally in Australia for hundreds of thousands of years. Forests have also been both deliberately and accidentally burned by Australia’s human inhabitants for tens of thousands of years. This exposure to fire has influenced the way that many Australian forest species have evolved. Acacias, for example, actually require periodic fires in order to survive and regenerate.
South Australian Forest
Photo: Forestry SA
