Native Forests
Regeneration
Photo: Queensland Department
of Primary Industries
Regenerating forests, by helping them to grow again, is a crucial part of harvesting. After selective harvesting, the forest is usually able to regenerate naturally without human intervention, as the remaining trees provide a seed source and the logging disturbance provides a bare seed bed that allows more light to reach the forest floor. After clearfelling though, seeds must be spread, or seedlings planted, to begin a new forest, usually after the area has been burnt.
Seed is usually collected from trees that are to be harvested in the area, before or during the logging process. This ensures that the new seedlings will be species that are well adapted to that site.
Fire management
Fires have helped form many of the native Australian forests of today. Due to its hot and dry climate, naturally-occurring bushfires have always been a feature of the Australian landscape, so trees have adapted to survive and thrive after bushfires. Such is the case with eucalypts. They actually depend on occasional fires to provide the right conditions for eucalypt seeds to germinate and grow.
For thousands of years, Australian Aboriginals burned parts of forests to provide food for themselves. This also reduced the undergrowth in the forests, so that large uncontrollable bushfires were less likely to occur. This same tactic is used by forest managers today. Lower intensity, controlled fires can actually be used to help maintain the health of the more open, drier forest ecosystems and reduce the incidence of uncontrollable and damaging wildfire.
Forest fire fighters
Photo: Forestry SA
To read more information about fire management in Australian forests see an article titled “Native Forests Under Fire” taken from In the living forest: an exploration of Australia’s forest community.
Native Forests Under Fire - (PDF - 113KB)
