cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/989240
cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/989239
With value measured in cows, we would struggle to make a living from Thiaki even though rainforest was among the most biologically valuable pieces of land in the country.
The nearest town is Malanda, 15km to the north by road. While it hadn’t been easy to turn lush tropical rainforest into paddocks - some individual settlers worked at it for decades - how could you turn paddocks back into rainforest? Local efforts on the Atherton Tablelands to restore degraded land back to rainforest were heroic but ad hoc.
Work commenced apace to design the reforestation research plan for the foundations of a brand-new rainforest that uses different mixes and numbers of native species with different planting densities.
On 28 January 2011, a bunch of academics and a crack team of planters with dirt under their fingernails and dreadlocks like flowing lianas, assembled to build the foundations of a rainforest with 30,000 plants, and to create the conditions for a phoenix to rise once more from the ashes.
The clearing frenzy of the first 20 years of the 20th century brought about the near extinction of the upland rainforest on the Atherton Tablelands.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301479723004334
- Reforestation success can be improved by enhancing tree planting methods
- Low sapling survival rates lead to high replacement costs and can hinder reforestation efforts
- Damage to fibrous roots during handling affects sapling survival
- Initial soil properties and conditions have a greater impact on sapling survival than adult traits
- Careful planting methods result in better sapling survival rates in the longer term
- Factors such as seedling survival, root growth, and seedling quality play a significant role in tree establishment
- Non-native grass removal and shade increase soil moisture and seedling performance during forest restoration
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A scruffy dingo-dog cross and a couple of cats lounged near the roller-door entrance, lazily observing the proceedings as their owners shook our hands in formal welcome and ushered us into a large living space: concrete floor, Laminex-surfaced table and metal chairs, no fuss.
Draped in mist, the rainforest exhaled a long, slow, yogic-like breath; it created a ghostly play of shapes and forms, like an exhumation of prehistoric creatures from a deep memory.
All but 4% of the 80,000 hectares of rainforest on the Atherton Tablelands were razed for the yeoman’s idyll of smiling homesteads, rosy-cheeked children and plump wives, , which only dissipated with the world heritage listing of the wet tropics in 1988.
Community efforts relied on meagre government environment funding and focused on planting dense stands of native seedlings to form an instant closed canopy.
No matter how carefully the plants were placed (such as along creek lines), this expensive approach could not underpin the landscape-scale change that was desperately needed to restore the country to any semblance of its former glory.
On 28 January 2011, a bunch of academics and a crack team of planters with dirt under their fingernails and dreadlocks like flowing lianas, assembled to build the foundations of a rainforest with 30,000 plants, and to create the conditions for a phoenix to rise once more from the ashes.
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