In the court case following the 1878 fire that virtually annihilated Waimate Bush, a witness described the wind conditions as “a hurricane” (The Lyttelton Times, 25 June, 1879). A lawyer, seeking a definition of ‘hurricane’ was given: “a very strong wind indeed; a wind that… Read more
All posts filed under “Forests”
The Lost Taieri/Taiari Bush, near Dunedin, New Zealand
Leads to New Zealand’s ‘lost forests’ turn up in all sorts of places. I was in the Dunedin Public Library when I came across the wonderful book ‘Under the Eye of the Saddle Hill Taniwha’ by Sharron Bray, Graeme Thomas, and Victor MacGill (1998). Their… Read more
How to Thoroughly Confuse Everyone about Prescribed Burning in Australia
In the last couple of days, something of a ‘blue’ has developed among some Western Australian fire experts over ‘Prescribed Burning’ – the deliberate lighting of fires as part of fire management policy. On Jan 22, Byron Lamont and Tianhua He published a short opinion… Read more
Did Queensland Rainforest Spread when Cultural Burning Stopped?
“This is the Giant Stinger tree – avoid it”. Work place health and safety now out of the way, I could then get on with introducing my students to Australia’s forests. *** In Queensland’s O’Reilly’s/Lamington Park I began my student classes with a walk down… Read more
When New Zealand was a Burning Land
Broken River is a Hell of a place to get to. From Christchurch you need to head inland, driving along the road to Arthur’s Pass, the gateway to the West Coast. But then turn off and dog-leg back south along a narrow road beside, and… Read more
New Zealand’s Doggerland
Do we have a submerged ‘Doggerland‘ in New Zealand? In 1950 a boat, the HMNZS ‘Lachlan’ dredged a sample of “lignite” from the bottom of Toitoi (or Toetoe) Bay, at the far south end of New Zealand’s South Island, from a depth of nine fathoms… Read more
The antifragile (?) tree-ferns of Omatepe, Nicaragua
“We’ll follow these guys – they’re three local hoodlums”, This from my local guide on Omatepe Island, Nicaragua. I was sitting behind him on his trail bike, and we were burning down the road after walking up Volcan Maderas, the smaller of the two volcanoes… Read more
Geologising in the Rainforests of Aceh, Indonesia
Our Indonesian guide, with a parang (machete) in hand, dropped vertically in front of me, just brushing my face, while out of my peripheral vision I saw someone cartwheeling down through the trees. Then, within about two seconds, six people had vanished. I was alone… Read more
The Lost Forests of Southland, New Zealand
Forests that have disappeared so completely that you would hardly believe they really existed, have long fascinated me. When I left my home in Alexandra for university in Dunedin, I took with me a facsimile map my mother had given me. It was a mid… Read more
Once a Vast Forest – Motatapu Track, New Zealand
Early on a cool Sunday morning I sipped my latte outside Relishes Cafe, Wanaka, and thought the immediate view could be better. In a somewhat typical urban New Zealand fashion, the lake is cut off from the cafe not just by a road, but a… Read more