Back in the late 1980s I had the pleasure of meeting the English scientist David Bellamy. Bellamy was famous at the time as ‘The Botanic Man’, and he was in New Zealand to film for ‘Moa’s Ark’, a TV series and book about the development of… Read more
All posts tagged “forest”
The Honey Trees of Kalimantan
I was sitting in a ger in Mongolia when I put up my hand to go to Indonesia. My ulterior motive was to get a chance to get into the Indonesian rainforests. Back in 1988 I had read Eric Hansen’s book “Stranger in the forest:… Read more
Palissya – mysterious cone of New Zealand’s Jurassic forests
In the early 1980s when I was working on the Jurassic fossil forest of Curio Bay, near the bottom end of New Zealand’s South Island, it seemed clear that two main types of tree formed the forest canopy. There were two types of conifer foliage fossil around Curio… Read more
Australia’s Fatal Fire-Flume
The first time I came to Brisbane in the hot part of the year – I couldn’t believe how anyone could survive there. The nights were oppressively, putridly hot, and full of bitey-insects. Then I ended up living there and suffered for years. I would… Read more
Canary Islands – ‘Last’ Rainforest in Europe (?)
The fossils are clear – just a few million years ago Europe was covered in broad-leaved, evergreen forest. There were palm trees and numerous other trees that are now only found in the tropics. Under almost any definition, this would be called ‘rainforest’. The climate… Read more
Attack of the Forest-Killing Fungi (Kauri and the Elm Decline)
New Zealanders are becoming aware of a new threat to their native forests – as if logging, burning, opossums, deer, ferrets, cats, dogs, weren’t enough. This time it’s a fungus (Phytophthora), and it’s attacking our oldest trees – the giant kauris (Agathis). This pest has… Read more