Forests of Ash
Forests of Ash
$38.00
USDThis beautifully written book tells the story of Australia's giant eucalypt, the Mountain Ash, which grows in the region north and east of Melbourne. A single tree can reach a height of 120 feet in 20 years, making it the tallest hardwood in the world. While celebrating the steep, wet, dense eastern forests of Australia, Tom Griffiths shows that they can be far from benign. Dependent on fire for their survival, this awesome natural vegetation can become a source of destruction, forcing people to confront their relationship with the bush. Visited seasonally by indigenous people and later a site of mining and saw-milling for settlers, as well as contested ground for conservationists, the life cycles and fire cycles of the forests span millennia. Tom Griffiths tells the environmental, ecological and social history of a unique Australian forest, and, in doing so, tells the story of the continent as a whole.
- This beautifully-written book tells the story of Australia's giant eucalypt, the Mountain Ash - the tallest hardwood in the world
- Celebrates the Mountain Ash, a tree that is dependent on fire for survival
- Tells the environmental, ecological and social history of a unique Australian forest, and, in doing so, the story of a continent
Reviews & endorsements
"Forests of Ash is a good story well written. The subject is made even more approachable through maps and over sixty photographs, many of them stunning. This is definitely not just a text for scholars." Environmental History
"The book...provides an excellent case study of the application of environmental history to one forest. It is a very worthwhile contribution to the ongoing public debate about the use of the ash forests." Pacific Affairs
Product details
November 2001Paperback
9780521012348
248 pages
244 × 170 × 13 mm
0.4kg
69 b/w illus. 5 maps 5 tables
Available
Table of Contents
- Part I. A History of the Ash Range:
- 1. Continent of fire
- 2. Tall trees
- 3. 'Improving'
- 4. Crossing the Blacks' Spur
- 5. Mining
- 6. Timber tramways
- 7. Water
- 8. The theatre of nature
- 9. Tourism
- 10. Black Friday
- 11. The long experiment
- 12. Heritage
- Part II. Spotlights Ash and ants Alan Yen
- Co-evolution, a tall forest story Ken Walker
- Lyrebird Rory O'Brien
- Coranderrk calendar Lindy Allen
- Gems in the forest Bill Birch
- The good oil Gary Presland
- Hairstreak butterfly Ross Field
- Shortfin eel Martin Gomon
- 'The strength and beauty of the mountain valleys' Elizabeth Willis
- Leadbeater's possum Joan Dixon
- Insect outbreaks Alan Yen
- Exhibiting the tall forests Luke Simpkin
- Epilogue.
