Media release – The Wilderness Society, 7 March 2007
EL GRANDE, AUSTRALIA’S MOST MASSIVE TREE TOPPLES
Forestry Tasmania’s announcement that El Grande, Australia’s most massive tree and the world’s biggest flowering plant, has fallen over, closes a very sad chapter in Tasmanian forestry history, according to The Wilderness Society.
El Grande was going to be logged in 2002 before volunteers discovered it and reported it to Forestry Tasmania. Forestry then ‘protected’ the tree by applying management prescriptions but proceeded with a forestry burn that got out of control. The tree was burnt and subsequently died.
“El Grande’s collapse is the last chapter in a sorry tale of mismanagement by Forestry Tasmania and a perfect example of the logging industry’s inability to protect the unique values of Tasmania’s World Heritage-value forests,” said Vica Bayley, spokesperson for The Wilderness Society.
“Since Forestry Tasmania burnt and killed El Grande, vast areas of surrounding forest has been clearfelled and destroyed. The loss of this buffer meant that the fate of El Grande was sealed.”
“At the hands of Forestry Tasmania and despite its official protection, Australia’s greatest tree is now Australia’s biggest log.”
El Grande was located adjacent to the World Heritage Area in the Florentine Valley and was discovered in June 2002, burnt in April 2003 and Forestry Tasmania finally admitted that it was dead in December 2003 (media release attached).
