Media release – Nick Duigan, Minister for Parks, 26 February 2025
Ancient Huon pines safe from bushfire impact
A 3000-year-old Huon pine and several high-conservation stands of ancient trees have been confirmed to be intact and undamaged by the bushfires impacting Tasmania’s rugged west coast.
Minister for Parks, Nick Duigan, said these bushfires have been devastating for the west coast, but this news will provide some relief.
“A team of natural values specialists from the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania conducted an aerial assessment of impacts of the Yellowband Creek bushfire, and were relieved to see the trees intact,” Minister Duigan said.
The assessment consisted of a low-level helicopter flight of the length of the Harman and Wilson Rivers to observe impacted vegetation.
NRE Tas Senior Ecologist Steve Leonard said the inspection confirmed the main Huon pines along both rivers remained intact.
“The only impacts on Huon pine observed were a handful of scorched trees on the lower Harman River, which are outside of the main Huon pine stand. There is also a reasonable chance that these trees will survive,” Dr Leonard said.
Across the Yellowband Plain fireground, rainforest boundaries have held, meaning impact to the rainforest is minimal.
“We were pretty excited after flying through the landscape to come to this island of intact forest and see these magnificent old trees,” Dr Leonard said.
“These Huon pine forests have immense conservation significance, so their survival through this bushfire is a great outcome.”
Dr Leonard said the forests had managed to hold on in the landscape until now because they occur in areas of natural fire refuge.
“However, we can’t just rely on natural fire protection, and we’ve seen as part of the current response is that actions like water bombing, retardant drops and sprinkler lines can be very effective in bolstering natural refuges and preventing fire impacts to these significant natural values.”
One tree in the Harman River stand is about 3000 years old, and it is likely a number of other trees in the stand are a similar age.
Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service State Fire Manager Katy Edwards said water bombing had been used to bolster the natural fire protection of the stand.
“PWS fire crews have used the latest technology available to tackle the current bushfires. Our strategy remains focused on early detection and rapid response,” Ms Edwards said.
“We use state-of-the art remote cameras units coupled with satellite technology to detect dry lightning strikes and monitor for hotspots. We also conduct planned burns to reduce the risk of bushfires and help preserve ecosystems across our reserve estate.
“Planned burns in the west coast area over recent years have proven effective at containing the edges and slowing the spread of a number of the current fires. Our winch crews have also been invaluable in getting into more remote fires quickly to contain their spread.”
Minister Duigan commended Parks teams on their efforts to preserve these areas of high conservation value.
“I’d like to thank the fire crews incident management teams and all of our support staff right across all three agencies – Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service, Tasmania Fire Service and Sustainable Timber Tasmania. Our thoughts remain with everyone involved, we appreciate your dedication and commitment to the ongoing response,” Minister Duigan said.
The public is advised to check the following websites for updated information on the ongoing bushfire response:
Fire updates: www.alert.tas.gov.au
Park and track closures: www.parks.tas.gov.au/alerts and www.fire.tas.gov.au
Road closures and community alerts: police.tas.gov.au/community-
Featured image above courtesy Micah Visoiu / NRE. Caption supplied: The Harman River Huon pine forest has remained intact within the Yellowband Plain fireground. In many locations across the fireground, the fire has stopped at the edge of rainforest. In key areas such as the Harman and Wilson Rivers, water bombing has been deployed to bolster these natural fire boundaries.
Media release – Bob Brown Foundation, 26 February 2025
Horrific Huon pine destruction – dramatic photos put lie to Duigan’s dismissal
Dramatic photos of burnt and collapsed Huon pines beside Takayna’s Harman River put the lie to the Rockliff government’s claim that ‘several high-conservation stands of ancient trees have been confirmed to be intact and undamaged by the bushfires impacting Tasmania’s rugged west coast.’
Bob Brown Foundation has released photos by famed Tasmanian wilderness photographer Rob Blakers showing Huon pines burnt and collapsed at the Harman River. Other pines are scorched to their tree tops and will likely die.
“If ever there was to be a wake-up call, this is it. A significant enclave of Huon pine rainforest did burn at the lower Harman River,” said Rob Blakers.
“At the upper Harman, the middle Harman and the lower Wilson, fire burnt to within 10 m of Huon pine groves. The fire also burnt right to the edge of major pine forests at Yellow Creek and the upper Wilson River. With marginally stronger winds and hotter temperatures this entire refuge for the pines may well have burnt and been lost forever,” said Rob Blakers.
“In the absence of a decisive and dramatic increase in remote area fire-fighting priority, resources and capacity, and with climate change fuelling hotter, drier and more unpredictable conditions than ever before, we will lose this incredible paleo-endemic vegetation, which arose 50 million years ago and is found no-where else on Earth,” said Rob Blakers.
Bob Brown said the burnt Huon pines underscored the Rockliff government’s ignorance of global warming and the need for a huge change in attitude to wilderness destruction.
“Our National Parks and Wildlife Service has been cut to ribbons and the lessons of recent fires killing ancient pencil pines at Lake Mackenzie in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area have been ignored. Now Minister Duigan is falsifying the public record as if no Huon pines have been burnt and all is okay. His government failed to take action for the two, vital first days to put this fire out. By then it was uncontrollable.”
“I challenge Premier Rockliff and Prime Minister Albanese to fly into the burnt pines with us and see the destruction for themselves. Their policies of stoking greater global heating, through more coal mines, gas fracking and forest burning, ensure that future Tasmanian fires will be even more disastrous.”
Harman R fire
Harman R fire
Harman R fire
Harman R fire
Media release – Nick McKim, Greens Senator for Tasmania, 26 February, 2025
Huon Pine groves the latest climate victims
Devastating images released today by renowned wilderness photographer Rob Blakers confirm that ancient Huon pines on the lower Harman River were burned by the recent wilderness fires.
“This is evidence that we are simply not doing enough to protect these ancient ecological communities from fires, which tragically will become all too common as the planet heats,” said Senator McKim, who chaired the Senate Inquiry into the response to the 2016 wilderness fires which saw the loss of irreplaceable pencil pine forests at Lake Mackenzie.
“Some trees have collapsed, others have been heavily scorched and will probably not survive. These are ancient paleo-endemic ecosystems that exist nowhere else in the world and we need to work much harder and smarter to protect them.”
“The Senate Inquiry established by the Greens in 2016 made a series of recommendations to improve resources and better protect wilderness from fire, but it has been left to gather dust by Liberal and Labor governments.”
“We found that remote area fires need to be hit hard and early with aerial resources, before they can become established. This was not done when the recent fires started and we need to know why.”
““Fires like these are Tasmania’s version of melting polar ice caps and the loss of the Great Barrier Reef. We are global custodians of these wondrous places, yet we are failing in our responsibility to protect and nurture them.”
“Labor and the Liberals continue to make the problem worse by approving new coal and gas mines, and logging and burning native forests.
“They need to swiftly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and they need to ensure fire responders have the resources they need to protect these irreplaceable ecological communities.”
Ted Mead
February 27, 2025 at 20:28
One of the ongoing issues relating to wildfires is that there is always some form of collateral damage to sensitive vegetation.
Invariably, every time there is a fire, albeit wildfire or fuel reduction burning, something precious is lost, and the fact that climate change is drying more areas out simply means that forest communities are more affected.
Huon pines are notably vulnerable because in many cases they line the riparian zones where fire regimes since European colonisation have burnt to the edge of waterways. Such is the case with the Lower Harmsen River fires, where inevitably the current fires have been too intense for some of the pines to survive.
Grand stands of ancient Huon pine to date have been more resilient to wildfires, therefore there are stands millennia in age through their locations being surrounded by buffer zones of moist rainforest. However, as climate change temperature increase so does the vulnerability of such communities.
The knee-jerk reaction of Minister Duigan that the old Huon pines survived is an ill-informed response. What about the grand old Huon pine in the tributary of the Donaldson River? The recent fires engulfed that area, and I suspect that the minister, and his tourist developing department of Parks and Wildlife, are not even aware of its very existence.
This article also claims that “We also conduct planned burns to reduce the risk of bushfires and help preserve ecosystems across our reserve estate”. There is plenty of documented evidence that such burning does not assist in the preservation of mature forests, and given the state’s non-scientific hectare-based fuel reduction pyromaniac program, those burns have made no impact on reducing fire impacts, or their frequencies, within the Arthur/Pieman Conservation area.
It’s just more deceptive spin that doesn’t wash with me!
Ted Mead
February 28, 2025 at 08:09
Erratum. Part of my previous comment was incorrect ..
After studying the latest TFS fire-affected map I noticed the area of the Donaldson River catchment that I referred to has not been burnt, although it was burnt in the human-caused fire in 2000.
The Donaldson River corridor south of the Western explorer road has been recently burnt. This region hosted many Huon pines in the riparian zones that are likely to be damaged or destroyed.