Trees die, but we could be seeing the death of entire iconic landscape

T

rees die – that’s a fact of life. But is the death of an entire iconic landscape of Eucalyptus in the Cooma-Monaro region of New South Wales natural?

For over a decade, large stands of Eucalyptus viminalis, commonly known as Ribbon Gum or Manna Gum, have been gradually declining in health, and now stand like skeletons in huge tree graveyards.

In our recently published survey we found the affected area to cover almost 2,000 square km, about the size of the area burnt in the devastating Ash Wednesday bushfires in Victoria or more than the area covered by the 2003 Canberra fires.

Within this area, almost every Ribbon Gum is either dead or showing signs of severe stress and dieback, with thinning crowns full of dead branches. Other tree species seem to be surviving, but this smooth-barked gum with its characteristic ribbons of peeling park, once the dominant tree of the Monaro, now seems set to disappear from the landscape.

Read the story on The Conversation by Associate Professor Forest measurement and management, Australian National University, Cris Brack, and

PhD candidate, Australian National University, Catherine Ross - “Death of a landscape: why have thousands of trees dropped dead in New South Wales?”