Australia fire emergency

Slippertalk Orchid Forum

Help Support Slippertalk Orchid Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Well since members were commenting on no moderation. I just took some posts out of this thread. Since I don't really know any of you there is really no possible bias on it.
I see the thread became more civilized for the 9 posts above this one.

And I am going to be searching for mods, probably 2 and have made a post about in in Talk Back area.

I see that this is in Off Topics and that is usually a little more 'free for all" than in the Orchid forums and topics.
 

That was an incredible effort by the firefighters to save those pines. The whole area surrounding the pines was burnt but they managed to stop the fire getting into the canyon and wiping out the species.


wollemi%20pine.jpg
 
A good job by the firefighters, my gratulation
Yes I'm sure they have never had a fire in that area in the past hundred thousand years. The real reason the trees are still there is because they are in a canyon. I just cannot believe the on-going bullshit coming from left, right and centre. Is it that people just cannot think or don't want to?
 
Yes I'm sure they have never had a fire in that area in the past hundred thousand years. The real reason the trees are still there is because they are in a canyon.
Yes I see it in the same way.
 
Yes I'm sure they have never had a fire in that area in the past hundred thousand years. The real reason the trees are still there is because they are in a canyon. I just cannot believe the on-going bullshit coming from left, right and centre. Is it that people just cannot think or don't want to?

They have had plenty of fires in this region over the last 100 thousand years. That is why this species is down to one last population in a single canyon. This genus use to be widespread across Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica. But the drying of the continent and the prevalence of fires since Indigenous people colonised Australia has seen this species contract to a single population. It is a bit of a miracle it has survived and it is really only a matter of time before a catastrophic event finishes this species off. It is now only humans that can help keep this species alive.

This canyon is normally very wet which has helped protect it from fires in the past. But as we have seen with the recent fires, areas that normally never catch fire are now burning -

rainforests of Queensland - https://www.theguardian.com/austral...-burned-for-10-days-and-almost-no-one-noticed
King Billy and pencil pine forests in Tasmania - https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ragedy-unfolds-in-tasmania?CMP=share_btn_link

Given how dry it has been, it is pretty likely that canyon would have burnt as well if not for the firefighters drenching the whole area. A few trees did actually catch fire and were killed.
 
Last edited:
It is a bit of a miracle it has survived and it is really only a matter of time before a catastrophic event finishes this species off.
So Mike is right when he writes that there has never been a fire in this valley
 
Last edited:
OMG! Stop press...that's indeed front page news!
Jens, I think climate change is not a suitable play ground for psychologists, at least not yet. First Greta et al. should create even more hysteria in humans.
 
Last edited:
So Mike is right when he writes that there has never been a fire in this valley

That is not the issue. Just because they have dodged fires in the past doesn't mean they would have survived these fires. These fires were incredibly intense and the landscape bone dry. If ever they were going to burn, this was the time. Rainforests have been burning in this country and they would be much more fire resistant than this canyon.

I know this area well. There are lots of canyons in this region that are exactly like the one with the Wollemi Pines except they have no pines in them. Fire would have killed these in the past like they have over a lot of their range. Eventually fire will get the current population as well. It is really only a matter of time. With the help of firefighters, the pines dodged a bullet. They may not be so lucky next time.

There is an argument that money and resources should not be spent on a species that is naturally heading for extinction. The Wollemi Pine was well on the path to extinction before Europeans settled in Australia.
 
Last edited:
There is an argument that money and resources should not be spent on a species that is naturally heading for extinction. The Wollemi Pine was well on the path to extinction before Europeans settled in Australia.
yes, there are many plants and animals in the world that experience the same fate. But I'm not really worried about Wollemia because it is now successful in culture worldwide.
The stable genetics of this species prevent evolutionary further development.
 
Last edited:
Well since members were commenting on no moderation. I just took some posts out of this thread. Since I don't really know any of you there is really no possible bias on it.
I see the thread became more civilized for the 9 posts above this one.

And I am going to be searching for mods, probably 2 and have made a post about in in Talk Back area.

I see that this is in Off Topics and that is usually a little more 'free for all" than in the Orchid forums and topics.
Thanks Angie, much appreciated.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top