THE SPIRIT OF THE LAND
It is an enchanted elven forest, says Australian bush expert Mark Graham, largely unchanged over tens of millions of years. “So, we are back to the dawn of the evolution of flowering plants and songbirds, back to the time of the dinosaurs.”
An ecologist with the Nature Conservation Council of New South Wales, Graham owns a private conservation reserve on the Dorrigo Plateau, part of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia, a Unesco World Heritage Site. These rainforests covering 3665 sq km of NSW and Queensland are some of the oldest on the planet, one of the few remnants of the supercontinent of Gondwana that broke up about 180 million years ago.
“The songbirds in this part of the world are some of our most ancient,” Graham says. “Listening to the dawn chorus in this forest is like having a window back in time.”
Now, instead of songbirds, he hears the roar of fire just 500m from his home. “I have never heard anything like it. It is like Mother Nature is so angry she is growling with the deepest, most guttural tones.”
These rainforests are not meant to burn; they have been wet for tens of millions of years. But burning they are. More than a quarter of a million hectares have been scorched by flames and Graham expects thousands more hectares to burn as Australia experiences record-breaking temperatures.
The damage is a global tragedy. Although birds can fly elsewhere, there are few refuges for the
