Forest once covered 95% of Victoria. Since European arrival it has been reduced to only 35%.
The Box-Ironbark forests of the plains are almost completely gone, as this land was easy to use for grazing.
The qualities of much of the remaining 35% have been greatly changed.
Logging methods used in the past did not create such radical change to the soils and vegetation as does modern clearfelling.
Clearfelling is deliberately designed to strongly favour regeneration of only the tree species most favoured by the timber, chipping and pulp industries.
The regrowth following clearfelling does look neat, and of course it is green, so it must be good!
However the use of the word 'forest' to describe this uniform regrowth, dominated by one or two species of interest to the logging industry, is misleading.
True forest is diverse, in age and species, and supports a wide variety of other life.
The regrowth is better described as ' crop of trees'. It offers limited support to other life.
Many species of birds and animals that used to be widespread in Victoria are now threatened, living in small unconnected areas, or locally extinct.
Many areas left without tree cover suffer from erosion of topsoil by water and wind. The gullies are eroded by water.
In flatter areas of the northwest and Gippsland many areas of once useful land are now suffering from poisoning by salt. It is now recognised that the trees used to suck up water deep in the soil. Where the trees have gone, the rising ground water has carried salt to the surface. It is too late for much of this land, for which the cost of reclamation is prohibitive.
Our remaining forests cover critical catchments which provide the water to our streams and rivers, water supplies and irrigation.
The quality of the water in our streams has declined as sediment has washed into the streams, rivers and lakes. The native fish, insects, crustaceans, and other creatures suffer, as they evolved to live in clean water. Our own town water and irrigation systems suffer. We have to spend more on cleaning our drinking water.
Where logging has been carried out, and forest is regrowing, the quantity of water available to the streams is significantly reduced. Regrowth forest takes up more water for its own growth than did the older growth forest.
Less is available as runoff in the streams. We have farmers crying for more irrigation water in dry spells.
We have Melbourne reaching out further and further out in search of adequate water supplies, and increasing shortages in regional town water supplies.
Where large areas of forest are cleared the changes seem to reduce the total rainfall also.
For example the rainfall records of Poowing show a 20% decline in average rainfall coinciding with the clearing of the Great Forest of Gippsland in that area in the 18 years from 1896 to 1914.
Symptoms of the loss of water quantity and quality include:
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