Karri forest

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Karri forest Karri forest.jpg
Karri forest
Distribution of karri forest within the Warren biogeographic region Eucalyptus diversicolor distribution.png
Distribution of karri forest within the Warren biogeographic region

Karri forest is a tall open forest type dominated by Eucalyptus diversicolor (karri), one of the tallest hardwoods in the world. [1]

Karri forest occurs only in the south-west corner of the Southwest Botanical Province of Western Australia, in the Warren biogeographic region. [2] The Warren region is also known as the Karri Forest Region, but this is a misnomer, as only about half of the region is vegetated with karri forest.

From the 1880s onward, karri forest supported timber and firewood industries when access to the forest was improved by a network of the state's railway lines. Small settlements such as Karridale, Deanmill and Pemberton were established around timber mills, and have since become centres for regional tourism.

Some of the remaining areas of karri forest were initially protected in reserves such as Brockman National Park, Warren National Park, Beedelup National Park, and Gloucester National Park. Following campaigning by environmentalists and others the WA government ended the logging of 2 million hectares of native forests, including Karri, in 2024. [3]

Ecology of the karri forest

Karri forest is found on loamy soils, but may include wetlands, river edges, heathland and rocky outcrops. [4] Leaf litter (i.e. twigs, leaves and branches which fall from trees to the ground) plays a substantial role in nutrient recycling and has been measured at 9.45 tonnes per hectare in mature forest. [5] Leaf litter fall and nutrient cycling of calcium, potassium and magnesium in mature forest is the highest reported for any eucalypt forest. [5]

The understorey of karri forest is dense and may reach a height of 10m, according to the conditions of the site and time since the last fire. [4] Understorey leaf material contributes between 30 and 70% of the nutrients by weight, and is particularly important in the cycling of major plant nutrients nitrogen and sulfur, and micro-nutrients copper and zinc. [5]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warren bioregion</span> Biogeographic region in southern Western Australia

Warren, also known as Karri Forest Region and the Jarrah-Karri forest and shrublands ecoregion, is a biogeographic region in southern Western Australia. Located in the southwest corner of Western Australia between Cape Naturaliste and Albany, it is bordered to the north and east by the Jarrah Forest region. Its defining characteristic is an extensive tall forest of Eucalyptus diversicolor (karri). This occurs on dissected, hilly ground, with a moderately wet climate. Karri is a valuable timber and much of the karri forest has been logged over, but less than a third has been cleared for agriculture. Recognised as a region under the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA), and as a terrestrial ecoregion by the World Wide Fund for Nature, it was first defined by Ludwig Diels in 1906.

The Campaign to Save Native Forests (W.A.) (CSNF) was the name of a grassroots organisation which grew from a campaign started in Perth, Western Australia, in 1975, as a response to the development of a woodchipping industry in the south-west jarrah and karri forests of Western Australia. The Manjimup woodchip project aroused significant levels of protest in Perth and the South West region out of public concern that inadequate measures had been made for conservation alongside exploitation of the south west hardwood forests.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jarrah Forest</span> Bioregion in Western Australia

Jarrah Forest, also known as the Southwest Australia woodlands, is an interim Australian bioregion and ecoregion located in the south west of Western Australia. The name of the bioregion refers to the region's dominant plant community, jarrah forest – a tall, open forest in which the dominant overstory tree is jarrah.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Forest Products Commission</span>

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Bertmainius tingle, also called the tingle trapdoor spider, is a small basal spider endemic to the tingle and karri forest of southwestern Western Australia. This migid family species of Bertmainius was first recorded in the 1990s.

The Warby-Ovens National Park is a national park located on the lands of the Bangerang clan of the Yorta Yorta Nation in the Hume region of Victoria, Australia near Killawara. The 14,655-hectare (36,210-acre) national park is situated approximately 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) west of Wangaratta and 240 kilometres (150 mi) northeast of Melbourne.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cumberland Plain Woodland</span> Indigenous woodland community in Sydney, Australia

The Cumberland Plain Woodland, also known as Cumberland Plain Bushland and Western Sydney woodland, is a grassy woodland community found predominantly in Western Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, that comprises an open tree canopy, a groundcover with grasses and herbs, usually with layers of shrubs and/or small trees.

References

  1. Christensen, Per (1992). The Karri Forest. Department of Conservation and Land Management.
  2. Marchant, N. G. (2000) Karri forest in microcosm : William Bay National Park. Landscope (Como, W.A), Spring 2000, p. 42-47
  3. Hardinge, Alice; Beckerling, Jess (2024-01-16). "Campaigns to End Logging in Australia (Commons Conversations Podcasts)". The Commons Social Change Library. Retrieved 2024-02-29.
  4. 1 2 Burrows, N.D. (2008). "Linking fire ecology and fire management in south-west Australian forest landscapes" (PDF). Forest Ecology and Management. 255 (7): 2394–2406. doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2008.01.009 . Retrieved 14 July 2012.
  5. 1 2 3 O'Connell, A.M.; P.M.A Menagé (28 July 2006). "Litter fall and nutrient cycling in karri (Eucalyptus diversicolor F. Muell.) forest in relation to stand age". Austral Ecology. 7 (1): 49–62. doi:10.1111/j.1442-9993.1982.tb01299.x.