Tasmanian Fires Destroying World Heritage Site - Last Relict Forest From Gondwanaland

[hatrack]

YDNEY – World Heritage-listed forests whose origins predate the age of the dinosaurs are being destroyed by raging Australian bush fires, with conservationists increasingly fearful they could be lost forever. Firefighters in Tasmania — an island state south of the mainland known for its cooler temperatures — have been battling bush fires for 18 days, with 95,000 hectares (234,750 acres) of land burned so far, authorities said Friday.

While no properties have been destroyed and no one hurt in the infernos — which are so numerous that firefighters from across Australia and New Zealand have been flown in to help — parts of western Tasmania’s famed wilderness have been destroyed by the flames.

“The fires in western Tasmania are occurring in basically an ecosystem which is a remnant from the geological past, so they are of immense significance scientifically,” said David Bowman, professor of environmental change biology at the University of Tasmania. “These systems were once more widespread and indeed grew on Antarctica billions of years ago, so they are living fossils. … They go back to well before the age of the dinosaurs; they are a tangible connection to Gondwana.” Gondwana was a land mass that included present-day Africa, South America and Australia and formed the southern part of an ancient supercontinent called Pangaea.

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James Wood, the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens’ seed bank manager, said last year the organization had been able to collect thousands of montane conifer seeds. “In these sort of circumstances, the seed bank’s take is that we may lose the ecology but we don’t necessarily have to lose the species so we can preserve them.” But he warned that while it might be possible to overcome sporadic events, long-term environmental changes — such as those that appeared to be caused by climate change — were harder to protect against.

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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/01/31/asia-pacific/science-health-asia-pacific/tasmanian-bush-fires-raze-ancient-world-heritage-forests/#.VrH3CObtgec

[DetlefK]

1. Damn! Now that's old!

"Yo Mama is so old, she planted the tasmanian forest!"