Forest Issues 2: Conserving Hollow-dependent Fauna in Timber-production Forests (Environmental Heritage Monograph Series No 3)

Abstract

In the absence of primary excavators, such as woodpeckers, the formation of tree-hollows suitable for occupation by hollow-dependent fauna in Australia may take several hundred years. However, intervals between logging operations in timberproduction forests are typically between 40 and 120 years with the result that hollow-dependent fauna are threatened over large areas of Australia's eucalypt forests. Many species of mammals, birds and invertebrates depend upon tree hollows for dens, roosting or nesting, and habitat. Therefore, there is a strong need to retain and conserve suitable hollowbearing trees within Australian forests in the face of increasingly more intensive and destructive timber harvesting practices.