Tingle Forest

Renowned environmentalist Bob Brown made his ‘little bit' of contribution recently to preventing ‘pyromaniacs' from burning a national treasure – the Walpole-Nornalup National Park tingle forests. He joined the Tingle Action Group and WA Forest Alliance to see both the beauty of long-unburnt tingle forest, thriving as it has for centuries, and the impact of prescribed burning, which has felled hundreds of ancient tingle trees.

Mat Dalby. More than 120 people rallied in Denmark on Saturday, calling on the State Government to halt a planned summer prescribed burn in the Walpole–Nornalup National Park. The rally of people from Walpole, Denmark and across the Great Southern followed days of escalating concern of the Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attraction's plans threatening the last remaining ancient red tingle forest.

More than 150 ancient tingle trees in the Walpole-Nornalup National Park have fallen after a prescribed burn on December 18 last year. This is the finding of a local researcher, ANU environmental science student Uralla Luscombe-Pedro, who surveyed the area burned next to the Valley of the Giants Treetop Walk.

About 150 people gathered at Nornalup on March 23 to protest about the State Government’s plan to burn 80ha of nearby mostly-unlogged tingle forest. Nornalup community members are angry about the planned burn which environmentalists say is counter-productive to fire mitigation and destructive to the environment.

Is this really how harvested forests are left? Australian Rural & Regional News looks into recent statements that highlight continuing conflicting and confusing information in the public domain about connections between forestry operations and bushfires and whether prescribed burns reduce bushfire risk.