Huon Pine — a major tourist attraction

Forest and Bird, Volume 16, Issue 4, 1 November 1985, Page 28

Huon Pine — a major tourist attraction

The Huon pine (Lagarostrobus franklinit), a close relative of New Zealand’s silver pine, grows alongside rivers on Tasmania’s West Coast. Today it is the State’s rarest forest association. It is slow growing and can live for up to 3,000 years. Formerly widespread, it has now been almost eliminated as a forest association because of logging for its prized resilient timber and through flooding by hydro lakes. A major craft and tourism industry has now developed around the timber which in appearance resembles our kahikatea. The present annual timber cut of 200-300 cubic metres is almost exclusively used for high quality craftware. Even Huon pine woodshavings | sell for $1 in small bags labelled ‘*Product of the world’s last temperate rainforest’’. Eat your hearts out New Zealand West Coasters! There is no replanting of Huon pine and the few significant mature stands that remain are unreserved and threatened by helicopter logging. The present supply largely comes from 8,700 m? of timber salvaged before the Gordon River and Lake Pedder were flooded in 1972.