Having survived stage four lung cancer, award-winning nature writer Andrew Derby was determined to make the most of the rest of his life. Breakthrough immunotherapy had saved him and there was no detectable trace of a tumour now. But for how long?
Tasmania is globally outstanding for its large numbers of paleoendemic trees. Alive today are individual trees that are thousands of years old. Their direct ancestors lived with dinosaurs. Andrew Derby made a plan to go on a personal odyssey to discover for himself seven of these ancient trees: King’s Lomatia, King Billy Pine, Pencil Pine, Huon Pine, Giant Eucalyptus, Myrtle Beech and Fagus.
But at seventy years old, would he still have the strength to do it and the physical ability to shoulder a laden pack? The Tasmanian wilderness is dense, remote and inaccessible. Undeterred, he set off on the long and arduous journey, choosing to do it the old-fashioned way without a GPS tracker, using paper maps.
It proved extremely challenging, but this was far outweighed by the joy of reaching his destination, which he recounts in lyrical prose. As he is nearing the end of the journey to find the Pine of Olympus, Pencil Pine, he writes:
'The creek hadn’t finished with me. I misjudge a bank, slide in up to my hips, and have to haul myself out of the leg-sucking silt one foot at a time. But soon enough I see the shimmer of an expanse of water, lit by low sun through woodland. Then the track opens onto white quartz beach with wave-lines of leaves. At last, Lake Petrarch, and the Pine of Olympus.'
Woven through his odyssey are stories about the impact humans have had on these ancient trees from earliest settlement by aboriginal tribes, followed by tales of the fires lit by miners, shepherds and cattlemen and their destruction by loggers who cut them down for commercial gain. They destroyed huge numbers of them, leaving few survivors.
He also delves into the history of their botanical discovery and tells stories about some of the enthusiastic amateur naturalists who did the legwork by gathering specimens from plants they discovered and sending them on to formally trained taxonomic botanists. Only they were qualified to decide their place in the botanically described world and allot them their scientific names.
It was the campaigns by conservation activists who became tree sitters and organised logging stockades, who raised the consciousness of Tasmanians of the need for their preservation. He also tells their stories, which led to the government belatedly taking action to put measures in place to preserve and protect these ancient trees.
Today fire remains their biggest enemy. Global warming is posing a new threat. It is causing more frequent dry lightning strikes, with the ensuing raging bushfires.
He has devoted two chapters to the raging 2018-2019 Tasmanian bushfires in which more than 200,000 hectares were burnt ( 2.9 % of Tasmania’s land area) by the time they were eventually brought under control. His graphic descriptions are horrifying to read.
These fires did grievous injury to the ancients. Around 16,800 hectares of old-growth forest were impacted.
Will global warming spell their end?
Andrew remains hopeful ‘that given the jolt of recognition of our inflicted damage upon them, we are now clever enough, and self-interested enough, to make them part of our future’.
When we were on holiday in Tasmania last year, we walked the loop track around Dove Lake at Cradle Mountain through stands of beautiful golden flowering Fagus totally unaware that it is a prehistoric survivor of the Gondwana era. Andrew Darby’s book has opened our eyes to its preciousness and that of the other paleoendemic ancients.
He is a consummate storyteller and I found his book, written in such an engaging and accessible style, a very absorbing read.
At the very end of his book he writes:
'I offer it to you, the reader, in homage to this extraordinary island where I live. If you haven’t done so already, I hope you might carefully tread and be enraptured by its wild country.'
We can but hope that Tasmanians will do their utmost to save their precious ancient trees. His book will undoubtedly help with that.
Reviewer: Lyn Potter
Allen & Unwin