Victoria’s mountain ash forests naturally thin their trees. So why do it with machines?

Victoria’s mountain ash forests naturally thin their trees. So why do it with machines?

David Clode/Unsplash, CC BY-NDThere has been much global discussion about the best ways to manage Earth’s forests in an era of climate change and more frequent bushfires. Some foresters and forest managers support and recommend large-scale industrial thinning of forests, where a proportion of the trees are removed (thinned) with machines to increase the size of the remaining trees. Thinning is commonly used in timber plantations, as it accelerat…