Living with giants: the beauty of Victoria’s ash forests

Image: Chris Taylor - Ancient rainforests that sustained our First Nations peoples, trees the height of 25-storey buildings and gliding marsupials larger than any other - these are just some of the wonders found in Victoria's mountain ash forests. A new book tells their incredible stories through stunning photography, writes Phoebe Humphreys. From the devastation of Ash Wednesday in 1983 to the Black Saturday of 2009 and the Black summer of 2019-20, our backyard has had it tough. One of the areas consistently on the frontlines of these disasters has been the mountain ash forests found in Victoria's central highlands. The unique, life-sustaining natural beauty of these great forests has been further threatened by logging and species nearing extinction. Yet, instead of a tale of gloom and doom about the threat to our forests, Professor David Lindenmayer from the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society has created a story of hope in his new book, The Great Forest . "One of the things that inspired me is that like many Australians I've had a pretty rugged time this past year," Lindenmayer says.