The Cover Shot - Wild #185
Learn the backstory of the awesome image that graces Wild #185’s cover
(This piece originally featured in Wild #185, Spring 2022)
This tree is called Big Lonely Reg. It’s a 76m-tall Eucalyptus regnans (AKA mountain ash) that was left in the middle of a logging coupe in the Florentine Valley, Tasmania. The way that I found this tree was actually quite unusual. I was hiking with some friends and from the top of Mt Field West, there is an uninterrupted view across the Florentine Valley. Unfortunately, what you see is a once-pristine valley which has been absolutely decimated by decades of logging.
But one thing stuck out: Big Lonely Reg standing there on its own in a freshly logged coupe. Why had they left this tree there? Was it some way for Sustainable Timber Tasmania to seem less destructive? Was it to fill their environmental obligations by not cutting down the tallest tree, just everything around it?
The following week, we went and climbed Big Lonely Reg. What a beautiful tree! The Florentine Valley used to be full of giants like this one. Imagine how incredible that would have been. We still have patches of old-growth forest in Tasmania, but some of them are still under threat by logging. These forests need to be protected.
Read more about native forest logging in ‘Tasmania’s Forests: A Climate Solution in Plain Sight’, starting on P40 of Issue #185 (image by Steve Pearce).
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