This post is part of a series about “uncharismatic” species in environmental history, emerging from a workshop at Universität Augsburg in September 2026.
An intense firestorm swept across forests in Victoria, Australia in summer 1939, known as “Black Friday.” The timber industry saw their future resources destroyed, and commenced operations to salvage the fire-killed timber. In the mid 1940s, timber company Ezard and Sons sought a new lease area as their current salvage logging lease was about to be cut out. Technological developments following World War II opened access to previously untenable logging areas, and logging across the region expanded rapidly from fire-killed timber into “virgin” stands of trees. Ezard and Sons established a new mill in the alpine forests of East Gippsland, with the Forests Commission reporting:
“The timber crop on the areas applied for already reached and has passed the age of economic rotation. Utilization of the crop is desirable at an early date” Forests Commission unknown employee, 1944.1
“As the timber crop generally … is mature to over-mature, no limitation of cut is recommended” Inspector Galbraith, 1945.2
Galbraith used the terms “mature” and “over-mature” to describe these stands of timber as categorisations formed around the age-determined quality of trees — or as the other forester said, its lifespan of “economic rotation.” A mature tree was the perfect age to harvest — it was starting to slow down in growth rate, but wasn’t too old that it stopped growing and started developing hollows, cracks, and diseases. That type of tree was termed “over-mature.” The widespread presence of mature and over-mature trees was also seen as a barrier to productive silviculture because they prevented opportunities for fast-growing young tree stands to yield.3 In the eyes of the foresters, “mature” signalled charisma and “over-mature” uncharisma.
These “uncharismatic” old trees are important ecosystem actors, harbouring a vast array of life. They rot, decay, and die; fungi decompose and fix nutrients, moss grows across surfaces holding on to moisture, insects such as the termite break down the log and attract predators like Southeast Australia’s carnivorous snail. The hollows and cracks provide vital habitat for hundreds of creatures, including microbats, possums, and birds. Looking beyond, tree ferns require abundant water to survive and are most commonly found amongst old-growth Mountain Ash forests in deep gullies or south-facing slopes. The crown of their unfurled fronds catches falling leaf litter and seeds, providing nutrients for the fern and sometimes acting as a germination site for other plants. In the Mountain Ash forests to the Northeast of Melbourne, tree ferns have been radiocarbon dated to be around 98-370 years old.4 Of course, many of these more-than-tree beings are seen as charismatic, both historically and today, such as the cushiony softness of moss, melodic calls of birds, and vibrant colouring of mushrooms.
In my Master’s thesis, I used a set of Forests Commission Victoria records to illuminate forest histories in Southeast Victoria after the “Black Friday” bushfires. A batch of these government records called the “Log Allocation Files” document tree species, tree ages, potential quality of timber, terrain, and other environmental factors, alongside scientific, technological and bureaucratic reports.5 As such, the rest of the ecosystem was backgrounded and hidden behind discussions about timber resource management. Mining surveys, hydropower development plans, and timber sales reports are some of the extractive industry-based records that are hugely valuable to environmental historians. How can we account for the resource focus of these archives when we write environmental histories of those places? How can we tell the stories of the neglected, hated, and uncharismatic actors such as fungi and insects that are often silent in the official records?
I explore here potential methodologies for encompassing those silent actors in reconstructions of historical ecosystems using extractive industry records. This is what I have called the “more-than-tree” approach to forest history. The more-than-tree approach seeks the neglected and uncharismatic beings that are in the background of a resource-focused industry archive. It also asks how their categorisation as uncharismatic or neglected shape human-forest relations and the landscape itself.
In 1966, the Saxton timber company was sawing Sirex wasp-infested pine at their mill.6 A few years later, Ezard and Sons were documented segregating Ambrosia beetle-damaged logs in their mill yard, and receiving a royalty rebate for them. In 1972 they were “required to show original docket number and log numbers involved in Ambrosia credit, for audit and checking purposes.”7 These two insects were classed as a “pest” because they damaged and killed the trees that the Forests Commission had projected to be converted into timber. The reason the Sirex woodwasp and Ambrosia beetle are documented at all is because of this “uncharisma.” Both insects were introduced to Australia in the mid-20th century and add a further piece of the puzzle in thinking about non-tree forest creatures.
Victoria lacked native and fast-growing softwood species, so the Forests Commission established radiata pine plantations across the state, expanding the program after 1961. This was almost immediately met with reports of Sirex and Ambrosia infestation to the north and east of Melbourne. The felling and burning of infested trees commenced, as well as trees burnt in bushfires because they were more susceptible to infestation.
Both the Sirex wasp and Ambrosia beetle have symbiotic relationships with species of fungi. For the wasps, the female’s phytotoxic mucus and introduction of mutualistic fungi create the conditions for larvae to hatch. The Ambrosia beetle spends most of its life cycle in wood tissue and is a vector of plant pathogens. They co-evolved morphological adaptations to aid fungi transmission. In both cases, fungi act as a food source for the larvae. Five parasitoids were eventually introduced to Victoria to predate upon Sirex wasps. Additionally, in Tasmania it was found that some native parasites and birds predate upon the wasps too. A host of other ecosystem actors, both native and introduced, are unveiled by these insects’ presence in the archives.8
Furthermore, the histories of Sirex and Ambrosia in Victoria hint at ecological conditions and cycles. Both target dead, dying, or stressed trees, and consequently infestations of both insects often coincided with periods of drought and/or fire. A 2024 study found that Ambrosia beetle populations boomed and timber infestation increased during a period of extreme drought in New South Wales in 2019.9 Perhaps these historical accounts and contemporary research means we can see historical landscapes of drought and anthropogenic climatic changes.
The uncharisma of hindrance also resulted in documentary evidence of other forest beings. In 1960, Ezard and Sons sent a letter to the Forests Commission proposing that they establish new plantations over the thousands of acres of “useless snow gum and snow grass” in the Nunniong Plateau.10 The mention of snow gum and snow grass provides information on the type of ecosystem: sub-alpine, consisting of dry woodland forests, sphagnum bogs, and heathlands, and the host of creatures that reside there.
The more-than-tree approach was a valuable mindset while I explored the forests myself. It centres curiosity and humility, and encouraged me to think about how forest histories would look if they foregrounded the uncharismatic as defined by extractive archives. Embracing the unknown and cooperating with creatures we might typically ignore achieves a more holistic understanding of dynamism, temporality, and entanglement. On a broader scale, the more-than-tree approach can be used across a variety of landscapes to look beyond anthropocentric value systems, and not just in academic contexts. I believe this approach is key in transforming socio-ecological relations that have resulted in wasted landscapes and peoples, primarily through fostering deep observation and research of those historically neglected, stigmatised, and uncharismatic beings.
- Forests Commission Victoria unknown employee [letter to Forests Commission Secretary], 11 February 1944, PROV, VPRS 14948/P0001, Swifts Creek. ↩︎
- Inspector of Forests Galbraith [letter to Forests Commission], 12 March 1945, PROV, VPRS 14948/P0001, Swifts Creek. ↩︎
- L. T. Carron, A History of Forestry in Australia (Canberra: Australian National University Press,
1985). ↩︎ - Ann Young, Environmental Change in Australia since 1788, 2nd ed. (Melbourne: Oxford University
Press, 2000), 78. ↩︎ - PROV, VA534 Department of State Forests (Forests Commission), VPRS
14948/P0001 Log Allocation Files, 1921-1979. ↩︎ - Forests Commission [Saxton Timber Company Log Allocation Summary], PROV, VPRS 14948/P0001, Neerim. ↩︎
- Forests Commission [Ezards and Sons Log Allocation Summary], PROV, VPRS 14948/P0001, Swifts Creek. ↩︎
- John L. Madden, “Sirex in Australasia,” in Dynamics of Forest Insect Populations, with Alan A. Berryman. Population Ecology. Springer US, 1988. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0789-9_20; Helen F. Nahrung, Andrew D. Loch, and Mamoru Matsuki, “Invasive Insects in Mediterranean Forest Systems: Australia,” In Insects and Diseases of Mediterranean Forest Systems, with Timothy D. Paine and Francois Lieutier. Springer International Publishing, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24744-1_17. ↩︎
- Zali I. Mahony, Kelly Scarlett, Angus J. Carnegie, Conrad Trollip, Matthew Laurence, and David I. Guest, “Fungi Associated with the Ambrosia Beetle Xyleborus Perforans (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae) on Drought-Stressed Pinus in New South Wales, Australia,” Australasian Plant Pathology (Dordrecht) 53, no. 1 (2024): 51–62. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13313-023-00952-6. ↩︎
- Ezard and Sons [letter to Forests Commission Secretary], 25 October 1960, PROV, VPRS 14948/P0001, Swifts Creek. ↩︎
Feature Image: Dawsonia moss, Taungurung Country. Author’s photo.
Claire Waddell-Wood