6 February

I posted about the new way they’re regenerating forest in desserts, where instead of just planting new trees (which usually fails), they’re targeting the roots of old trees that have been cut down over generations, which are still alive underground. Trees can continue to live quite happily underground, after being cut down. These can ‘sucker’ into a whole forest of new trees very quickly. Here’s a great visual of what happens, from the courtyard at Bathurst Council. A Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) used to be where the red circle is, and was cut down because they’re now classified as noxious weeds. But the root system still survives underground, and you can see it’s suckered everywhere now, I’ve circled just some of the suckers in blue. This is why the species is considered a pest here, but it shows the enormous potential to regrow forest in areas that have been badly degraded by tree clearing.