Landcare Agony Aunt: some seasonal advice for your Landcaring questions
A Case of the Dog-Haired Blues
Dear Agony Aunt,
I recently fulfilled a lifelong dream and bought a rural property up the Valley. About five acres is a thicket of young wattles and eucalypts so dense I can barely walk through it. I’ve noticed that there’s absolutely nothing growing underneath—no orchids, no lilies, just bare dirt and a few spindly saplings. I want a ‘healthy’ forest, but my neighbour says I should get a chainsaw and ‘thin it out.’ I’m terrified of hurting the land. Am I supposed to just leave it, or is cutting down trees actually the ‘green’ thing to do?”
Yours, Harried in the Hunter
Dear Reader,
It sounds like you’ve inherited a “dog-hair stand.” Many properties are covered in this dense regrowth due to past clearing or mining. These trees are so crowded that they’ve stopped growing—a state called “stagnation”—and they’re blocking every drop of sunlight from reaching the ground, which is why your understorey is non-existent.
But before you start taking trees out, there are a number of things to consider and you need to get professional advice and check with the appropriate authorities. In New South Wales, ecological thinning on private rural land is generally governed by the Local Land Services Act 2013 and the Land Management Framework.
I highly recommend watching this Ecological Thinning Workshop Webinar from the Central Victorian Biolinks Alliance where researchers are trialling these techniques at the Biolinks Alliance Spring Plains Pilot Demonstration Site.
There is evidence that in the right circumstances, thinning can provide significant benefits such as:
- Accelerated Habitat Formation: Thinning reduces competition for resources, allowing remaining trees to grow faster. Research by the Arthur Rylah Institute (ARI) shows this significantly speeds up the development of old-growth features like hollows, which are vital for gliders and parrots.
- Understorey Regeneration: By opening the canopy, more light reaches the forest floor, stimulating the germination of dormant wildflowers, grasses, and shrubs. This creates a more varied “patchy” structure that supports a wider range of wildlife.
- Climate & Drought Resilience: Thinned forests are better at withstanding environmental pressures. Reducing the number of stems lowers water stress during droughts and heatwaves, as there is less competition for limited soil moisture.
- Fire Mitigation: When combined with surface fuel management, thinning can reduce the risk of high-intensity crown fires. Larger trees also develop thicker, more fire-resistant bark more quickly than crowded, spindly ones.
- Nutrient Cycling: If thinned timber is left on the ground as “coarse woody debris,” it helps rehydrate soil, build topsoil, and provide essential habitat for reptiles and invertebrates.
- Carbon Sequestration: While initially removing biomass, thinning can enhance long-term carbon storage by promoting the growth of large, carbon-dense trees and reducing stand-level mortality