In what was once a royal forest, 250 kilometres southwest of Paris, grows a tract of centuries-old trees. …they’ll soon become the new roof and spire elements of the parts of the Notre Dame cathedral… In the late 1660s in La Fôret de Bercé’s already-ancient woodland, Jean-Baptiste Colbert — Louis XIV’s quasi-right-hand man — instituted a forest management system that encouraged young oaks to grow taller than they might otherwise. As head of the French navy, Colbert practised an early and prescient form of supply management, looking ahead decades to the time when the trees’ core strength would be optimal for use in the ships… At Bercé, he put together a silviculture program that sowed three beech trees for every oak. This would encourage each oak to reach above its neighbour for sunlight, conserving energy to do so by denying itself the growth of branches until it reached above the beech canopy. The result was a select grade of wood, without knots or internal flaws

One by one, but all at once, the snow gums are dying.  Trees that have endured snow, wind and ice for decades, and sometimes centuries, are falling apart in just a few short years.  The snow gums are being eaten alive, from top to bottom, until there is nothing left but their skeletal remains.   It went undetected at first, as stands of bare snow gums are a common enough sight in the high country.  After a bushfire, they only regenerate from their base, so it takes a long time for the tree canopy to return.  But the alarm was raised when snow gums that had not burnt in recent memory, near the Perisher ski resort in the New South Wales Alps, began dying at a rapid rate.  …The culprit? A native wood borer (Phoracantha sp) known as a longicorn beetle.

A senior New South Wales government minister last year warned rules intended to protect koalas in the state would be “ineffective” if rural areas were excluded as it would mean about 80% of land was exempt.  The advice was given in a letter sent in August last year by the planning minister, Rob Stokes, to the deputy premier, John Barilaro.  On Monday, the NSW Liberal and National parties announced they had agreed to new rules for koala protections after a dispute over koala policy last year threatened to split the Coalition.  Under the changes, rural land zoned for primary production or private forestry will be carved out from a new koala state environmental planning policy (Sepp) that will come into force this year.  The government said the new Sepp would apply to land on which more than 95% of development applications were made.

WARSAW – Poland will resume some logging in the ancient Bialowieza forest this year, according to documents signed on Tuesday by a government minister, in a move one environmental group called a “spit in the face”.  Increased logging in the forest, a UNESCO World Heritage site that straddles the border with Belarus, proved a major flashpoint between Poland and the European Union in 2016-2018.  Poland halted large-scale logging after the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled in April 2018 that it had broken environmental laws but authorities have been working on new forest management quotas to increase tree felling by 2021. …The Commission has warned Poland previously of financial penalties if it does not comply with the ECJ ruling. It says Poland has yet to repeal the annexe to its 2012-21 forest management plan that allows for the amount of logging to triple.