Another video of a Tasmanian springtail. This was shot on my iPhone (hence the bad quality- sorry) in the car park of the Milkshake Hills State Reserve in NW Tasmania, surrounded by tree ferns, myrtles and eucalypts. A truly stunning place.
In an odious about face, the new Australian government has reversed an agreement between the logging companies and the protesters trying to preserve Tasmania's natural heritage. They now intend to begin logging places similar to the Milkshake Hills and other places in the Tarkine, a World Heritage site in Tasmania. They even tried to reverse their World Heritage status, although so far have failed, thankfully. It's a tragic decision, as diversity takes time to build in any population and many of the smaller invertebrates such as springtails can be very sensitive to change and may not ever recover from the type of logging that often occurs. Tasmania is blessed by some of the best temperate rainforests in the world and the contempt shown by this most recent government for their beautiful country is deeply shaming and worrying.
Forest regrowth is fast but to return back to a rainforest setting requires centuries as eucalypts need to grow and die before the rainforest trees and understory can return.
Another major problem for the small invertebrates that I study is that wherever there is logging, there are exotic species introduced, mainly European, that out-compete the native and endemic species, further removing any chance of return to any sense of biodiversity.
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