Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows environmentalist Bill Mollison explaining why he believes it is important to conserve Australia’s forests. Mollison, a former timber industry worker and now a leading advocate of permaculture, argues that forests create soil, purify the air and play a vital role in the water cycle and the prevention of drought. The clip cuts between shots of an old growth forest and close-ups of Mollison.

Educational value points

• The clip depicts an old growth rainforest, a mature forest ecosystem largely unaffected by unnatural disturbances such as logging or clearing. Since European settlement in 1788, approximately 50 per cent of Australia’s rainforests have been cleared and the proportion of Australia covered by woodlands or forest has been reduced by more than one-third. Clearing land for agricultural purposes is one of the factors in the loss of, or threat to, fauna and flora dependent on the original habitat.

• Mollison associates forests with air quality. Each tree absorbs carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) from the atmosphere and uses it to make sugar, starch and complex molecules such as cellulose and lignin. Forest clearing releases absorbed carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere, and worldwide conversion of forests to agriculture may account for approximately 10 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions.

• Forests play an important role in the water cycle, adding water vapour to the atmosphere through a process called transpiration (in which trees release water from their leaves). Transpiration helps rain clouds to form, and when large areas of rainforest are removed the water cycle and local climate can be affected. Mollison asserts that, because forest trees consist of 98 per cent water, a forest may be compared to a lake that acts as a buffer against drought. He argues that drought is sometimes caused by deforestation as a result of the reduced transpiration due to fewer trees, leading to a decrease of moisture in the atmosphere and so to a decline in rainfall.

• The clip links the destruction of forests with desertification. Trees, particularly in old growth forests, retain water in the soil and act as a buffer between soil and rain and therefore prevent erosion. Without moisture, soil exposed to the sun will dry and may turn into desert sand. Prior to this, dry topsoil may be blown away by dust storms, leaving an eroded landscape. Reduced rainfall caused by deforestation may also contribute to desertification.

• In the 1970s, Bill Mollison was involved in developing permaculture, a system designed to create sustainable habitats by following nature’s patterns. It can be applied to food production, land-use and community building, and it integrates ecology, landscape, organic gardening, architecture and agroforestry. Mollison says that the impetus for his environmental work 'has been the desire to leave our children gardens, not deserts’.

• About 82,500 people work in the Australian forest, logging and forest products industries. These industries are major regional employers, with some rural communities dependent on logging and sawmills for their continued survival. The clip mentions that forest conservation may cost jobs in the timber industry; however, recent job losses in the industry have been the result of industry rationalisation, automation and restructuring.

• Loggerheads, made in 1990, is an example of the work of documentary filmmaker David Bradbury. A former ABC journalist, Bradbury’s first documentary was Frontline in 1979. Since then he has made numerous films that focus on political and social oppression and the environment. Loggerheads traces the battle by environmentalists to save old growth forests in northern New South Wales. The subject was intensely personal for Bradbury, a resident of Byron Bay, who decided to make the film after waking up one morning to the sound of chainsaws in the forest bordering his property.

This clip starts approximately 13 minutes into the documentary.

Bill Mollison walks through the forest undergrowth.
Narrator Are we being too romantic about the forest? After all, people have to work to feed their families. Bill Mollison used to be a logger. Now he’s a worldwide consultant on permaculture and a passionate defender of the forest in their pristine state.
Bill Mollison It’s creating soil and that’s invaluable and it’s um, it’s purifying air. It’s main use really is its incredible ability to buffer drought and flood. It really orders the whole water cycle. You know, the rivers really are only the veins of the body, which is the forest and the forest is a giant stable lake you know, there’s only two percent ash in those things. 98 percent of that tree and its roots is water. So we’ve got this great lake running up and over cliffs and hills which we’re calling a forest. You start taking that away and you’ll find yourself living in a desert in no time flat.