Maroc - TIMBERBIZ.COM.AU - A La Une - 12/Dec 23:11

Five years on Kirup Eco Thinning Demo site opens

After five years of hard work and research, the Kirup Ecological Thinning Demonstration Site south of Bunbury in Western Australia was officially opened. Source: Timberbiz Ecological thinning removes smaller diameter trees from a forest to reduce competition, allowing others to thrive and improving the overall forest health and resilience. The project began in 2019 as a forest health project to demonstrate how ecological thinning could help forests in a drying climate, with work beginning at the Kirup site in 2021. While the project has maintained its original focus on forest health, South West Timber Hub Project Manager Wendy Perdon said it had evolved to become more significant. “When the State Government announced that native forestry would end in 2021, we realised that this project had the potential to take on an education element as there was an increased interest in ecological thinning,” Mrs Perdon said. “This project was unique from the start, and we are proud to see it reach the stage of being officially open and playing an important role in helping people understand how different techniques of ecological thinning impact forest health.” The site features five areas within the forest, one with no treatment and four treated with different techniques of ecological thinning. Visitors to the site will be guided to each treatment with signage, which explains which technique was used and the Noongar forest health assessment of that technique. “This was far from your average research project,” Mrs Perdon said. “Our original working group included former South West Greens member Chrissy Sharp (dec.) as our passionate spokesperson and a diverse community reference panel made up of scientists, environmentalists, community members and forestry industry representatives. “We then engaged Traditional Owners to assess the forest health of the site, so we could incorporate their knowledge and vital insights into the project. “Research at the Kirup site will continue, making this project significant not only now, but for many years to come.”