Most Australians see their world through eucalypts. From towering forests to straggly woodlands, in city parks, by the coast and in the bush, these are the trees that inhabit our familiar landscapes and national psyche. Yet the resilience of our eucalypt ecosystems is being tested by logging and land clearing, disease and drought, fire and climate change. In many places they are a faded remnant of those known by past generations. How important is the memory of these trees? What we remember of them, and what they remember of how to survive in a changing landscape?
As part of the WA Tree Festival, join Viki Cramer on a journey through the jarrah, marri and karri forests of the hinterland to the wandoo, salmon gum and gimlet woodlands of the wheatbelt and beyond. Despite the decisions of the past and the ambivalent policy of the present, Viki finds glimpses of hope for the future of our glorious eucalypts and the many ways that, together, we can ensure their future.
About the author:
Viki Cramer is a writer and author whose work seeks to understand how both the human and more-than-human world can flourish in the landscapes we share. She is a PhD-trained ecologist who has lived and worked in the mulga lands, brigalow belt, eucalypt woodlands and subtropical forests of Queensland, the monsoon vine forests of the Northern Territory and, for the past two decades, the south-west of Western Australia – home to some of the most extraordinary and diverse plant life on the planet. In 2021 Viki was awarded a Dahl Fellowship from Eucalypt Australia. The Memory of Trees: The future of eucalypts and our home among them is her first book.
