Wiseleigh’s Ian Cane is the kind of man who can identify tree species even as he’s driving along the highway at 100 kilometres an hour.
The third-generation beekeeper and successful honey businessman has spent decades in the bush and knows what type of trees bees have fed on by the taste of the honey.
But the management of East Gippsland’s and Victoria’s state forests is a point of never-ending frustration for him.
“During my lifetime, the change in forest structure and ultimately the ecosystem functionality is by far the most obvious to me,” Mr Cane said.
“It is quite incredible the significant change that has taken place to areas of our public land forests.
“In the past, our forests were open. ‘Park like’ was the term many early explorers used, my grandfather often used this term and I recall forests where this description was appropriate -large trees with a large canopy, and openly spaced.”
IMAGE: A previously harvested area that has been burnt by wildfire.
