Giant Blue Gum Naming

Rullah Longatyle, Southern Forest

Thursday, 9 July 2009

Thank you Bob.

It gives me great pleasure to be here today at Rullah Longatyle (ruler/longer-tile) representing the Minister for Forestry, David Llewellyn, to mark the very special occasion of the official naming of these giant blue gums.

As Ronny has mentioned, these trees are protected forever under Forestry Tasmania’s Giant Trees Policy, which ensures that all trees 85 metres or more in height or 280 cubic metres or more in volume are protected.

As we all know, Tasmania is home to some of the largest trees in the world. This policy recognises the importance of these trees in a global context, and ensures that they will never be harvested for timber.

I encourage everyone here today to take a look at the giant trees register, which is available on the internet at gianttrees.com.au. There you will see the extent of the giant trees that are currently protected under this policy. This list is also continually growing, as new technology such as LiDAR is accurately locating more and more giant trees.

Of course, we are here today to mark the naming of four very special giant trees by the Aboriginal students of St James College. The names they recommended have been approved by Tasmania’s giant trees committee, and are now recorded for posterity on the giant trees register.

The names of the trees are:

• Muggrah Nire-Lowa (mug-ra neera lower) – Hidden beauty
• Rotulih Lotte (rotor lee–lotty) - Tall tree
• Neeminah Loggorale Meena (knee-meaner/log-or-ali/meaner) Mother and daughter
• Rullah Longatyle (ruler/longer-tile) – Strong girl.

It is my very pleasant duty today to present commemorative certificates to the students who devised such evocative names for these trees and certificates to the representatives of SETAC and St James Catholic College who worked on the project.

Congratulations to all of you for your creative work.

Thank you.