Tree Conservation-Why Our Old Giants Matter
- Tammy Johnson
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 11 minutes ago
Written and edited by Tammy 14th May 2026
I grew up in the era of fluro bobby socks, bubble gum jeans, and cassette recorders with the little flap-up lid and five chunky buttons across the front.
We thought we were pretty cool when it was finally our turn on the phone, twiddling the cord around our fingers for hours… and even cooler if Mum let us stay up past midnight watching our favourite songs on Rage when a friend slept over.
But some of the best memories were never inside at all. They were the ones where we built cubbies and hide outs in the beautiful big old trees that lined the creek on the back track to Clayton Farm.
I don’t even know if that dusty old summer track still exists anymore… but I truly hope the trees do.
We’d catch tadpoles in old jam jars and try for yabbies using a bit of string and leftover meat. It was like our own little secret world where our imaginations could run wild. We'd spend entire afternoons down there dreaming about what we’d become one someday.
Back then, we never gave another thought that those trees were doing far more than simply “being there.”
They were quietly holding entire little worlds together.
And perhaps that’s something many of us forget as we grow older.
Trees are not just scenery.
They are life itself.
Big old trees cool our streets in summer. They soften harsh winds. They hold our fragile soils together during storms and heavy rain. They clean the air we breathe and provide shade on those blistering forty five-degree afternoons when the garden, and we ourselves are struggling.
But beyond helping us… trees are also home.
Entire ecosystems live within them.
A single mature tree can shelter birds, insects, lizards, possums, bats, fungi, mosses, and soil life all at once. Some creatures rely so heavily on old hollowing trees that without them, they simply cannot survive.
And while Australian native trees are incredibly important for our local wildlife… the truth is all trees matter.
Native or not.
Our beautiful south Australian Red-tailed Black Cockatoos rely hugely on old Drooping Sheoaks (Allocasuarina verticillata) as an important food source. They use their powerful beaks to carefully crack open the woody cones to reach the tiny seeds hidden inside. To many, a sheoak may simply look like just another tree dotted along the red dusty roadsides… but to a hungry cockatoo, it’s a pantry, shelter, and survival.
Wildlife doesn't read plant labels the way we do.
It simply searches for food, shelter, safety, and survival.
And increasingly… those safe places are disappearing.
When a beautiful big old tree comes down, people see the mess, the leaves and dropped bark, and the clean-up headache. Maybe they see the firewood potential.
But what many don’t take a moment to see is the decades, sometimes centuries, it took for that tree to become what it was.
A sapling planted by somebody long gone.
A home built slowly over generations.
Shade that protected children playing beneath it. Branches that carried swings, cubbies, bird nests, and memories.
You cannot replace a hundred-year-old tree overnight.
Even if we plant ten more tomorrow, (and we absolutely should) there is still something deeply special about protecting the mature trees we already have where we safely can.
Because once they’re gone… we quickly come realise just how much they selflessly gave us.
And perhaps this is where hope still lives.
Not in guilt. Not in anger. But in awareness.
We can all play a small role in protecting the future.
Maybe it’s planting a tree with the kids one weekend. Maybe it’s choosing to retain an old gum tree on a property where possible. Maybe it’s leaving hollows, logs, and leaf litter for wildlife instead of tidying every corner of the garden spotlessly.
Maybe it’s simply teaching the next generation to notice.
To look up when cockatoos fly overhead.
To stop and listen when kookaburras laugh at dusk.
To understand that a tree is never just a tree.
Because trees connect us.
To childhood. To wildlife. To seasons. To each other.
And perhaps most importantly… they connect us to the simple reminder that even when the world feels noisy and uncertain, nature still quietly carries on around us.
Still growing. Still sheltering. Still giving.
And maybe that’s why protecting trees matters so much.
Not only for the planet we leave behind…
…but for the kind of world we choose to live in right now... and pass on to tomorrow💚
Happy Gardening
Tammy😘🌳
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