[chamb0]

I work in a Victorian national park, and large old trees (dead or alive), particularly those with hollows, are absolutely worth their weight in gold when it comes to wildlife habitat. Only old trees produce hollows and they provide absolutely essential refuge for various birds, mammals and reptiles that no amount of younger trees can. As for being a dumb place, well roadside reserves are surprisingly ecologically valuable places, especially in cleared rural areas, as they are long corridors often with a good array of native grasses and shrubs that these can tie in with. After spending $1million on removing trees for road safety, in my opinion this relatively small $20k project is doing the best with what they've got and putting the discarded material to use.

After our area here was fire-affected in the feb 2009 fires, a lot of road side clearing & trimming of trees occurred, and some of the material went on to be successfully put to good use as refuge material for the threatened white footed dunnart (a small carnivorous marsupial). Hope this help makes sense, this is not as dumb an idea as the article would suggest!