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On a patch of paddock in West Gippsland stands a small forest, which wasn’t there before.
Flowering gums and she-oaks reach up nine metres tall, birds nest in their branches, while a giant tiger snake slides through the grass below.
All it took was one day of “bloody hard” work.
About four years ago the Australian film-maker and outdoorsman Beau Miles set out to plant 1,440 trees and shrubs in 24 hours – enough to turn a blanket of rolling Victorian hills back into bush.
Miles decided he was done with the kind of modern-day adventures that burned through money and carbon, delivering little in the way of tangible outcomes except for photos and a great story. Instead, he says, he began looking for physical challenges that offer more “bang-for-buck”.
The project was inspired by a joy flight Miles was given for his 40th birthday.
“I flew directly over my house, where I’ve grown up,” he says. “It was remarkable how green it was but it was a green rolling blanket, rather than a green rolling forest … when you see it from the air it’s so blank.”
Noticing how bare it was, he set himself the goal of planting a tree a minute for 24 hours to turn it into bushland again.
The little forest is on a nearby plot of land owned by his friend, otherwise used for farming.
Working at that rate was “bloody hard”, Miles says. “I thought it would be hard but I didn’t think it would be that hard.
“I got to about a thousand trees and then had a few hours’ sleep – I thought I was stuffed.” A second wind in the last hour allowed him to finish the job.
He says the result four years on is “totally worth it”.
In a video posted last week Miles returns to the land where he planted four years ago. There are trees big enough to climb, a resident wombat, a cockatoo feather.
“It’s a good-looking little bit of forest,” he says in the video. “I planted it. So maybe I’m a bit biased.”
The most rewarding moment, Miles says, was boiling a billy in the forest’s grassy understorey and enjoying a cup of tea.
“I felt it was a really lovely, almost profound moment – like I’d just had another kid – in that I’d made an impact of some kind.”
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Prof David Karoly, an expert in climate change science and councillor with the Climate Council, says while the fossil fuels industry remains the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Australia, every tonne of carbon dioxide avoided or removed from the atmosphere matters.
That means individual and community climate actions – walking or cycling instead of driving, investing your super ethically, installing solar panels, planting a garden or trees, as well as voting – make an important difference.
“Individual actions do accumulate and do reduce Australia’s emissions, even if they’re voluntary,” he says.
Karoly, who was not involved in Miles’ project, says planting and maintaining trees over a long period of time helps to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and brings other benefits, including establishing ecosystem corridors for animals.
“Since colonisation, Australia has lost more than 70% of its native vegetation through agriculture and urbanisation.”
The burgeoning forest in West Gippsland is to double in size in the next six weeks.
Buoyed up by success, Miles says the plan now is to turn “views into trees” – investing ad revenue from YouTube views back into more tree stock, with another round of planting set for October.
Worries about environmental and climate change aren’t going to go away anytime soon, he says.
“We’ve lost half of our forest in 200 years and 38 mammals. It’s kind of devastating, but very abstract …
“This is not about being a greenie. I just see it as necessary. Like having a good breakfast in the morning or being nice to your kids – you just should do it.
“Just get on with doing what’s in front of you, helping your patch and being busy. Because all of a sudden you find yourself in this beautiful feedback loop of reward.”
