By Callum Ludwig
Conservationists have pushed for the proposed Great Forest National Park (GFNP) in the Central Highlands, which would include a large portion of the Yarra Ranges, but it can be hard to imagine just what 525,000 hectares of forest looks like.
One man now has a better idea than most, as ultra-runner Majell Backhausen ran 273km of it in March 2022 for Patagonia’s End to an End: Running to save the Great Forest film series.
Mr Backhausen said it was both an energy-sucking and energizing traverse.
“It’s just such a vast area with so many different little ecosystems within it and the native forest there is stunning as well as the state parks,” he said.
“The grand scale of it is huge and it’s just married exactly with the high conservation value of the area. It was a really beautiful way to see such an incredible place.”
The Great Forest National Park proposal was born in the local community following the Black Saturday fires in 2009, as a way to save what forest remained and protect the biodiversity, including critically endangered species such as Victorian emblems like the Leadbeater’s Possum and Greater Glider.
Mr Backhausen said he could clearly see the difference running through a recently logged couple, a state park or a section of native old-growth forest.
“It’s vastly different, the temperature, the moisture, the air, the ground cover, the noises. The overall health of a section of a protected native park is nothing like a state forest or an unprotected section of land,” he said.
“The wildlife is a obviously lot more abundant in the national park compared to a freshly logged coupe, but also to a regrowth section of forest as well. When you get up to somewhere like the Mt Baw Baw plateau in the Baw Baw National Park, you can tell that it’s very untouched.”
As part of End to an End, a push to introduce more trail runners and hikers to the region for themselves has resulted in a new Strava group showcasing exclusive routes in the proposed GFNP.
Mr Backhausen said he regrets not knowing more about the areas he ran through earlier in life.
I’m 35 now and these beautiful parts of the world have been on more doorstep for all these years, and I haven’t explored them as much as I did as I ran across them,” he said.
“It gave me a lot of appreciation for what we have and there’s a lot of great opportunity now to look into them a little bit deeper, spend a little bit more time out there, not just run straight past them.”
All four episodes of the film series are now available for free to watch on the Patagonia website at www.patagonia.com.au/pages/the-great-forest.
Mr Backhausen said for him the Great Forest National Park is a no-brainer if we do it in the right way to transition to a better future.
“You really start to know what I mean when you go out there and stand amongst those kinds of precious areas in the world. It’s not daunting in any way, shape or form. It’s really safe and it’s really accessible,” he said.
“If we don’t protect the land for those purposes, then we’re not doing right by future generations and we’re not doing right by the current inhabitants that are already critically endangered out there.”
