Research by universities in Australia and the United States,
published in Science, said ecosystems worldwide were in danger
of losing forever their largest and oldest trees unless there
were policy changes to better protect them. "It's a worldwide
problem and appears to be happening in most types of forest,"
said David Lindenmayer from the Australian National University,
the lead author of a study into the problem. "Just as large-
bodied animals such as elephants, tigers, and cetaceans have
declined drastically in many parts of the world, a growing body
of evidence suggests that large old trees could be equally
imperilled." Mr Lindenmayer, along with colleagues from the
James Cook University in Australia and Washington University in
America, undertook their study after examining Swedish forestry
records going back to the 1860s. They found alarming losses of
big trees, ranging from 100 to 300 years old, at all latitudes
in Europe, North America, Africa, Asia, South America, Latin
America and Australia. The tree