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Phil, the term 'old growth forests' when applied to most Australian woodland is a misnomer. With few exceptions - parts of western Tasmania could well qualify - we simply don't have 'old growth forests'. Most species of the genus Eucalyptus have relatively short life spans (i.e. grow quickly and die). This results in what I would term a 'continuously renewing forest'.
There is a significant difference between the two. For example: It's not that many years since the whole escarpment between Emu Plains and Glenbrook was virtually denuded when the railway line was laid. To walk there today (and I have done so on many an occasion) you would hardly know. The only clues are some unused railway cuttings, the main road and the current railway road.
Is it different now to when it hadn't been raped and pillaged? I cannot answer that, but I can say that we still have the kangaroos, wallabies, snakes and other fauna and flora that I imagine were there prior to the 'nefarious' deed imposed upon the area by our greedy, industrialist and expansionist forefathers.
You speak not of some form of wholesale clearing of the land (or do you?) just a selective process of, for want of a better word, culling. Surely Mother Nature would do that in due course anyway? Certainly there would be less timber left to rot and form humus but, given my above example, does it matter all that much?
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