Team Saves 100,000 Ancient Grass Trees in Western Australia

In Western Australia's Margaret River region, Mike Johnson races bulldozers to save some of the planet's oldest living plants before they're cleared and burned.

For more than two decades, his organization Margaret River Trees has rescued and relocated over 100,000 native grass trees, known as "Balga" in the local Noongar language. These ancient survivors grow at a glacial pace of just 1.5 centimeters per year and can live for centuries.

"We rescue and re-home the oldest and most spectacular trees on the planet," Johnson said. The oldest tree his team has saved was 5 meters tall and wide, representing hundreds of years of growth.

The rescue process is intense and carefully choreographed. Teams deliberately burn the trees first to stimulate regeneration, then use excavators and bobcats to carefully extract the root systems. Each tree is wrapped in special plastic bags with custom soil blends and transported to holding yards for 12 months of rehabilitation before being sold for landscaping projects.

Curtin University emeritus professor Byron Lamont has studied these remarkable plants since the 1970s. His research found the tallest grass tree ever measured stood 6.5 meters tall and was over 400 years old.

The rescue work carries deep cultural importance for the region's Noongar people, who have used grass trees for food, medicine, seasonal indicators, and tool production for thousands of years. Wadandi-Pibulmun cultural custodian Zac Webb emphasizes their irreplaceable value to indigenous heritage.

The Ripple Effect

Johnson estimates his team saves fewer than 1 percent of threatened grass trees from development sites. Each rescue preserves not just an ancient living organism but centuries of ecological history and cultural significance.

The rescued trees find new lives in urban landscaping projects throughout the region. While Webb worries future generations might only see these iconic species in designer gardens rather than wild landscapes, the rescue effort ensures these living monuments survive somewhere rather than being lost forever.

Property booms threaten countless more trees, but Johnson and his team keep racing the bulldozers. Every tree saved is a small victory against the clock, measured not in years but in the patient centuries these remarkable plants have already survived.

These ancient survivors now have a fighting chance to live another 400 years.