Tasmania's Unique Environment

Over 65% of flowering plant species in agriculture and the world’s natural ecosystems rely on bees for pollination. At this time in history, the world’s bee populations are in danger of dying out, threatening the precarious balance of life on our planet. The same factors threatening bees are challenges to mankind as well - global warming, drought, environmental pollution, the impact of intense agricultural practices, access to healthy and diverse foods, bacterial diseases resistant to antibiotics, habitat destruction and more.

Tasmania - Australia’s island jewel - remains one of the cleanest and greenest places in the world.

Some of the highest environmental and bio-security standards, as well as the moratorium on the use of genetically modified organisms, are aimed at protecting this pristine environment, leaving it relatively free from pests and diseases. Almost 1/5 of the island is preserved in parks and reserves, and the low population (sitting just at 500,000), gives the state a high chance of maintaining its unique wilderness.

Tasmanian Rainforest (photos ©Rebecca Campbell)

Varroa Free Status

For the time being, Tasmania remains one of the last places on Earth free from the parasitic mite Varroa destructor — a pest widely regarded as the single greatest threat to honeybees globally. In regions where Varroa is established, it weakens colonies by feeding on bees and spreading viruses, often leading to hive collapse and dramatically increasing the need for chemical intervention.

Tasmania’s Varroa-free status allows bees to live and forage without routine miticide treatments, supporting stronger, more resilient colonies and enabling truly low-intervention beekeeping. This is especially critical in sensitive ecosystems such as leatherwood rainforests, where chemical inputs would compromise both bee health and environmental integrity.

The importance of this status extends far beyond the island. Tasmania now acts as a genetic and ecological refuge for healthy honeybees, offering invaluable insights into natural bee resilience and providing clean breeding stock for the future. Protecting Tasmania’s Varroa-free environment is not just vital for local beekeepers — it is of global significance for the long-term survival of honeybees and the ecosystems they support.

 The honeybees on this island have a very strong chance of surviving the pressures placed on the world’s bees.

Tasmania’s bees spend the majority of their time in the rugged west coast rainforests, part of only three remaining temperate wilderness areas in the southern hemisphere, where the cleanest winds cross the southern oceans and mankind’s footprint is minimal. It is in these UNESCO listed World Heritage forests where some of the longest-lived trees (Huon pines - Lagarostrobos franklinii) and tallest flowering plants (Mountain Ash - Eucalyptus regnans) in the world can be found.

Here too is where the tree that maintains almost the entire honey industry (80%) in Tasmania lives - Leatherwood (Eucryphia lucida). These ancient trees grew when Tasmania was part of Gondwanaland, over 65 million years ago, and are endemic to the island. They are an old-growth tree (up to 350-year life span), and usually produce an abundance of nectar-rich flowers.

Leatherwood honey has a unique and distinctive full-bodied spicy flavour and scent and is part of the Ark of Taste within the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity, which describes the honey as "slightly liquid with uniform crystallisation and a smooth creamy texture, and an ochre-yellow colour. The perfume is intense with notes of balsamic scents, which develops quickly into clean fresh notes of citrus fruits and white flowers. The flavour is clean and fresh, very balsamic, with lightly spicy notes in its long finish."

More shots of the Tasmanian Rainforest (photos ©Rebecca Campbell)

 We here at Honey Tasmania believe Tasmania’s unique trees need to be acknowledged, supported and discussed.

Protecting Tasmania’s ancient rainforests is fundamental to the state’s long-term wellbeing. These forests underpin Tasmania’s premium food industries, including leatherwood honey, contribute strongly to nature-based tourism, and support clean water, stable soils, and climate regulation. Just as importantly, they sustain wildlife found nowhere else on Earth and provide profound physical, cultural and psychological benefits to the people who live among them. When these ecosystems are healthy, they quietly support everything from regional livelihoods to global biodiversity and planetary resilience.

Forestry and logging have long played a role in Tasmania’s economy and cultural identity, providing employment and materials that many communities rely upon.

However, industrial-scale logging in native forests — particularly in slow-growing rainforest systems — poses significant risks. Once fragmented or cleared, these ecosystems can take centuries to recover, if they recover at all.

For leatherwood forests, loss of mature trees directly impacts flowering cycles, bee forage, and the delicate ecological balance that allows unique products like leatherwood honey to exist.

In recognition of these tensions, a historic Tasmanian Forest Agreement was negotiated between forestry interests and conservation groups, proposing the protection of around half a million hectares of native forest. The agreement aimed to strike a balance between conservation, industry certainty, and community outcomes. Yet it has remained deeply contested — criticised by some for not going far enough to safeguard irreplaceable ecosystems, and by others for limiting forestry activity and regional employment.

Today, the future of Tasmania’s rainforests remains an open question. What is clear, however, is that once these ancient systems are lost, they cannot simply be replaced. Protecting leatherwood forests is not an anti-industry position — it is an investment in enduring natural capital, ecological stability, and the long-term prosperity and health of Tasmania, its people, and the wider planet.

If you are interested in finding out more about leatherwood trees, there is a dedicated group of beekeepers who have established a not-for-profit association dedicated to saving Leatherwood Tasmania - be sure to check it out!