A landmark study of the towering ash trees that grow in the mountains of Victoria, Australia, which was launched in the 1980s, boosted arguments for clearcutting the iconic trees. To settle the argument between conservationists and foresters, scientists launched a landmark experiment in Victoria’s Central Highlands in 1987. In the smaller clearcuts and thinned plots, the study found, shorter acacia trees dominated. Monitoring showed that, with few competitors, the biggest trees in the thinned plots were 20 percent larger in diameter than trees in areas that had never been harvested. “Our findings show this for mountain ash, and other studies in North America have shown this for conifer forests,” they said, writing in The Conversation.