THE country's largest tree, killed when a controlled burn went wrong in 2003, has been blown over by strong winds in southern Tasmania.Standing at 79m, the massive Eucalyptus regans - known as El Grande - stood unharmed by man for almost four centuries until the Forestry Tasmania burn-off went out of control.
Environmentalists today said the Florentine Valley tree would still be standing if not for bungling forestry bosses.
"This is the last chapter of a very sad story of mismanagement of our forests by Forestry Tasmania," Wilderness Society Tasmania campaign coordinator Geoff Law said.
"Forestry Tasmania admitted killing the tree with a forestry burn in 2003. They would have cut it down in 2002 except the Wilderness Society blew the whistle on them.
"It shows this organisation cannot be trusted to manage our forests when it can't protect the world's largest, most massive flowering plant.
"It could have been an icon to the planet, but instead it has disappeared through incompetence."
An independent report at the time confirmed the tree died as a result of the burn.
"It was in the middle of a tree harvesting operation when it was burned and that was fairly distressing at the time," Forestry Tasmania Derwent district manager Steve Whiteley said.
But the progeny of El Grande could live on with saplings propagated from its seeds growing in the area.
"We collected seeds at the time because the tree was old and only had a handful of capsules," Mr Whiteley said.
"We carried out propagation in a nursery under the trees own micro climate. If that had fallen over we would have lost the tree's genetic material."
Forestry Tasmania said the saplings would carry the "giant tree" gene and would grow to be forest giants.
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