The Central Highlands is a region of Victoria. This term is mainly used in a geological context to describe the part of the Great Dividing Range in Victoria that is outside of the Alpine areas. The area is situated east of Ballarat, south of Bendigo, north and east of Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

, west of the Alpine areas and includes the Great Dividing Range

Great Dividing Range

The Great Dividing Range, or the Eastern Highlands, is Australia's most substantial mountain range and the third longest in the world. The range stretches more than 3,500 km from Dauan Island off the northeastern tip of Queensland, running the entire length of the eastern coastline through...

. Major towns of the highlands include Castlemaine

Castlemaine, Victoria

Castlemaine is a city in Victoria, Australia, in the Goldfields region of Victoria about 120 kilometres northwest by road from Melbourne, and about 40 kilometres from the major provincial centre of Bendigo. It is the administrative and economic centre of the Shire of Mount Alexander. The...

, Creswick

Creswick, Victoria

Creswick is a town in west-central Victoria, Australia. It is located 18 kilometres north of Ballarat and 129 km northwest of Melbourne, in Shire of Hepburn. It is 430 metres above sea level. At the 2006 census, Creswick had a population of 2,485...

, Daylesford

Daylesford, Victoria

Daylesford is a town located in the Shire of Hepburn, Victoria, Australia. It is a former goldmining town about 115 kilometres north-west of Melbourne, in the foothills of the Great Dividing Range. At the 2006 census, Daylesford had a population of 3,073...

, Gisborne

Gisborne, Victoria

Gisborne is a town located approximately northwest of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. As it is close to Melbourne, but in attractive countryside, it is proving an increasingly popular place to settle. The town was named after Henry Fyshe Gisborne , the first Commissioner for Crown Lands of the...

, Kyneton and Woodend

Woodend, Victoria

Woodend is a small town in Victoria, Australia. The town is in the Shire of Macedon Ranges Local government area. It is bypassed to the east and north by the Calder Freeway and is located about halfway between Melbourne and Bendigo...

. All these towns are located in the western part of the Central Highlands usually referred to as the West Central Highlands. The eastern part of the Central Highlands referred to as the East Central Highlands also contains areas of rainforest.

Rainforests

The East Victorian Central Highlands contain cool temperate rainforests; dominated by Myrtle Beech

Myrtle Beech

Nothofagus cunninghamii, the Myrtle Beech, is an evergreen tree native to Victoria and Tasmania, Australia. It grows mainly in the temperate rainforests. It is not related to the Myrtle family....

 and Southern Sassafras, with an understorey of ferns and mosses. They may also contain eucalypt

Eucalypt

Eucalypts are woody plants belonging to three closely related genera:Eucalyptus, Corymbia and Angophora.In 1995 new evidence, largely genetic, indicated that some prominent Eucalyptus species were actually more closely related to Angophora than to the other eucalypts; they were split off into the...

 trees and Blackwood.

Logging and environmental impact

The Central Highlands Regional Forest Agreement protects approximately 43.84% of rainforest stands in the Central Highlands of Victoria within dedicated reserves. Any rainforest that is not within these dedicated reserve is susceptible to the impacts of clearfell logging

Logging

Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...

.
A paper published in the US-based Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, usually referred to as PNAS, is the official journal of the United States National Academy of Sciences...

reports that the world’s most carbon dense forest is found in the Central Highlands of Victoria.

See also

• Bogong High Plains
  Bogong High Plains
  The Bogong High Plains are a section of the Alpine National Park in the Australian state of Victoria and are situated south of Mount Bogong. This area forms part of Australia's Great Dividing Range and in winter is one of the largest snow covered areas in the country. It can be easily accessed from...
  
  
• High Plains
  High Plains (Australia)
  The High Plains of South-Eastern Australia are a region, or more strictly a string of adjacent areas, in and adjacent to the Great Dividing Range. They were long used for summer grazing, in some cases since the 1830s. Much of the region is now National Park....
  
  of South-Eastern Australia.

External links

• http://www.chsa.org.au/
• Central Highlands at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry