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The forces that started formal forestry education in Australia and New Zealand from 1910 and 1924 respectively are traced. The controversies and difficulties experienced by the forestry schools that were started are examined and the links between the two countries in forestry education are noted. Forestry education arose amidst inter-state jealousies, class divisions and personal animosities. It emerged in the 1960s as a truly university education that melded some of the ethos of imperial forestry with other philosophies in ways that could be applied in Dominion realities.

(2000). More to grief than granite: Arboreal remembrance in Australia. Journal of Australian Studies: Vol. 24, The Beautiful and the Damned, pp. 187-195.

Those great trees growing beside the Murray, shading camps in the Todd, and gracing Adelaide's parks are the river red gums of this book; so too were the stumps, door sills and wooden steps of coun...

The concept of 'old-growth' has gained public recognition and political force in Australia where government agencies are engaged in mapping its distribution. Its curious definition has stimulated an examination of how forest age has come to be constructed over the period since the white invasion in 1788. The paper examines age as a parameter in colonial and recent science. It then recounts attempts to impose an ordered progression of age classes on the forests of Victoria and Queensland according to the classical principles of forestry transmuted through an imperial model. Forest age is discussed first during the boom period of the 1950s and 1960s, and then as an indicator during the environmental era of the 1970s to the present. Old-growth became an icon of environmental campaigns which had to be defined before it could be delineated. The final part of the paper reports the varying perceptions and values held in Australia about forest age.

The article provides an overview of the regional assessment and agreement process which is being conducted by the Commonwealth (i.e. federal) and State governments in the major forest regions of Australia. The context of the dominant position of the State in Australian forest management and its consequences are introduced. The acrimonious environmental conflicts over the use of the forests and the difficulties of resolving them led to a national forest policy in 1992 and joint Commonwealth-State regional planning. The processes of regional assessment are described and the difficulties of their hurried execution noted. The inter-governmental agreements which resulted reflect a remarkable transfer of Commonwealth environmental interests to the States and the apparent disabling of its environmental legislation for the forest sector in the regions concerned. They also reflect an apparent intention to maintain and improve the standard of environmental management.

Stephen Dovers (ed.): Australian Environmental History: Essays and Cases . Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1994. Tim Flannery: The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of Australasian Lands and People . Chatswood, NSW: Reed Books, 1994. Distributed in the USA by George Braziller Inc., New York. Stephen J. Pyne: Burning Bush: A Fire History of Australia , New York: Henry Holt, 1991.

Summary The transition in forest management from timber dominance to all the uses and values of the forest requires forest planning processes to be advanced. The context of forest management planning in Victoria is described. The Otway Forest Management Planning Project is described and reflections are made about generic criteria of relevance, guidance, coherence, durability, reality, credibility, acceptance and efficiency. The processes of advanced, modern forest planning are seen as epitomising those required for attaining ecologically sustainable development in other sectors.

Environmental events in Australian forests are considered in this article as falling into orders of prominence. Major events which attract national attention, mark the development of public policy, and are discussed in the professional and academic literature are termed “first order” events. Those which occur at a local scale, attract only local attention, are usually concerned with implementing rather than making policy, and are not discussed in the literature are termed “second order” events. They can have significant effects on people's lives and livelihoods. This article describes second order events which occurred in the forests of northern New South Wales during the period from 1985 to 1993. It reports their types, diversity and dispersion. It is concluded that greater attention needs to be paid to second order events and individual experience if environmental contests are to be better understood.

Summary Consideration of the prospects for Australian plantations in 2002 follows national conferences on the topic, held in 1989 and 1974. Four parameters of change shape the prospects in 2002 in ways that differ from the earlier considerations. Globalisation has reduced the Australian content of the forest products industries. A new forest economy has been mooted based on tradeable permits for carbon emissions and credits for providing ecosystem services. The advance of neo-liberalism in public policy has led to the privatisation or corporatisation of state plantations and a wider range of types of plantation enterprise. The purposes of plantations are now more elaborate and public policies less direct or certain of their outcome.

Data from the 1986 Census of Population and Housing were used to describe changes in the logging workforce and to compare logging with other sectors of the economy. Measures to provide a statistica...

Summary The substantial changes to the Australian forest sector that have occurred over the last ten years have led to changes in the size, composition and productivity of the forestry work force. The size and characteristics of the forestry and logging work forces were described in an earlier paper which drew on data up to 1981, and estimates of changes in labour productivity were reported in a working paper which drew on data up to 1985. This paper revises these earlier studies for forestry with the most recent data available and makes comparisons between forestry and other sectors of the Australian economy.

Charles Lane Poole (1875-1970) was engaged from 1922 to 1924 to locate forest resources that could be exploited for a timber export trade from the Territories of Papua and New Guinea. He took his brief beyond this in order to establish a scientific base for forestry, explore country beyond the limits of white contact, and contribute to the mapping of the Territories. He did not find a timber resource for export, but he classified the forests, assessed likely areas and collected some 800 herbarium specimens. This paper examines his surveys in light of these dimensions, the context of time and place, and Lane Poole's beliefs and energy.

Changing Pacific Forests examines the forest-related economy of the Pacific Basin--including Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, China, and the Philippines--from a historical perspective.Drawing on a 1991 conference sponsored by the Forest History Society and the International Union of Forestry Research Organizations held in Honolulu, these papers address a range of topics related to the changing Pacific forests, including the remnants of colonialism, the emergence of the Third World, people and resources caught in the middle of policy decisions, land management, national forests, and subsistence use of the forest by indigenous peoples. Essays also explore macroeconomic theories of international trade and the interests of the United States and the former Soviet Union in the economic health of the region. Changing Pacific Forests will be of interest to scholars of the economy and environment of the Pacific Basin as well as of land management and the history of land use in general.Contributors. Charles S. Backman, Thomas R. Cox, John Dargavel, Elizabeth Flint, Lim Hin Fui, G. R. Henning, Kenneth E. Jackson, Hiroaki Kakizawa, Nicholas K. Menzies, Andrew Price, John F. Richards, Jr., M. M. Roche, I. Gustin M. Tantra, Conrad Totman, Richard P. Tucker, Thomas R. Waggener

Summary Employment in forestry and the wood industries has declined in spite of forecasts made in the early 1970's that it would rise substantially. Moreover, other aspects of the sector have declined either absolutely or relatively within the Australian economy. The trends of employment and production for forestry, logging, sawmilling and paper-making are compared and it is shown that the relationship between employment and production is more complex than envisaged previously. An agenda for further research and debate, needed to chart new policies for the declining sector in hard times, is proposed.

Summary In 1987 the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) revised its policy on forests, and it and the Forestry and Forest Products Industries Council (FAFPIC) made submissions to the Australian government concerning the forest industries. Both have proposed increasing the area of Australia's plantation estate, but for different reasons. These policies and proposals are compared with the policies of the Institute of Foresters of Australia and found to be similar in many respects. Although the ACF submission contained many matters with which Institute members would disagree, it did demonstrate substantial weaknesses in the economic and social basis on which Australian forest policies have been developed. Both submissions rested on many unproven assertions and lacked the factual and scientific base that it would be reasonable to expect in proposals put to government.

Summary Although the biological and technical opportunities for growing plantations in Tasmania are excellent, their economic returns are poor. Few private owners have invested in plantations, but the State has established extensive areas. The State's forests and plantations are run at a loss as part of a long-standing policy of encouraging large industries with concessions and subsidised services. This policy has led to substantial employment and the return of some economic benefits. However Tasmania has little control over subsequent private investment decisions and the overall economic effects are regressive, benefitting most those with most.