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HE ORESTER T F A publication of The Institute of Foresters of Australia

Registered by Print Post, Publication No. PP299436/00103

Volume 54, Number 4 December 2011 ISSN 1444-8920

Southern students explore

northern forests

ACIAR forestry research in

Indonesia

Role of Hugh Corbin in

Australian and New

Zealand forestry

Allowable Cut - not simply

area times yield

A dream for WA native

forest industry in 2023

2 VOLUME 54, NUMBER 4 - DECEMBER 2011 THE FORESTER

The views expressed in this publication and any inserts are not necessarily those of the Editor or the Institute of Foresters of Australia.

National President Dr Peter Volker Board of Directors Stephen Worley, QLD Nick Cameron, NSW Stuart Davey, ACT Mike Ryan, VIC Zoe Ryan, VIC Lew Parsons, SA John Clarke, WA Aidan Flanagan, TAS Braden Jenkin, ACFA Chief Executive Officer Cassandra Spencer Member Services Anne Katalinic

National Office PO Box 7002 YARRALUMLA ACT 2600 Building 6, Wilf Crane Cres Yarralumla ACT 2600 Phone (02) 6281 3992 Fax (02) 6281 4693 Email: [email protected] Web Site www.forestry.org.au

Next date for copy: 1 Feb 2012 (Vol 55, No. 1) Submissions: The Editor IFA PO Box 7002 Yarralumla ACT 2600 Phone (02) 6281 3992 Fax (02) 6281 4693 Email: [email protected]

The Forester is a quarterly newsletter published by the Institute of Foresters of Australia. Advertising and sales enquiries should be directed to: [email protected]

Contents

NATIONAL NEWS

From the President .......................................................... 3

IFA Divisions welcome new reps ................................... 4

SPECIAL FEATURES

Southern students explore

Northern forests .............................................................. 8

Consulting Foresters -

Estimating plantation productivity .................................. 9

A Dream for WA native forest industry .......................... 12-14

An early method of seasoning jarrah .............................. 15-16

Loads, Hoppus and tuns .................................................. 17-18

Henderson Grant recipient update ................................... 18

African Mahogany forum ............................................... 19

INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF FORESTS

ACIAR forestry research in

Indonesia ........................................................................ 6-7

Meet a Forester ............................................................... 10

Max Jacobs Grants

Role of Hugh Corbin in Australian and

New Zealand forestry ..................................................... 20-22

IFA REMEMBERS

Vale - Deirdre Maher ...................................................... 24

Vale - Ron Hateley ......................................................... 24

Vale - John Smith ........................................................... 25

UNIVERSITIES

ANU ............................................................................... 11

Southern Cross University .............................................. 23

University of Melbourne ................................................. 28

REGULAR FEATURES

Welcome to new members .............................................. 5

Summary of Email Bulletins ........................................... 19

Wanted ........................................................................... 22

From IFA Newsletters 1986-89 ...................................... 26-27

Lessons Not Learned at University # 4 ........................... 29

Membership with the IFA ............................................... 30

ADVERTS

Forestry Tools ................................................................. 27

Australian Forestry

Journal

Available on-line at the IFA website:

www.forestry.org.au


From past President Peter Volker

This edition of The Forester marks the end of my term as President of the IFA. It has been an interesting and exciting six years. I am grateful for your support throughout the period. Much has been achieved with the help of many dedicated and professional members, supported by our staff in Canberra. Some of the achievements have been to gain increased influence in government at State and Federal levels. This has involved regular communication through rapid responses to issues, providing submissions and taking the opportunity to meet with Ministers, politicians and advisors at every opportunity. I am proud of the comprehensive list of Policy Statements that have been developed. These provide a solid foundation for submissions and representations on behalf of IFA. They leave no doubt as to our position in regards to a number of important issues affecting forestry in Australia and internationally.

The role of professional organisations such as the IFA is changing in the landscape of increased and instant access to information. Who knows what the IFA will look like and be able to achieve into the future? I believe the support that individuals gain from a professional association is important throughout their careers. A major aspect into the future will be to provide opportunities for continuing professional development. Providing a quality journal such as Australian Forestry is an important part of this. The RPF scheme has been designed to allow members to demonstrate their commitment to CPD and provide clients and employers with some satisfaction that the person is up to date with knowledge required to do the job. It is interesting to note that such schemes are becoming increasingly popular across a number of professional pursuits and many have much higher costs and exacting entrance requirements.

The IFA also provides a vehicle for social interaction among members. For me it is always a great pleasure to be able to

meet colleagues of all ages outside of the constraints of the work environment. Opportunities for free and frank discussions are valuable and it‟s often surprising to find that a colleague might hold quite different views on certain matters than one first thought.

Recently my forestry class from ANU held a 30 year reunion. We have previously been able to get together at 10, 20 and 25 year anniversaries. Many are no longer in forestry, but the opportunity to come together to reminisce about those fun times in our youth is a strong drawcard. We‟ve been able to catch up on family history, successes and dramas in peoples‟ lives. The common thread of a passion for forestry still remains in us all.

As I write this, the federal government is pushing through a change in the renewable energy regulations to exclude native forest produce. This is one of the more bizarre decisions brought about by the undue influence of the Green Party and the ENGOs who have always had an agenda to close the native forest industry in Australia. In Tasmania, this is now being played out to the fullest extent by the State and Federal governments. The outcome in Tasmania will be a harbinger for the rest of the country. Unfortunately, I believe that self-

interest among certain players in the forestry sector has weakened our position.

I can understand that foresters and others, who work in the plantation sector, see the native forest sector as dragging down the image of the industry in general. However, time and again, the native forest sector is able to demonstrate its sustainability and resilience. The plantation sector is increasingly a target of ENGO angst in relation to use of pesticides, fertilisers, genetic improvement, intensive soil management, single species and land use conflict with agriculture. Once the ENGOs have dealt with native forests, it is highly likely the focus will shift to plantations. So we live in a fool‟s paradise if we think that closing the native forest sector will make life easy for our profession.

My one great disappointment in my term as President has been to watch over the decline of forestry education and research capability in this country. The National Forest Masters Program has had some successes, but again, self-interest from some key educational institutions gets in the way of it really working to the fullest extent. I also find it disappointing that government and industry employers pay lip service to the approaching skill shortage in professional and technical forestry ranks. The Forestry Scholarship Fund has had a reasonable start but it could really provide an incentive to prospective

students to take up forestry as a career. The competition from other professions for bright young students is huge.

The research capability has been undergoing the death of a thousand cuts. Many State agencies have reduced or dismembered forest research capability, CSIRO has dispersed its forest researchers to many areas and lost any cohesion and now the CRC Forestry is under threat. It beggars belief that an industry that supports the second largest manufacturing sector in Australia could be in such strife.

To end on a positive note, during my term as President I have been exposed to a number of international meetings and visitors. The one thing that stands out is the respect that the world has for the professionalism and adaptability of Australian foresters. We punch above our weight on the world stage in production forestry and also in forest conservation sectors. We should be proud of who we are and what we do, I know that I am.

Dr Peter Volker RPF FIFA


IFA Divisions welcome new reps

Members of West Australia, A.C.T, Tasmania, Queensland and the Consulting Foresters have welcomed in their

new Divisional Chairs. The representatives have started their 3 year terms at the local and Board level. The

incoming reps join existing Divisional Chairs, Nick Cameron (NSW), Zoe Ryan (Vic) , Lew Parsons (SA) and Mike

Ryan (Vic). Members of the Board had opportunity to meet at the recent meeting and Company AGM held in

South Australia where the focus centred on the strategic direction of the Institute.

John Clarke - WA

John grew up as part of big family on dairy farm in south west of WA; five years at boarding school in Perth (Hale School). He graduated with BSc(Forestry) from ANU in 1976 and enjoyed a 36 year forestry career with WA Forests Department, Department of Conservation and Land Management and Forest Products Commission.

John is experienced in all traditional aspects of forest management and was District Manager of Forests Department districts of Pemberton and Harvey in 1980s.

John managed branch in CALM responsible for all harvesting and log sale tenders and contracts and was Strategic Contract Manager in FPC. Whilst being a member of the Institute for over 30 years, John is also member (and past President) of Leschenaultia Timber Industry Club.

Bringing a fresh no-nonsense approach to his role, John is keen to progress the cause of sustainable forestry.

Braden Jenkin - ACFA

Braden is the Managing Director of Sylva Systems Pty Limited and has over 25 years experience including managing industrial eucalypt and pine plantations, and native forest operations.

In 1998 Braden established Sylva Systems, to

apply business and investment principles to plantation forestry and wood processing: combining scientific and physical systems information, with financial and accounting requirements to produce robust analytical models. This approach brings together a commercial focus based on sound science, environmental and ethical considerations and has been applied across Australia, in Papua New

Guinea and India. Braden is a Registered Professional Forester™ (IFA member since 1981), an active member of the Australian Forest Growers, a Gottstein Fellowship (1990) and an Honorary Fellow of the University of Melbourne.

As an adjunct to his core business, Braden has developed and delivered subjects in forestry management for the University of Melbourne (under-graduate and post-graduate), Monash University (under-graduate) and he has delivered lectures in management at the Australian National University, India and Papua New Guinea.

Stuart Davey - ACT

Stuart has over 30 years experience in applied science research working on a range of forest, vegetat ion, biodivers i ty, sustainable development and natural resource management issues.

During his career, Stuart has played an advisory role to State and Commonwealth governments concerning these issues. He has represented Australia at meetings of the Convention on Biological Diversity and United Nations Climate

Convention.

Prior to working in the Commonwealth government he was an academic in forestry at

the Australian National University. Stuarts research interests include native forest ecology and silviculture, climate change impacts on forests, forest carbon, forest inventory, forest systems modelling, ecosystem services, and improved natural resource management, land use planning and ecologically sustainable forest management.

Stuart has been a member of the Institute since 1975 and was ACT Divisional chair for a period

during the 1990s.


Welcome to the following new members

of the IFA

NSW TAS ACT SA

Jacques Cotterill Dev Raj Ghimire Thei Nguyen Timothy Parkes Michael Ince Sandra Velarde Paja-res Jessica Domaschenz

Voting Member Student Member Associate Member Voting Member Voting Member Student Member Voting Member

WA VIC

Maria Gomez James Pattison Bjorn Boysen David Coote Melissa Fedrigo Benjamin Finn Alex Hodgson Susan Subah Vincent White

Student Member Associate Member Student Member Associate Member Young Professional Student Member Student Member Student Member Voting Member Voting Member

Congratulations to all members who have successfully upgraded their membership: Upgraded to Associate Member (Young Professional): Adrian Agars, Leif Popovic, Elaine Springgay, Damien Petfield, Andrew Kemsley,

Nargena Jasmine. Upgraded to full Voting Member: Tim Brown, Emma Leslie-Mohr, Andrew Piper, Matthew Hamilton, Anthony Stuart.

Steve Worley - Qld

Steve is the General Manager of Forest Operations for Forestry Plantations Queensland

P/L. He manages approx 200,000 hectares of commercial plantations and over 140,000 hectares of non commercial native forest across Queensland. Steve has experience in supply chain management, timber processing, forestry operations and development. He has a diverse career including roles with Fletcher Forests, North Ltd, Boral Ltd, Forests NSW and

international experience with Forestal Bio Bio in Chile.

Like many of his peers Steve believes the profession is at a crossroads in Australia. Forestry paradigms of the past few decades are in decline and national forest policy is outdated. Equally, opportunities to progress the forestry-based sector are opening elsewhere. It is time for renewal.

Aidan Flanagan - TAS

Aidan is a highly motivated and enthusiastic manager who specialises in developing capacity to build and maintain strong, effective networks across industry supply and value chains and wider community groups. He has worked in forestry for over 20 years. He has a degree, a graduate degree and a Masters in forestry. He is also a lead environmental auditor and an environmental investigator. His career has spanned from roles of a practicing forester over 14 years, holding various senior management roles ranging from Public Use and Heritage, to Harvesting and Fire management.

Aidan has worked federally within the bureaucracy and for two Ministers, focusing on

international and national investment and market development. He has held the position of Chair National Sirex Committee, and currently is the Chair of Program 4.3: Communities with CRC for Forestry. Recently he has worked voluntarily in south east asia, particularly in the Peoples Democratic Republic of Lao where he is helping to build capacity in law enforcement and sustainability to address the issue of illegal wood trade. Aidan has been an active member and supporter of the IFA for nearly 20 years and looks forward to working with Tasmanian members to promote the profession and our credentials.

You are encouraged to join your local Committee to increase your contacts and opportunities. You may think that you

have no time to contribute or nothing of value to add however, this is not the case. Any amount of time that you can give

is valued highly and the more people that are involved means less work for everyone but more importantly, well rounded

input when discussing local forestry topics! Join today! Do not hesitate, visit the IFA website today for your local

Committee contacts: www.forestry.org.au


Indonesia has a population of 230 million people, about half of whom live in rural areas with some dependence on forests. Indonesia has .around 95 million hectares of forest, which includes some of the world's most diverse tropical forests and about 44 million hectares of primary forest. It is expanding its plantation estate, which now stands at about 3.5 million hectares of which 1.6 million hectares is Acacia mangium. The Indonesian forest industries are large, annually producing about 13 million tonnes of pulp and paper products and about 5 million m3 of wood panels each year. In contrast the production of sawn timber has fallen from 7 million m3 in the 1990s to less than 1

million m3 annually. Exports of processed wood products are worth over $5 billion annually. The Indonesian Government's policy of protecting tropical forests means that the wood supply for the installed wood processing industries needs to come from plantations. The Government's policy is to achieve 5.4 million hectares of community-based commercial forests by 2016, which represents half of the plantation expansion target for this period.

Deforestation and illegal logging have been significant issues in Indonesia in recent decades, but recently the Indonesian President gave a strong undertaking to protect 66 million hectares of peat and primary forest, initially via a 2 year Moratorium on granting new concessions for logging or conversion. The President has committed to reduce Indonesia's greenhouse gas emissions by 26% by 2020 with domestic financial resources and by 41% if additional international assistance is provided. As a result, the implementation of Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) are a high priority in Indonesia.

Indonesia is also well known for its planted teak forests and the furniture and wood carving industries of Java. Teak was introduced to Indonesia more than 1000 years ago and around Jepara in Java there are more than 12,000 wood processing factories, which utilise planted teak and mahogany. Many farmers have incorporated teak plantings into their agricultural systems, and in the Gunungkidul region, near Yogyakarta, more

than two-thirds of the forest area is planted teak, with more than 60% of this owned by smallholder farmers in holdings of less than one hectare. About 90 non timber forest products are traded locally, nationally and internationally with varnish, sap and resin accounting for three-quarters of exports worth $2.6 billion.

ACIAR's contribution to Indonesian forestry

ACIAR has been implementing collaborative forest research projects in Indonesia for 25 years. A major focus of the program has been the domestication of Australian

trees for large scale plantation development, the improvement of industrial plantation productivity and the control of pests and diseases. For an investment of $14.7 million dollars in plantation research in Indonesia, it is estimated that $3.8 billion worth of benefits have been generated to date. Given the extensive adoption of project outcomes so far and the projected area of plantations

being developed, the benefits from the ACIAR research could ultimately reach $11 billion.

Improving productivity and sustainability of Indonesian industrial plantations

ACIAR has recently completed a forestry project (FST/2004/058 - Realising genetic gains in Indonesian and Australian plantations through water and nutrient management) that has generated significant outcomes related to improving the management and productivity of the Acacia mangium plantations in both Indonesia and Australia. The research has shown that smallholder farmers who grow Acacia plantations are currently achieving productivity levels of around only 50% of the adjacent company-owned plantations, which routinely yield only about 60% of the productivity of the research trials. These research trials yielded an average 46 m3/ha, making them some of the most productive plantations in the world. This research suggests that there is significant scope for improvement of Indonesia's plantation productivity above current levels, which is very important given

the challenge of meeting the installed pulp mill capacity from plantations. In addition the research demonstrated that. An economic analysis demonstrated that improved management could increase the net return (in present values) by around $636 to growers, which equates to around $530/year for an average land-holding of 5 ha by outgrower farmers. The research also found that Phosphorus fertiliser application could be reduced by 30%, saving growers $14/ha, without any loss of productivity. Current research (FST/2009/051 and FST/2008/030) focuses on improving returns for smallholder plantation owners and to analyse social issues associated with the implementation of current models for community-based commercial forestry in Indonesia to identify factors that could assist farmers to improve returns from plantation forestry.

While Australian eucalypt plantations have largely been free of significant pests and diseases, the acacia and eucalypt plantations in Indonesia suffer significant losses from root rot pathogens, in some sites up to 25% of trees are dead by age seven, and disease incidence is increasing in successive rotations. ACIAR's project (FST/2003/048) identified seven different root rot pathogens from the Ganoderma genus and Phellinus genus, including three that were new to science. Current research aims to improve the understanding of the influence of soil profile, site history and current management techniques on the incidence and spread of root rot. Research will also be undertaken on potential naturally occurring bio-control agents that have been found in some plantation areas.

ACIAR's Forestry Research InACIAR's Forestry Research In

IndonesiaIndonesia

Domesticating Australian trees for large scale plantation development

4 year old Acacia mangium


Enhancing returns from high value trees grown in agroforestry systems

ACIAR's recently completed teak agroforestry project (FST/2005/177) worked with farmers to improve teak silviculture, trialled the development of a community managed micro-finance scheme and examined mechanisms to improve market access for farmers growing teak. In the Gunungkidal District teak sales contribute about 12% of household income. While the teak plantings are both extensive and well integrated with agricultural production, germplasm quality and silvicultural management are very poor, which results in poor log quality. The project developed a teak silviculture manual and established participatory farmer demonstration trials where singling, thinning and pruning were all demonstrated. Even with relatively poor teak germplasm, diameter growth was increased by 60% and height increment

increased by 124% over two years. The importance of using better seedlings rather than relying on wildlings was also demonstrated.

As teak plays an important role as a “household saving account”, the project found that 84% of teak producers harvest their teak prematurely when they are faced with an urgent need for cash. A micro-finance scheme, managed by a farmer group, enabled farmers to borrow funds for short term needs using their teak trees as collateral and thereby enabled the farmers to get better returns by waiting to sell their trees when they reached larger diameters, for which they receive higher prices.

Improving value chains and value added manufacturing

ACIAR has two projects working on the value chains for planted teak and mahogany logs (FST/2007/119) and value-adding wood processing and manufacturing (FST/2006/117) in the Jepara region of Java. The first project, managed by CIFOR, is looking at ways to assist small scale manufacturers to move up the value chain to capture additional benefits, encouraging greater collaboration between processors and growers to improve log supply, assisting the development of small local enterprises and examining opportunities to penetrate "green" markets. The project is supporting the development of the Small-Scale Furniture Producers Association and work has been undertaken to trial internet marketing of value added products. A short YouTube

film http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw6TOjFzlqA explains issues related to the survival of Java's furniture industry.

The second project is working with Industry Champions to improve knowledge and capacity in all aspects of the wood processing and manufacturing processes. At present, very little of the timber is properly dried or treated, there is huge waste in manufacturing processes and many businesses can't meet the standards demanded by international markets. However, the skill of local furniture makers and the breadth of unique designs and carvings is astounding.

Given the reduction in log availability from natural forests, currently about 70% of log supply is coming from smallholder and community plantings. This is raising new issues related to inconsistent log quality and the need to demonstrate legal supply of all timber products traded into the major export markets. Just how a simple verification and chain of custody system can be developed and implemented when small furniture enterprises receive thousands of individual small logs from a multitude of farmers is a quite a challenge. Research is also being conducted on improving the knowledge on wood properties from a wider range of species.

Implementing REDD+ arrangements

While REDD+ is the subject of many international negotiations and conferences, there are few examples to date of effective and equitable mechanisms to distribute payments to landowners who change their forest management practices. An ACIAR project

(FST/2007/052) is assisting Indonesia to establish appropriate mechanisms for the implementation of REDD+, by analysing potential environmental service payment systems and developing governance, policy and institutional arrangements at the provincial and district levels. The project has identified the important governance factors affecting forest management at the local level and the roles of financial incentives in influencing local governments‟ decisions on land-use change. It is also developing options for Intergovernmental Financial Transfers to distribute REDD+ revenue to district governments. The project is currently working on developing a mechanism for equitable distribution of REDD+ credits that takes account of Indonesia's land tenure systems.

Tony Bartlett - [email protected] ACT Division

ACIAR research partners at root rot trial Many farmers are growing high value teak trees as part of their agricultural systems

A micro-finance scheme allows farmers to stop premature harvesting

Assisting small scale manufacturers to move up the value chain

This concludes our four part International Year of

Forests series. To access previous articles including

Laos, Papua New Guinea and Vietnam visit the IFA

website www.forestry.org.au

In 2012 we will bring you more articles starting

with a focus on the Pacific.


Over time and terrain - southern students explore

northern forests

Six undergraduate and postgraduate environmental science/forestry students from the ANU spent a week touring the forests of northern NSW. The trip was organised as an extra-curricular activity to celebrate the International Year of the Forests, and explore some ecosystems different to those of the ACT and southern NSW. Students were impressed by the diversity of forest types within a relatively small geographic area, and were given a fascinating insight into the past and present of the forestry industry in the region.

After a long 10-hour drive north, Day 2 of the tour began on the Dorrigo Plateau, meeting with David Wilson, Community Forester for Forests NSW. David spoke with us about the past, present and future of the forestry industry, giving in-depth answers to questions and leading an intriguing discussion about the politics surrounding the industry as well as topical issues such as carbon trading. The afternoon was spent visiting both plantation and native harvesting sites, where students were able to observe harvesting in action, as well as gain greater insight into the balancing act between timber harvesting and environmental

concerns.

Day 3 dawned grey and with patchy drizzle. The day was spent visiting reserves containing sections of forest that remain unlogged since pre-European times. The first stop of the day was the Norman Jolly Memorial Grove, where the original tallowwoods of the region (Eucalyptus microcorys) still tower overhead. Following this, we explored the subtropical rainforest at Dorrigo, where a National Parks ranger gave us a brief tour and explanation of the ancient forest, which is listed as a World Heritage Site and a Gondwanan Rainforest of Australia. The huge trees and mist-shrouded strangler figs and coachwoods provided quite a contrast to the younger, harvested forests of the previous day. For our Vietnamese postgraduate student, it

was the first time seeing such large, mature trees. Viet, who has seven years Forestry work experience in Vietnam, told us about his experiences which lead to some interesting discussions about comparisons between forestry practices in Australia and overseas.

Moving from subtropical to subalpine, we continued our trip to Point Lookout in the New England National Park. Despite a cold,

wet night, the tenacity of all was rewarded the next morning by the majestic Antarctic Beech (Northofagus moorei) forests. Like the Dorrigo rainforest, these trees are a relic from the time when Australia was still connected with Antarctica as part of Gondwanaland. Dripping with rain and moss and shrouded in cloud, the landscape was reminiscent of Lord of the Rings.

The journey continued west, finishing in Quirindi in the evening. To our delight, we left the rain behind us in the mountains and

were treated to a clear sunset and starry sky as we set up camp in the local caravan park.

The morning of Day 5 was cold but clear, as we dragged ourselves out of our warm sleeping bags and into the chilly morning air, ready for an 8:00am start at the Quirindi saw mill. For the next two hours, we were treated to an in-depth tour of operations, from the arrival and debarking of the logs through the entire process right up to kiln-drying and treatment of timber. As an engineer, John Taylor was able to give us an explanation of all the machinery and the process of getting operations off the ground.

With a final thank you to John we piled back into the bus and began the 9-hour drive back to Canberra. Despite the long

travel time and questionable weather, we learned a lot about the forests of the region, and enjoyed exploring ecosystems very different to those we are accustomed to in the south.

Special thanks:

David Wilson, Forests NSW Community Forester, and John Taylor, McVicar Timber Group Ltd., for donating their time to show us around

ANU, for providing transport and support

Thank you also to others with whom we have been in contact, and who provided additional advice and support.

Article by Ellie Cheney - [email protected]

Participants: Alex Slattery, Neil Hinchey, Viet Tran, Daniel Hunt, Anne Sanchez-Lobato, Ellie Cheney

Norman Jolly Memorial Grove Viet in the Dorrigo Rainforest

Forests NSW Native Harvesting Forests NSW Plantation with David Wilson


Of all the ACFA* CPD (Continuing Professional Development) days I‟ve helped organise, this was by far the most contentious. Although I had worded the flier carefully, ambiguity caused by brevity made several members suspicious that I was attacking the forest MIS industry and blaming consulting foresters for the failure of companies. This was certainly not my intention and I apologise for not being clearer. It was clearly a topic for careful statements!

With the recent collapse of several MIS companies and the scrutiny that has brought, it is clear that in some cases there was a discrepancy between yield forecasts in some MIS company prospectuses and actual volumes; prospectus forecasts of 25 to 30 m3/yr typically returned 14 to 20 m3/yr.

Although these inflated forecasts were probably not the cause of company collapses, they are of concern to ACFA because they threaten the credibility of consulting foresters.

At face value, it seems that some of the consultants involved in making these forecasts were overly optimistic and relied too heavily on undocumented experience and observation. But hindsight is an unfair judge; these consultants were dealing with off-site species on agricultural land, trial plantings that showed early promise, drought, fire, cyclone and pestilence. They were also dealing with project “quirks” whereby plantings could be spread over several regions, and land could be purchased or leased after a target productivity for the project had been declared.

Key questions posed by the CPD were:

In the light of experience and research, can we estimate productivity (for off-site species) any better now?

How should forecasts be presented? How should risk and productivity improvement and degradation be treated?

Is the current Code of Ethics adequate?

The twenty five IFA members who attended the CPD were treated to excellent presentations by Jim Knott, Hugh Stewart and Andrew Dickinson (available on request from the IFA website), and it is difficult to summarise their presentations in just a few lines. But of particular note was:

The importance of soil classification and water

availability on productivity;

Simple stochastic mechanisms for representing

variability in productivity forecasts;

The importance of permanent plots tied to soil pits;

The importance of matching provenance to site;

Risk should be reflected in the cash flow rather than

discount rates;

The importance of a “data” or “disclosure” book,

which would document the methodology used in assessing productivity for a species on a site.

It was resolved that guidelines for assessing site productivity be developed and published in an ACFA handbook.

*The Association of Consulting Foresters of Australia Division of the IFA is an association of consulting foresters with standards of behavior enshrined in a Code of Ethics, and standards of practice certified by the Registered Practicing Foresters scheme and kept current by regular CPD events.

Adrian Goodwin (MACFA) [email protected]

Estimating plantation productivity; professional and ethical

implications of productivity advice.

Summary of the ACFA CPD held in Melbourne on 16th September 2011

Christmas Greetings The IFA Board of Directors and staff of the National Office wish joy,

happiness and good health for you and your family this Christmas.

The National Office will be closed from 23 December 2011 - 2 January 2012

We hope that you enjoy the holidays with those closest to your hearts.

ACFA ACFA

Association ofAssociation of

Consulting Foresters of AustraliaConsulting Foresters of Australia


Meet a Forester

ACT IFA member George Dashwood and IFA CEO Cassandra Spencer made a special visit to Wanniassa Hills Primary School to promote forestry as a profession in the International Year of Forests.

Prior to George and Cassandra visiting the school, the students had spent considerable time with their environmental teacher Deb Shaw learning about International Year of Forests, soil quality and tree species. The school is unique in that it houses an Environmental Centre where students are able to participate in hands on growing experiments, raise chickens and learn about organic mulch and compost systems as well as participate in tree planting sessions.

To compliment this knowledge, 120 Year 5-6 students had an opportunity to expand their understanding of the environment by meeting a real life forester - a profession that many of them (including a few teachers) did not know existed. The children were captivated pretty early on when George brought out his well used chainsaw. You could see the disappointment on the kids faces (and the relief on the teachers) when George elected not to start it up. George demonstrated to the kids how to measure tree age and the various tools that can be used to asses tree heights, soil quality and gave tips on identifying different types of leaves.

Cassandra was able to highlight to the kids some great career opportunities by utilising the recent FWPA sponsored „Growing Careers‟ campaign, with posters showcasing foresters in a variety of different roles such as Forest Carbon Specialist, Harvesting Manager and Regeneration Forester.

„Telling these kids that forestry exists as a profession is one thing. Being able to give them a face to put the career to and show them who and what is a forester, is way more effective‟. She said.

The „Meet a Forester‟ event was aimed at delivering two messages:

1. That foresters are the go to guys when it comes to sustainable management of forest areas and;

2. forests really do have multiple uses.

„Utilising the theme of International Year of Forests - Forests for people is a great opportunity to share with the students

and the teachers, the knowledge that forests have many varied uses. It can sometimes be difficult to convince teachers to let strangers into their schools yet the International Year of Forest theme virtually gave us open door access. This visit is about creating awareness of the importance of maintaining biodiversity without compromising the wood resource that forests provide us with and at the same time, there are properly qualified people out there that care about how these forests are managed. Now these kids know that it takes a conscious effort to manage these forests - it doesn‟t just happen by itself.‟ Cassandra said.

The visit concluded with the children selecting an area to soil test and then with assistance from George, plant a Casuarina cunninghamiana donated by the A.C.T Division of the IFA.

George has spent much of his time hosting and accompanying forestry students on field trips and courses while his son Jarod studied forestry at ANU. George‟s commitment to promoting forestry awareness has not dimmed now that Jarod has graduated.

„What‟s different about teaching kids of this young age is the opportunity to impart an enthusiasm and understanding of basic scientific principles. If these kids can see that its not all about sitting in a laboratory every day. Its also a job that gets you out into the fresh air and allows you to use cool tools!‟ George commented „I always said to my kids "There is no such word as CAN'T" and I feel this is very important for all children, to know how important it is to have a go.

ACT member George Dashwood gets ready to plant a Casuarina cunninghamiana while IFA Chief Executive Officer Cassandra uses ‘Growing Careers’ posters to promote forestry careers.


New ANU-led ACIAR balsa industry project begins in PNG

ANU students join Asia-Pacific Forestry Week

Papua New Guinea‟s balsa industry is a

unique in the country‟s forestry sector,

with local value-added processing,

many smallholder growers, and c. 10%

of the global market. The industry is

based in the Gazelle Peninsula of East

New Britain Province, around Rabaul,

and has developed significantly over

the past two decades, driven largely by

the growing global demand for high

quality balsa for use as part of

composite products in a variety of

applications, including aircraft freight

pallets and wind turbine blades.

The Australian Centre for International

Agricultural Research (ACIAR) is

supporting a new research project, led

by ANU in partnership with PNG‟s

Universities of Technology and Natural

Resources and Environment, to

enhance key elements of the PNG

balsa value chain – particularly the

benefits it delivers smallholder

growers, many of whom are seeking a

complementary crop to their traditional

mainstay of cocoa. Other members of

the project team include staff from the

Universities of Melbourne and NSW, a

group of Australian consultants familiar

with PNG, the PNG National Forest

Authority and Forest Research

Institute, most of the major companies

in the sector, and the ENB Provincial

Administration. Peter Kanowski from

ANU and Kulala Mulung from PNG‟s

UniTech are managing the project;

more information is available at http://

aciar.gov.au/project/FST/2009/016.

ANU undergraduate students Ellen

Cheney and Thomas O‟Reilly, and Masters student Viet Tran, participated

in the second Asia-Pacific Forestry Week in Beijing. Ellen and Thomas are

both active members of the International Forestry Students

Society, as Co-Representatives for Oceania. Viet is an AusAID-sponsored

student whose professional work is

with the Nghe An Provincial Forestry Department, Vietnam. Their

participation was funded from personal contributions and support from ANU

and IFSS.

They write: “The conference provided

a great opportunity to hear about recent developments and activity in

forestry within the Asia-Pacific region. The morning plenary sessions provided

discussion about general themes, while the afternoon partner events, which

focussed on the work of specific

organisations and countries, allowed us

to learn more about forestry practices, and the implementation and impact of

programs such as REDD+ within the region.

The theme of “New Challenges, New Opportunities” was evident throughout the week. One of the clear messages we took home was the strong universal push towards sustainable forest management in areas such as community welfare, biodiversity protection and carbon sequestration. It was also clear that there is still progress to be made in finding ways of balancing these goals.

We felt that the event was successful in bringing together people from a

variety of different countries and perspectives. It also provided a

fantastic chance to speak with

professionals from various fields of expertise, and to meet with other

forestry students from a variety of

countries. All in all, the conference was a rewarding experience, and we

are grateful for the opportunity.”

ANU Forestry

Alumni & Friends News

December 2011 phone: 02 6125 2579 fax 02 6125 0746

email: [email protected] www: http://fennerschool.anu.edu.au/

Ellen Cheney, Viet Tran and Thomas O’Reilly with Patrick Durst (2nd from left),

FAO Senior Regional Forestry Officer

Project team member Anton Lata of PNG FRI in an 18-month old balsa

plantation.


By John Clarke

A Dream for WA

- Native forest timber industry in 2023

The Forest Products Commission (FPC) is WA‟s Government trading enterprise responsible for commercial harvesting and marketing of forest products from the State‟s native forests and

plantations.

In 2008 the FPC launched a new vision for the future. That vision, formulated by the FPC‟s seven member Board and executive staff, was ambitious and optimistic. In essence, it envisioned a trebling of the economic, environmental and social value of the WA forest products industry by 2023.

Sadly, that vision appears to have sunk beneath the waves of the collapse of the MIS plantation industry, the global financial crisis, a generally stagnant native forest sector, a government decision to cease the State‟s direct involvement in new plantation establishment and, finally, a major downsizing of FPC itself.

At the time, FPC staff were invited to contribute their thoughts/dreams of the state of the industry in 2023. I focussed on the native forest timber industry and put forward my vision of utopia. It‟s reproduced below, with some comments (in italics) on how the situation is looking today.

1. Key assumptions regarding resource availability

Sustainable annual harvest levels, approved by a Forest Management Plan, will be expressed in tonnes (rather than cubic metres) and will be approximately as follows:

(WA is still working to the 2004-2013 Forest Management Plan which was produced by the State‟s Conservation Commission. The Commission recently amended the plan to allow the annual allowable harvest of lower grade karri logs to be increased from 117,000 m3 to 170,000 m3. The regrowth karri forests from which this timber is to come results from the clearfelling operations 30-40 years ago. These forests are thriving and very ready for thinning. The plan now allows a total of all species of approx 190,000 m3 of regular sawlogs and approx 1,000,000 m3 of other lower grade log products to be harvested annually, a total of about 1.2m m3 which equates to approx1.5m tonnes. Actual harvests, particularly of lower grade logs, are much lower. In 2010/11 the total harvest of all native forest products was approx 550,000 tonnes.)

2. Poles and bridge timbers

The demand for jarrah and karri in the round, and sawn, for Western Australian use will be resurrected and will use

approximately 10,000 tonnes per year.

(Not that long ago about 30,000 high value mostly jarrah poles, roughly equivalent to 30,000 tonnes, were supplied from the State‟s native forests to support transmission lines. A focus on producing sawlogs of smaller diameter in recent years - at considerably lower stumpages compared to poles - has resulted in a shift to pine poles almost exclusively. Pine for poles is limited and much of the State‟s transmission network comprising some 700,000 wooden poles is in serious need of upgrade. In 2010/11, no native forest poles were supplied from State forest.)

3. Sawmilling sector

There will be no large, traditional sawmills, but a mixture of

some relatively high intake (40,000 t/yr or more) modern mills such as Blueleaf‟s small log line, and several small family-run businesses with intakes in the order of 5,000 - 10,000 t/yr.

(The closure of Gunns sawmill at Deanmill in February 2011 leaves Auswest‟s karri sawmill at Pemberton as the largest more or less traditional sawmill currently operating in WA.)

All sawmills will purchase bole sawlogs and will grade, dock

and manage their log yards efficiently, and will not need to be hounded by FPC or Government to “value-add”. They will all have outlets for the non-millable portions of the bole sawlogs, and for all sawdust and bark.

(Grading of native forest sawlogs remains a vexed issue in WA with two systems continuing to operate, although most sawmills are now being supplied with “bole sawlogs” and only a few jarrah sawmills being supplied with sawlogs graded in the traditional manner. The contractual requirement for sawmills to achieve predetermined value-adding targets has proved to be impractical and somewhat damaging. Monitoring of value-adding by sawmillers has proven that it is impossible to predict markets up to 10 years into the future. A more pragmatic environment is now prevailing in WA which is seeing local manufacturers having to pay fair prices for their needs and some sawn product sold overseas. Very little sawdust or bark is not on-sold or utilised by sawmillers.)

The local and eastern states demand for jarrah and karri

sawn products will be met, with surplus being exported.

(Demand is certainly being met, at least here in WA. The rich red colours of jarrah are currently not as fashionable as timbers with lighter yellow shades, so demand for jarrah has slipped compared to 20 or more years ago, but this could possibly be overcome with better marketing. Demand for karri as a building material has declined although it is still a favoured species for tile battens as well as some value-added uses. Some karri is exported.)

Regular sawlog or better (min 250mm sedub)

Other bole wood

Crown wood

Totals

Jarrah 120,000 tonnes 700,000 t 100,000 t 920,000 t

Karri 100,000 250,000 20,000 370,000

Marri 20,000 200,000 20,000 240,000

Other species

10,000 50,000 10,000 70,000

Totals 250,000 1,200,000 150,000 1,600,000


Small family-managed businesses will purchase all available

specialty sawlogs and will supply a thriving boutique furniture and craft industry in the southwest.

(There is no shortage of demand for the small available quantity of highly prized specialty logs such as those with curly grain or birds-eye grain, or logs of extra large diameter suitable for table tops. The southwest boutique timber industry is generally happy provided it can buy or scrounge the few logs it needs each year.)

4. Reconstituted wood products sector

Lignor will succeed, using up to 350,000 t/yr of low grade

marri, karri and jarrah logs from the lower southwest for manufacture of engineered strand board, predominantly for export markets.

(Lignor‟s aim to establish an engineered strand lumber plant was set back by the GFC. It‟s problematic whether or not the project will be resurrected, although the end product is good and the resource is still available.)

WAPRES – WA‟s original woodchipping business established

by the Bunnings Group, now owned jointly by Marubeni Corp and Nippon Paper - will still be purchasing approx 100,000 t/yr of karri thinnings, plus a significant quantity of marri, for manufacture of woodchips for export, or for a local pulp and paper mill predominantly based on private bluegum resource.

(WAPRES continues to purchase a significant quantity of low grade karri for woodchipping for export, but low grade marri remains unsaleable. There are no signs of a pulp or paper mill in WA, largely because of the cost of electricity.)

A new buyer based at Yarloop will purchase a significant

quantity of low grade jarrah for manufacture of a reconstituted panel board for export.

(Gunns‟ Yarloop sawmill site has been sold. Recent interest from an overseas entity to set up shop in the southwest of WA to manufacture plywood and MDF using jarrah has dissipated.)

5. Fuelwood and charcoal sector

Simcoa will expand and purchase a total of approx 200,000

t/yr of low grade jarrah for charcoal manufacture, mostly residues from minesites operating on State forest, but also residues from log landing and road construction operations in the Bunbury region. This genuine residue material is not a part of the FMP “other bole log” or crown wood quantities. In addition, Simcoa will purchase wood blocks from sawmillers at a fair price.

(Simcoa is a Japanese-owned silicon manufacturing company. Their plans to expand have been delayed by the GFC, but will proceed. The company purchased 118,000 tonnes of low grade logs and residue material from State forest in 2010/11.)

Sales of domestic firewood will be stable at approx 80,000

tonnes per year.

(Domestic firewood sales remain steady with 61,000 tonnes of firewood logs sold by FPC in 2010/11 to commercial operators. The quantity collected from State forest by private households is unknown but likely to be increasing as electricity prices rise.)

Approx 250,000 t/yr of low grade jarrah, marri and other

species from harvesting in the Mornington, Greenbushes and Nannup Supply Areas will provide feedstock for a 25MW power station which will be directly connected to and provide 100% of the power requirements for the Binningup desalination plant.

(Despite enthusiasm for this to occur, the second desalination plant to provide water for Perth, due to be completed in 2011, will be powered by coal-fired electricity from Collie.)

Approx 250,000 t/yr (or more) of low grade jarrah and other

species will be harvested from the Northern Timber Supply area, with a focus on catchment thinning, to provide feedstock for power generation at a Perth-based power station.

(No progress. This is fiercely opposed by the Greens and the Federal Government, apparently bowing to Green pressure, is unhelpful. Amongst recent announcements about carbon it has foreshadowed that no native forest wood will be counted as renewable energy and Renewable Energy Credits will not be applicable. This is a tragic blow for this particular vision.)

6. Harvesting and road construction

All harvesting operations will be integrated and efficient,

using modern harvesting machinery and systems. Monitoring of log deliveries will be electronically-based.

(Harvesting contractors in WA continue to operate as best they can in an environment which is not conducive to investment. Hand felling is restricted to isolated cases where trees are too large for machine harvesters. Necessary restrictions on harvesting in wetter months and some illogical constraints imposed by the Conservation Commission add to harvesting costs hence log prices. Monitoring of log deliveries

Continued on next page

Forester Peter Beatty at Ellis Creek

Jarrah landing truck loaded


continues to be based on the written delivery note for every truck load.)

All harvested areas will be regenerated according to

approved silvicultural prescriptions and biodiversity measures fully maintained.

(The recent drought across the south west of WA has focussed attention on the need to thin overstocked jarrah, karri and wandoo regrowth stands. Concerns about adequacy of regeneration are a rare occurrence. The “Forest Check” long term monitoring programme managed by the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) is showing that biodiversity is in fact being maintained and sometimes enhanced following harvesting on the State‟s south west native forests. Concerns about dieback (P.cinnamomi) introduction or spread on State forest due to roading or harvesting activity have reduced as hygiene systems and practices have become more sophisticated and routine.)

Relations between FPC and DEC will be positive and

supportive.

(Most foresters lamented the split - for political reasons - of the Department of Conservation and Land Management back in 2000. That integrated agency was good for forest management including fire management, and introduced some excellent reforms in allocation and sale of log timber to industry. Although there is still much goodwill between the staff of FPC and CALM (which morphed into DEC), there does seem to be some indifference on the part of DEC and its controlling body, the Conservation Commission, towards the use of forests for timber production.

Road construction and maintenance will be seamlessly

integrated with harvesting activity, with all legislative constraints regarding winning of road building materials a distant memory.

(Some constraints still remain.)

7. Fire management

There will be solid public support for prescribed burning to maintain forest fuel loads at safe levels, thus protecting regrowth forests from high intensity wildfire, as well as protecting life and property within and adjacent to public forests.

(Although WA has led the world in development of efficient and effective prescribed burning techniques and management, annual targets have not been met for some years and damaging wildfires have become more commonplace. The devasting Victorian bush fires of 2009 and the destruction of over 70 houses located adjacent to bush land in Perth‟s southeast suburbs earlier this year has hopefully jolted the State Government and the public into accepting that more prescribed burning is essential.)

8. Public support

A number of high profile public sporting and entertainment

identities in Western Australia will lend their support to FPC and the timber industry, effectively eliminating the ignorance and lack of support that currently exists.

(Sadly, no progress can be reported on this vision. For the average punter, there remains a need to break the vicious circle of debate and disagreement between government, industry and greens. Hopefully the IFA can become a circuit breaker one day.)

State and Federal Governments will continue to provide

positive support and encouragement to the industry. FPC will

provide annual dividends to the State Government in the order of $10m.

(The WA Government is supportive to the extent that it consistently stands by the Forest Management Plan, but seems reluctant to overtly support the continuation of timber harvesting at similar levels beyond 2013. ENGOs in WA, which are now consistently calling for a complete cessation of all native forest harvesting, are increasing their activities as release of the next draft FMP looms closer. The Federal government‟s recent announcement on effectively banning the harvesting of any native forests for energy production is lamentable. FPC is some way off being in a position to provide an annual dividend in the vicinity of $10m.)

Water yields from extensive commercial thinning of

catchments in the Darling Ranges will result in all dams being filled to capacity more often than not.

(Despite a record drought in the southwest over the 2010/11 summer, and despite significant deaths in some areas of overstocked regrowth forests east and south of Perth, there are not yet signs of a significant groundswell of support in the right places to have those forests thinned. Water supply dams in the Perth hills remain at record low levels.)

The FPC will win a series of environmental and industry

awards for its leadership of the timber industry in WA, and the FPC General Manager will receive an Australia Day honour for long and meritorious service.

(FPC‟s role in establishing new sharefarm plantations in the drier parts of the south west ceased in favour of private enterprise following a State government directive. In the wake of this decision, FPC‟s General Manager resigned and was replaced by a non-forester. FPC as an agency was gutted, with staff numbers reducing by nearly 50% and its head office shifted to the Department of Agriculture and Food WA building in Kensington.)

9. Integration with the plantation industry

The native forest and plantation sectors will work

cooperatively as one industry.

(Although it appears as though the two sectors operate independently, they are both represented by the Forest Industries Federation (WA) Inc and they do work cooperatively when necessary.)

New supplies of plantation hardwoods will be able to be

partly utilised by the existing native forest industry, as well as supplying feedstock for new enterprises closer to the plantations.

(The cessation of FPC‟s role in establishing new plantations of eucalypts such as Euc. saligna has left FPC with a stranded and scattered estate of about 15,000 hectares with no real plan for their future. Unless private enterprise picks up and progresses the plans that FPC had in place, there will be little likelihood of any new enterprises being established at nominated inland locations. Existing sawmills closer to Perth and the southwest maybe able to use the trees when they mature, provided harvesting costs are not prohibitive.)

John Clarke Chairman, Western Australia Division

(Comments on current situation made 1 September 2011)


I have been continuing my exploration of that wonderful journal of 19th century British India: The Indian Forester, the early volumes of which can still be found on a remote shelf in the science library of the W.A. Department of Environment and

Conservation. My researches are made easier by the charming assistance of the young lady librarians, who provide me with a quiet desk, comfortable chair and a light, and mostly are able to restrain their amusement over my obscure literary interests.... although I might be pushing my welcome: last time I was in there I overheard one muttering “He‟ll be wanting me to bring him a cup of tea, next.”

Volume X (1884) of The Indian Forester has taken me from my usual interests in forests and bushfires into the realms of timber technology. The article that caught my eye was a note on a technique for seasoning jarrah timber. It prescribes a methodology rarely discussed these days, but with interesting historical connotations.

The information is contained in the following extract from a report entitled A Treatise on the Origin, Progress, Prevention and Cure of Dry Rot in Timber by Thomas Britton, Surveyor of the Metropolitan Board of Works. According to Mr Britton:

“The jarrah wood of Western Australia is considered a first-class wood for ship building, but it is somewhat slow to season, and if exposed before it is seasoned it is apt to „fly‟ or cast.

The method adopted in seasoning are those of salt water, sea sand and seaweed of which the following are the details: - the logs are thrown into the sea and left there for a few weeks. They are then drawn up through the sand, and after being covered with seaweed a few inches deep, are left to lie on the beach, care being taken to prevent the sun getting at the ends. The logs are then left for many months to season. When taken up they are cut into boards 7 inches wide and stacked so as to admit of a free circulation of air around them for a [further] five or six months before use.”

The thing about jarrah timber that has always most struck me is its versatility. In Western Australia it has been used for house framing, flooring, weatherboards, fences, wharfs and jetties, river pylons, railway sleepers, telephone, telegraph and electricity distribution poles, dance floors, parquetry, veneer, scaffolding, fruit cases, wagons, wooden ships and boats, sheep yards, firewood, charcoal, road signs and mile pegs, all with equally excellent results. In the 1860s, the streets of London and Melbourne were paved with jarrah blocks and in many place these still lie intact, under a covering of bitumen or concrete.

Above all jarrah is a beautiful timber. Dressed and polished it has been made up into the most glorious furniture, balustrades, window frames, architraves, even musical instruments. Polished jarrah has a deep inner glow, superior to mahogany and as good as red cedar in my opinion. The dark red and brown colours survive in jarrah kept indoors..... unlike that used in the open which silvers under the influence of sun, rain and wind.

The beauty and utility of jarrah is, of course a user‟s perspective. The sawmiller and the carpenter have a different view. Seasoning (or drying) jarrah timber is indeed one of the greatest challenges to timbermen. If green fresh-off-the-saw jarrah is exposed to the elements it soon degenerates: boards distort as inner tensions are released, or the timber will warp, check (crack) or split at the ends ... the “fly or cast” mentioned by Thomas Britton. On the other hand, as carpenters know, green jarrah can be nailed and worked, while it is almost impossible to drive a nail into dry, well-seasoned jarrah. So sawmillers were faced with the necessity to store and protect valuable stock for years in their yards in order to present a stable product, while carpenters had to weigh up the instability of green jarrah against its workability.

All of this has been known since the early days of the timber industry in Western Australia, at least as far back as the 1830s. Traditionally, the best sawmillers strip-stacked jarrah. This involved placing slim timber runners between the layers of sawn timber, allowing air to pass through the stacks, and wiring the stack together. Wherever possible stacks were covered. The process, however, was still prolonged, and mill yards with acres of drying timber were once a common sight in nearly every southwest timber town. In the 1960s humidified drying sheds and kilns were introduced, allowing moisture loss to be accelerated but under controlled conditions. This reduced degrade in the timber, but the process required a significant financial investment, and was still a lengthy and costly one.

It was not until the 1980s that sawmillers realised that they had to work on the logs as well as the sawn timber in order to get the best recovery of, and return from the sawn product. The most common method was a simple one – the log yard was kept damp under sprinklers, and in this way the inner stresses in the timber were gradually released before sawing began, and eventual seasoning times were reduced. The success of this approach, especially with small logs, was amply demonstrated many years ago by Phil Shedley, one of our greatest jarrah men, and before long it became common practice......... a practice that, in essence, mirrored the principles advocated by Thomas Britton in his article in The Indian Forester a century earlier.

By Roger Underwood

An early method of seasoning jarrah

- An exploration of 19th century British India

Sleeper cutters hewing sleepers in the jarrah forest



Forestry Scholarship Fund

I have received an interesting note from Peter Vindon of

Melbourne University on this subject. This has helped me to understand the science underlying early methods of timber preservation and seasoning as well as its history. Peter has pointed out that over two thousand years ago the Chinese were using the technique of soaking timber in sea water to preserve it. Immersion in sea water, Peter explains, leaches out soluble wood sugars and the hemicelluloses that provide a substrate for wood-decaying fungi. Soaking in sea water also removes or relocates some of the chemicals in timber that impede drying and render green timber so susceptible to degrade if exposed to the elements.

Professor Vindon is unable to provide a technical explanation for the efficacy of seaweed. I suspect the answer lies in pragmatism rather than science: it was part of the prescription simply because seaweed was freely available in quantity at the sea‟s edge, and it performed the essential role of protecting the logs from exposure while allowing some movement of air and the slow, steady drying of the logs. Modern seasoning research has demonstrated that covering eucalypt timber with a semi-permeable membrane has an identical effect.

The edition of The Indian Forester containing Thomas Britton‟s article (which started me on all this) also discusses the growing need for railway sleepers in India. The 1880s was a period of immense expansion of the railways in India and finding tough, durable timber for sleepers was a critical project being undertaken at that time by Indian foresters. Jarrah was one of the timbers under trial. I can only assume that the trials were successful as millions of jarrah sleepers were later exported to India... and they were still going there when I worked in the jarrah forest as late as the 1960s.

Jarrah was also used extensively for railway sleepers and crossings in the London underground where I believe they are still performing with distinction, and for the entire railway system in Western Australia, including the great iron ore railways in the Pilbara. From about the 1980s there was a move away from timber to steel and concrete for sleepers in WA, but both have proved to have serious environmental problems and the timber sleeper may well be on the way back. Apart from anything else, they are capable of sequestrating a lot of carbon for a long time - a point of interest to the people interested in this nonsense – but ironically, the new-found interest in the timber sleeper has come just at the time when our hardwood timber industry has been virtually shut down by the government.

Seasoning jarrah sleepers was never an issue. Unlike boards and scantling, jarrah sleepers were always sold green-off-the-saw. Following inspection by a trained timber inspector and branding to demonstrate that the sleeper met the specification, the ends would be coated with petroleum jelly so as to minimise splitting before being put to use. Once laid, packed with ballast and with the substantial weight of the steel rails (to which they were spiked) bearing down on them, they were basically immobilised in situ. In other words, the jarrah sleeper was provided with air

seasoning, but between a powerful clamp that made sure it behaved itself.

Furthermore, the jarrah sleeper was a bread-and-butter item for general purpose sawmillers of the south-west. Because a sleeper could be cut from a low grade log, and because the final product was not downgraded by the shrinkage, fault-docking and dressing that occurred with higher quality products such as flooring, the return from sleepers was relatively good. As Phil Shedley has reminded me, the great British Indian forester D.E Hutchins, who toured Australia and reported on forestry in this country in 1916, had a comment on this, as he did on nearly every subject:

“The Jarrah sleeper is so good that it is not surprising we find it now in every part of the world. There is, indeed, a huge area in Western Australia with ill-shapen Jarrah timber that is only useful for sleepers. They may not look so well as a straight sawn or hewn sleeper, but they would be equally serviceable.”

Returning to the subject of jarrah timber and seawater, George Seddon recounts an intriguing historical anecdote in his lovely book The Old Country – Australian landscapes, plants and people (2005). As is well known to Western Australian timbermen, green jarrah is denser than water and consequently the logs do not float. However, this was not known to the naval dockyard workers in Plymouth when the first load of jarrah logs was delivered in the early 1830s, intended for research into their

usefulness for shipbuilding. The logs were simply dumped overboard, the idea being that they would then be penned and floated ashore. Instead they sank like stones.... and there they lay for over 100 years. During the 1939-45 war, Britain was suffering an extreme timber shortage, and someone remembered the jarrah logs on the harbour floor at Plymouth. They were recovered, and found to be preserved to perfection... although still not fully seasoned after all that time. Dry jarrah does float, and the fact that the logs had not bobbed to the surface indicates (unsurprisingly) that the timber was still fairly saturated. Seddon does not record whether the logs were placed under seaweed after being recovered; given the exigencies of wartime, it would seem to me more likely that they were put to

immediate use.

Nevertheless, I can‟t help thinking that Thomas Britton would have enjoyed this story.

Roger Underwood‟s email address is [email protected]

Continued from previous page

Traditionally strip stacked sawn timber and block stacked railway sleepers in a sawmill yard in the jarrah forest


By Jack Bradshaw

Loads, Hoppus and tuns

- Why WA measured its timber and logs in loads

Have you ever wondered why WA measured its timber and logs in loads and why it was the only state to do so? Probably not.

In trying to answer that question I was led on a fascinating, complex and now totally irrelevant path of discovery.

The load it seems was originally based on the approximate volume of a ton of sawn timber. With British hardwoods (dry) weighing roughly 45 lbs/cu ft, a load of 50 cu ft (or 600 super feet) would be 2250 lbs, very close to an English or long ton of 2240 lbs. Since volume was a lot easier to measure than weight, it was a convenient means of calculating the cost of cartage.

The term ton derives from tun, the name of a large wine barrel that held 252 gallons (or two butts), weighing 2240 lbs and occupying a cargo space of 40 cu ft. Port dues were paid on the ship‟s cargo capacity or tunnage. This measure of volume became known as the cubic ton; and while it is obvious that every commodity will have a different weight:volume, the nearest thing to a standard cubic ton or measurement ton or

shipping ton is 40 cu ft. The British cubic ton started at 40 cu ft, but later became 50 cu ft. Despite the cubic ton being used for shipping purposes, it should not be confused with the register ton or potential carrying capacity of ships which is measured as 100 cu ft to the ton; nor indeed with displacement ton which is 35 cu ft, the volume of a ton of seawater; or even the Panama Canal ton or the Suez Canal ton. And, in case you ever need to know, the ton is also equivalent to 0.55 piled cubic fathoms of wood.

The first export of sawn timber from WA in 1836 was recorded as 200 loads and the load of 50 cu ft became the measure of sawn timber from at least that time.

But loads were also used to measure round timber and that‟s where it does become complicated.

Until 1921 round timber in WA was measured by the Quarter girth method. Although the method was already in common use, it was the method made popular by Edward Hoppus when he published, in 1736, Hoppus‟s Measurer, a book of tables to calculate the volume of sawn and hewn timber, logs, trees and even casks and stones. It seems that the principal purpose of the publication was to correct the error in a set of tables that had been published by a Mr Keay in which he asserted that the squared equivalent of a piece of timber 18 in x 6 in was 12 in x 12 instead of 10½ in x 10½.

In the Quarter girth (or girt) method the volume of a log is

calculated by squaring a quarter of the centre girth of a log and multiplying by its length

OR Vol (cu ft) =

Hoppus or Quarter girth volume is therefore 78.5% of „true‟ volume. It is not, as often assumed, the volume of the squared log which would be 63.6% of true volume.

In the days before measuring tapes the girth was measured with a string, doubled twice and then its length measured with a ruler to give „quarter girth‟.

A testimonial in his tables explains the reason for the method.

“The Content exhibited by the Girt is most just, giving near a

Medium in Content or Quantity between the Extremes of the Measuring by the Geometrical Way, and by the Square within (both which Ways are some cases liable to Objection) and is certainly the most equitable Way of measuring, between the Buyer and Seller; and therefore Tables were, with just reason, more particularly adapted , and the Rules given for that Way of Mensuration, which hath obtained to be a reasonable and customary Method.”

Despite the fact that the Quarter girth method gave only a rough approximation of volume, Hoppus‟s Measurer went to extreme lengths of accuracy, converting quarter girth in inches and length in feet to volume in cubic feet, inches and „parts‟ (a „part‟ is a 12th of an inch).

It is sometimes suggested that the quarter girth method was used as simple method for an uneducated woodsman to calculate volume, but a glance at the formula would quickly dispel that idea. However as early as 1677 Henry Coggeshall had built a slide rule to give volume based on the quarter girth method and which could also calculate True volume. Several updates were released (included a 12 inch bi-fold rule) and it is unclear why Hoppus‟s rather unwieldy tables became popular in preference to the slide rule. Other slide rules existed to calculate the cost of transporting a load of timber.

Hoppus suggested that standing tree volume could be determined by using a ladder to reach centre girth and then applying the same centre girth system.

The Hoppus method (alias Hoppus string measure, Liverpool string measure, British measure, Quarter girth formula, Square of quarter girth formula, Burton‟s scale, Dabell‟s rule and the Ferguson rule) became the standard throughout the British Empire, Asia and Africa and also in France where the metric version was known as the Francon system. (There are or were some 130 log measuring rules used around the world, 95 of them in the US and Canada).

Under Hoppus‟s rule there were therefore

50 cu ft (~ 1 ton) of sawn or hewn timber to the load, or

40 cu ft (~ 1 ton) of round logs to the load.

For reasons unknown, 50 cu ft to the load was used for both sawn and round timber in WA, and measured green it weighed not 1 ton, but close to 1.7 tons per load of sawn timber or 2.2

tons per Hoppus load of logs.

But it doesn‟t stop there.

In WA, until 1921, Hoppus measure was used for all log measurements, allowance being made for bark by reducing the girth by 1 inch for every foot of girth to a maximum of 8 inches and the volume calculated from a book of tables. I was recently given a copy of Hoppus‟s Measurer, an 1860s edition used by Forest Ranger Sharp, from Collie, probably in the 1920s.

In 1921, at Conservator Lane-Poole‟s insistence and with strong opposition from the timber industry, the Forest Regulations were changed to require royalty to be paid on the basis of true



volume (alias Solid volume or Full volume), and all Forests

Department volumes were quoted in true volume from then on. But the timber industry did not change. I had first hand experience of that. My first school holiday job was as relieving timber clerk at Jarrahwood mill. Each day I would get the mill landing book and calculate the Hoppus volume of each log and use that to work out each faller‟s pay according to the brand (ERD and D7F if I recall correctly); then calculate the recovery of sawn timber, which had first been calculated in super feet, to be phoned through to Millars‟ Head Office in Perth. I would then repeat the process, this time calculating each log volume in True volume and at the end of the month submit a return to the Forests Department showing the log intake and the sawn recovery against True volume. The timber industry tried to pressure the Forests Department to change back to Hoppus in

1930 but failed. But the industry persisted with Hoppus and the dual system continued until metrication.

While not used in WA, a version of the quarter girth method, known as the Burt‟s Quarter Girth Formula or the Customs Measurement or the British Customs String Measure was also used to calculate the True volume using the following formula:

Vol (cu ft) =

Another approximation of True volume could be made by the Hutton method and advocated by Lane-Poole using the formula:

Vol (cu ft) = x 2

While this method had an error of only 0.5% it was not as easy to fold a piece of string into five as it was into four. When measuring tapes arrived, this was overcome by making tapes with both 4 and 5 inch graduations – the forerunner of the diameter tape.

The 1860 version of Hoppus‟s Measurer includes a new table from which to calculate True volume. This table gives the side of a square equal in area to the circle of a given girth. This „side of the square‟ is then used in the original table along with the length, this time to determine the true volume.

Anything, it seems, to avoid the use of π.

The first tree volume table to be used in WA, based on girth at breast height and bole height, was developed in 1927 though by then many thousands of acres of forest had been inventoried

using estimates of tree volume in Hoppus and True volume loads. Ironically if girth is measured at breast height, the quarter girth method gives a pretty good approximation of true volume of a standing tree assuming a form factor of 0.78.

Loads had advantages. It was a lot easier to enter 50 lds/ac in a field book than 23,500 su.ft/ac (Hoppus that is) and small numbers were much easier to deal with before the days of calculators.

In 1974 the metric system arrived in the timber industry and loads and Hoppus were seen no more. Diameter replaced girth as the standard measure. When weighbridges were installed to

weigh chiplogs, weighing of sawlogs followed - to be converted back to true volume for royalty and regulation.

All this is happily no longer relevant – except to the historian delving into the records. Few records indicate whether the loads were Hoppus or True volume and context is all-important. Industry records will invariably be in Hoppus measure but Departmental records could be either – Hoppus before 1921, True volume after that, with nothing to suggest a change other than a small paragraph in the annual report – and an apparent reduction in sawmill recovery. Have subsequent data summaries been corrected to the same units? Who knows - best to check the original source.

So why was WA the only state to use loads? I‟ve got no idea.

Jack Bradshaw [email protected]


A quarter girth log volume slide rule. In this case the length (10 ft) is set against 12 on the bottom scale. Then read off the volume (6.93

cu. ft Hoppus) against the quarter girth (10 in). The rule can also be used for squared timber, replacing the quarter girth with the squared

size.

IFA member Courtney Johnson, recipient of the Alan R

Henderson Grant which provides $1,000 towards professional

development activities or resources, participated in the Forest,

Carbon and Climate Change course held earlier this year and

comments on her experience during the two week course:

‘The Forest, Carbon and Climate Change course is a two

week intensive postgraduate subject held at Melbourne

University Creswick Campus in June/July each year. I

enrolled through the Community Access Program (CAP)

rather than as part of a Masters Program and received IFA

funding through the Alan R Henderson grant.

I found the course very interesting, primarily for the up to

date subject matter which was delivered well, but also

because I had just spent the last 9 months on maternity

leave and relished using my brain again. The first week was

spent reviewing the science and included overviews of the

latest thinking on climate change estimates, impacts of

climate change on forest ecosystems and the role of trees

in the global carbon cycle. The second week gave context

to the science by focusing on the different forest policy

initiatives to mitigate climate change. The Reduced

Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) pilot

projects, and the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) discussions

were the most thought provoking. This course only covered

carbon accounting techniques and developing carbon

project methodologies superficially. Given the emerging

nature of the discipline this is understandable, and I would

expect the course to continue to evolve and improve.

I would highly recommend this course to forest scientists

looking to review and update their knowledge in this

subject. I would like to thank the IFA for supporting me in

this development opportunity.’

Applications for the next Henderson Grant open July 2012.

AR Henderson Grant recipient update


If you are not receiving

your Email Bulletin

contact the IFA

National Office today.

[email protected]

Employers Notice Board - 25 job vacancies circulated to IFA members

Forestry Scholarship recipients announced

Australian Forest & Wood Statistics Asia-Pacific Forestry Week blog

New Master of Agriculture - University of

Sydney

Tasmanian Contractors Voluntary Exit Grants

Benefits of adaptive management and

synthesis of biodiversity

IFA Submission on Renewal Energy Target Regulations

Science and Innovation awards

IFA 2013 conference ‘Managing our forests’

Approaches to classifying and restoring

degraded tropical forests

Forestry didn’t get it all wrong article

Summary of IFA

Email Bulletins

African Mahogany (Khaya senegalensis) is a high value timber species that has shown great potential in the seasonally dry tropics. A forum was held in Darwin in late August 2011 that brought together researchers, policy makers and industry experts to share the recent advances in knowledge about growing Mahogany in northern Australia.

The forum was jointly organised by IFA members Geoff Dickinson and Alex Lindsay, along with NT Government Forestry Researcher Don Reilly. Smaller workshops were held in North Queensland in

2004 (Mareeba) and 2006 (Townsville), but since 2006 the focus of the industry has moved to the Douglas-Day region south of Darwin, where over 10, 000 hectares of plantations have been established over the past five years.

Great inroads have been made in identifying superior provenances and clones, and establishing local seed orchards to replace previous supplies of inbred and wild seed. Molecular studies have been undertaken which revealed geographically-related genetic divergence. Wood properties such as heartwood percentage were also found to vary between families. Perhaps most exciting of all, pollination methods have been developed to allow controlled crossing of Mahogany parents for the first time.

The optimism surrounding Mahogany plantations in Australia

contrasts with the situation in Africa, where population pressure has lead to localised extinction and resource loss. Veteran forester Ray Fremlin told the forum that Australia, as the world leader in Khaya research, had the opportunity and indeed responsibility to help African nations to conserve the gene pool of Mahogany ex situ. Ray's concept of planting conservation stands in Australia was endorsed by the forum members - perhaps the IFA could take up the call, and lobby Government to support this visionary initiative.

Keynote Speaker Garth Nikles has guided the mahogany breeding research efforts over the past decade, and called on all parties to work collaboratively into the future. One of the highlights of the forum was the presentation of an award to Garth, acknowledging his services to the African Mahogany industry in North Australia, by the Hon. Kon Vatskalis MLA, Northern Territory Minister for Primary Industries.

A collection of abstracts from each presentation has been published electronically, and can be found by searching the DEEDI (Qld Government) website for Darwin 2011 - African Mahogany Plantation Industry Forum.

African Mahogany forum

Dr. Garth Nikles was presented with a mahogany clock "in recognition for his services to the African Mahogany industry in North Australia". He is pictured here with forum organisers Don Reilly (left) and Geoff Dickinson (Photo: John Halkett)


Role of Hugh Corbin

in Australian and New Zealand

Forestry 1912-1950

By Michael Roche

You are re

ading a

Max Jacobs Gra

nt

recipient r

eport

Preliminary Assessment of Corbin‟s Role in

Australian forestry

Hugh Corbin was an important, but now little-known figure at the start of forestry education in Australia and New Zealand. He was the main lecturer when forestry was taught for thirteen years in the University of Adelaide, before the Australian Forestry School was established. I had researched his career in New Zealand and the award of a Maxwell Jacobs Grant enabled me to spend the period 6-13 February 2011 in Adelaide in order to source records of his Australian career. While in the city, I was able to examine materials held in the State Library, in the State Records, in the Special Collections Room of the Barr Smith Library at the University of Adelaide, as well as in the University of Adelaide archives. I had been able to make prior arrangements with the University of Adelaide archivist and librarians to see some of these items and can report that I was provided with all the materials sought and given access to excellent working space.

The University archives yielded a considerable amount of material relating to Corbin‟s work as Lecturer in Forestry from 1912 to 1925 particularly pertaining to the establishment of the school. A number of scarce pamphlets and other articles by Corbin that argued the case for state forestry were located in the University library and the State Library. They give some sense of the efforts Corbin made to persuade the wider public of the merits of forestry. I was also able to examine a copy of Corbin‟s working plan for Kuitpo forest, reputedly the first of its type in Australia.

Finally, State Records yielded an unexpected trove

of material that threw light on Corbin‟s working

relationship with the S.A. Woods and Forests

Department in addition to copies of some of his

unpublished reports, for example on Kangaroo

Island. I was also able to visit the Adelaide

Botanical Gardens. At one stage Corbin‟s name was

put forward in the press for the vacant directorship which it was

proposed would be held in conjunction with his university

position.

Archival work is unpredictable in its returns, but in this instance

there was a rich vein of material not only about Corbin but about

his relationship with other prominent figures in Australian

forestry pre-world War I to the mid-1920s, about some of the

professional challenges he faced, particularly the establishment

of an Australian Forestry School. While the Federal perspective

for a single school has been canvassed from Lane Poole‟s

perspective in John Dargavel‟s (2009) Zealous Conservator, Corbin‟s Forestry department at the University of Adelaide was

the only already established university degree forestry course in

Australia. He was ultimately on the losing side in this argument

that stretched from about 1911 to 1925.

Some specific points emerged from the research. Corbin came to

Australia because it enabled him to marry and live with his wife, whereas that was not practical while he was in India (shades of Lane Poole who was in Sierra Leone while his wife Ruth was in the UK). Unlike Lane Poole, however, Corbin was not one of the imperial forestry cadres of Nancy and Oxford forestry graduates, his own qualifications including a B.Sc. in natural sciences from London (1904) and a BSc in Agriculture specialising in Forestry from Edinburgh (1906). His career though followed a typical trajectory in terms of completing the forestry practical work for the India Forest Service in German forests and employment in India (albeit principally in agriculture rather than forestry) prior to his arrival in Australia.

He initially wrote to South Australia, and doubtless other places, but the Woods and Forests Department at that point had no vacancies and it was only after N.W. Jolly who had only been appointed on 1st October 1910, left the Department on 20th August 1911 to take up the position of Director of Forestry in Queensland, that Corbin was employed as his replacement as Instructor in Forestry. His appointment dated from 8 September and he arrived from the UK on 14th October 1911 shifting to the

University as Lecturer in Forestry in 1912. Thus although the initial work on the forestry syllabus was developed by Jolly, it was left to Corbin to refine the plans and have them approved by the university council.

As a university trained forester, Corbin experienced to some degree the tensions that arose between university qualified foresters and forestry administrators who were experienced public servants but without formal forestry qualifications. Lane Poole reacted stridently; Owen Jones in Victoria was more circumspect, at least while he was part of the Victorian Forestry Commission, while Corbin found himself in a different

situation. On the one hand he was frustrated that Walter Gill, long time head of Woods and Forests, did not make more use of his technical advice and it took much time and effort to have the management of the Kuitpo forest wrested away from Woods and Forests and turned over to Corbin and the university. On the other hand Corbin was obliged to defend the Adelaide forestry graduates against Lane Poole‟s labelling of all Australian forestry training as inadequate. He also encountered a probably unexpected challenge to the need for university qualified foresters from none other than his predecessor as Instructor in Forestry N.W. Jolly a South Australian former Rhodes Scholar who had completed a forestry diploma at Oxford and worked briefly in Burma before returning to Australia. Yet although the numbers of graduates from Adelaide forestry was low, Corbin did turn out some students who enjoyed a distinguished place in Australian forestry for instance Steven Kessell and T.N. Stoate in Western Australia, and B. Bednall in South Australia.

As a university trained forester, Corbin

experienced to some degree the tensions that arose between university

qualified foresters and forestry administrators who were experienced

public servants but without formal forestry

qualifications.


The question of university forestry education in Australia had been raised at Interstate Forestry conferences as early as 1911. Arguments over funding models meant that the idea

languished but it appears that Corbin had some expectations that the established Adelaide school would be in a position to take students from outside South Australia and become a de facto national school.

Simultaneously Corbin was exceedingly busy with much out-of-term time being given over to field camps for his students and consulting work for Woods and Forests. In addition there was the personal frustration of having the university council turn down his request to be promoted to Professor of Forestry. That the University of Adelaide was quick to bestow the title on N.W. Jolly who returned temporarily to head the Australian Forestry School when it was based at Adelaide after Corbin‟s department was disestablished and prior to its move to Canberra could have not escaped Corbin‟s attention. Doubtless some University of Adelaide administrators would have hoped that they could play a waiting game and make the „temporary stay‟ of the Australian Forestry School in Adelaide more long term. Corbin might have once harboured hopes of becoming head of any new Australia wide school that might emerge separate from Adelaide, but in the light of his disputes with Lane Poole may have felt his chances of appointment were slight. In any event it helps explain the next stage of his career.

In 1925 he had accepted the position of Professor of Forestry at Auckland University College. He confided to New Zealand Director of Forests L.M. Ellis in 1924 that was ready to leave South Australia because of the battles over the Australian Forestry School. Indeed he had unsuccessfully applied for a position at the Imperial Forestry Institute at Oxford in 1924. Despite his frustrations Corbin did not turn his back on South Australia, after his appointment to Auckland he made arrangements to complete the final examination of his last students from New Zealand and went to some lengths to ensure that Kuitpo forest remained under the management of a university forestry committee. In this latter case he was unsuccessful and management of the forest reverted to the Woods and Forests Department.

Ellis the Canadian Director of Forests in New Zealand, and a Toronto forestry graduate, was asked by Auckland University to help short list the candidates who included some of his own staff. Owen Jones, then having left the Victorian Forestry Commission for the position of Forestry Administrator with New Zealand Perpetual Forests did not finally put his name forward, at least partly because of the College‟s restrictive attitude to outside consultancy work. It appears that Ellis favoured his Chief Inspector, Arnold Hansson who had Forestry qualifications from Norway and Yale University and had Canadian experience. This left a paper trail in the files that were picked up in the official history of the University of Auckland and which portrayed Corbin in an unfairly negative light as someone who had been holding back the progress of Australian forestry education and was now likely to do the same in New Zealand.

What Corbin was not to realise was that he was actually moving

to a more perilous situation with the huge provincial jealousies inherent in the federal University of New Zealand system with its several constituent colleges. When after long debate no resolution could be reached on a single site for a forestry school, two under resourced forestry schools were created, at Auckland and Canterbury in 1925.

Corbin held the Professorship at Auckland but had no staff (as at Adelaide), while two forestry lecturers (Foweraker and Hutchinson) were appointed at Canterbury but no chair. In 1931 the two departments were consolidated at Canterbury. Corbin expected to be transferred to Christchurch but his position was disestablished and he was forced at 52 years of age to make a

new career for himself as a forestry consultant. Fortunately, he had done some consulting work since he arrived in New Zealand, though this was a reluctant concession, with strict conditions imposed by the council of Auckland University College and also attracted criticism from the New Zealand State Forest Service.

Initially he provided advice to bond selling afforestation companies such as New Zealand Perpetual Forests (the forerunner of New Zealand Forest Products). The State Forest Service was concerned about the forest growth rates and financial returns that companies were advertising and that Corbin was apparently endorsing some of these claims. Ultimately he became Technical Director and then a full Director

of Timberland in New Zealand Ltd which later as Whakatane Board Mills by 1939 was producing wood pulp from its own plantation forests. Corbin made light of his difficulties in New Zealand when he gave evidence before the Royal Commission on Afforestation in South Australia in 1936, but the years from 1931 to 1934 must have been one of financial uncertainty. His letter head in 1932 lists him as a „Consulting Forester, Forest Economist, Agronomist, and Landscape Architect‟ suggesting he was prepared to turn his hand to a range of tasks to make ends meet.

Arguably Corbin‟s career in University forestry was more successful in Australia than New Zealand, certainly it lasted longer, though ironically the sought-after chair actually spelt an

end to his time in forestry education. The question of whether the exhilaration of getting the Adelaide school on its feet and of the possibilities that it might become a school for all Australia needs to be weighed against the later frustrations. He remained known as „Professor Corbin‟ in New Zealand until his death and long after his connection with the university was severed.

I had some previous knowledge of Corbin‟s role in New Zealand as Professor of Forestry and as a director at Whakatane Board Mills and had accepted the local historical interpretation that painted his time in Australia in terms of failure and suggested that he was unsuited the requirements of the forestry education



in New Zealand. John Dargavel, then close to finishing his

Lane Poole biography contested my comments at an Australian Forest History Society Conference and this triggered my interest in finding out more about Corbin‟s Australian forestry career. Although I will need to carefully and critically weigh the evidence that I had collected in Adelaide, the preliminary conclusions point to Corbin comparatively lengthy period as Lecturer in Forestry at Adelaide being in some ways quite productive; to his having made strenuous efforts to make the case for forestry and its financial sense to the public and various industry groups. He also played an important role in terms of bringing together statistical information for early interstate forestry conferences as well as discussing the future of forestry in Australia.

My impression is that the Australian Forestry School at Canberra has received due historical attention, but that this has had the unintended effect of overshadowing the prior existence of forestry at the University of Adelaide and its contribution, a simple metric makes the point; the Australian Forestry School remained for 39 years from 1926 to 1965 but the overlooked Adelaide school preceded it and existed for 13 years from 1912 to 1925.

A question that remains to be explored further is the extent to which Corbin‟s Australian experience equipped him for his role in commercial afforestation in New Zealand. Potentially it is significant in that Corbin was able to gain some direct experience of mature Pinus radiata plantations which must have enabled him to sense the real possibilities for company forestry in New Zealand, something the promoters did not really have. His experiments with timber preservation also alerted him to the wider range of end uses for Pinus radiata that were then commonly recognised. Likewise Australia‟s early investigations into wood pulping would also have given him added confidence to push ahead with the planning for pulpwood manufacture of Pinus radiata in New Zealand.

Michael Roche - [email protected] School of People Environment and Planning Massey University Palmerston North NEW ZEALAND

The full version of this report including a list of selected Hugh Corbin publications and a timeline of

key events in Hugh Corbins career can be downloaded from the IFA website:

www.forestry.org.au

Books, magazines etc. on Australian Forests

and Forestry. Anything at all printed in the

past 200 years will be considered.

Sought after authors on the subject are:

E.H.F. Swain, Baker and Smith, J.H. Maiden,

Ferdinand Vauer etc.

Please phone me, Doug Marsden on (02)

6667 3315 anytime but early or late is best.

Dear fellow IFA members,

The contribution of Australian foresters to

the management of PNG’s forests is well

recognised and this contribution continues

via a range of initiative were we get the

opportunity to work with PNG foresters on a

range projects. I am currently fortunate

enough to be part of this process and

tradition.

In the natural cycle of careers and lodgings

there may come a time when well used

reference materials needs to find a new

home. I would be very interested to make

contact with foresters who have reference

material on PNG forestry which I can make

use of to help in the process of having

science underpin our tasks with our PNG

colleagues.

Feel free to contact me on (03) 5622 2674

Braden Jenkin

Sylva Systems Pty Ltd


Order form on

back page

Order before

the holidays! RPF


ForestLinks

J. Doland Nichols Associate Professor in Sustainable Forestry

School of Environmental Science and Management Southern Cross University Lismore, NSW 2480 Ph: (02) 6620 3492 Fax: (02) 6621 2669 E-mail: [email protected]

Sione Lafo‟ou and Therese Moffat both studied Forest Science and Management at Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW and hold a Bachelor of Applied Science (Forestry Degree). Both Sione and Therese have continued to work locally in the region and have built on their academic achievements with years of practical experience. Today they are both working on a project called ForestLinks. ForestLinks is a project funded by the Caring for Country Program (C4C) and delivered by the Subtropical Farm Forestry Association. The project aims to enhance landscape conservation values through farm forestry within the northern rivers region of NSW. More information on the project is available on the following site: http://forestlinkssffa.blog.com/about/

Before becoming involved with the ForestLinks project Sione had ten years of practical experience dealing with a wide range of natural resources management issues. Previously employed as a Project Manager by Forest Enterprises Australia Ltd he attained extensive experience

in planning and management of projects from inception to completion. Sione managed the establishment and the on-going maintenance of large scale commercial native hardwood plantations across NSW.

Therese also worked for Forest Enterprises over a five year period as a GIS mapper, land acquisition forester, and a resource assessment officer. Therese‟s experience with FEA covered GIS property planning and evaluation maps for the establishment of hardwood plantations, and conducted site suitability assessments. Therese also had to frequently communicate and consult with landholders and other stakeholders to acquire suitable properties for lease or purchase. Expanding on this experience Therese then

had the opportunity to work with the Resource Department

within FEA for the assessment and collection of data of FEA‟s native forest and plantation estate within NSW and South East Queensland.

Wally Habchi has long worked in forestry in the Northern Rivers area, before doing his BSc in forestry at SCU and afterwards with FEA and now as company forester with the producer of high-value flooring and other products, Hurford Hardwood.

New opportunities for forestry graduates

Recent forestry graduates may find long-term jobs with state (public) forest agencies but at the present time there are many other kinds of work for graduates. And these

positions do not always have a primary emphasis on timber production.

The Caring for Our Country project of the Subtropical Farm Forestry Association is using the latest “social” technologies, including a blog on the main website and a 10-minute youtube video from the inaugural workshop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfyPgHycbkQ

Wally Habchi, Company Forester with Hurford Hardwood Sione Lafoou and Therese Moffat, both officers with Caring for Our Country Forest Links project of the Subtropical Farm Forestry Association. All graduates of the sustainable forestry program at

Southern Cross University.

http://forestlinkssffa.blog.com/about/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfyPgHycbkQ


IFA remembers

Deirdre Kaye Maher 20 June 1967 - 13 August 2011

Friends and colleagues of Forest Scientist, Deirdre Kaye Maher, who recently passed away after a short illness, have paid tribute to her professionalism, her love for the forest and her ability to gain respect from all those she came in contact with. Deirdre graduated from Melbourne University with a

Bachelor of Forest Science with Honours in 1990 and returned to Western Australia to start her working life in which she demonstrated her passion for the environment and in particular the forests of the south-west.

Deirdre‟s career with CALM, later the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC), began in 1990 as a junior officer at Manjimup at a time when women were a rarity in forestry, and District field operations in particular. Deirdre soon became familiar with what was required and quickly gained the respect of contractors and crews. by never trying to be “one of the boys”, but by being proud to be a woman in a predominantly

male workplace.

She soon gained a reputation for not backing down when she knew she was right. Early in her career an irate log loader operator objected to being told by Deirdre to send a particular log to the sawmill. Despite the loader driver‟s response of “no bloody woman is going to tell me what to do”, Deirdre stood her ground and the log was soon on its way to the sawmill. This was vintage Deirdre and from that point on she gained new found respect from the “boys” in the bush.

It was during these years that Deirdre developed her love of silviculture, (the science, cultivation and management of forest trees and their reaction to disturbance over time.), especially the

intricacy of jarrah forest management. In 2007 Deirdre was appointed Senior Silviculturist with DEC and worked out of Bunbury Office for the last 3 1/2 years. Her experience and attention to detail earned her great respect and staff soon found out that work completed to Deirdre‟s satisfaction would stand up to any scrutiny inside or outside the Department.

In addition to her silvicultural role Deirdre had a responsibility for mentoring younger women in the agency. This was a role she enjoyed and undertook with enthusiasm. Several women (and men) remember her contributions to their career and the great example of the professional rigour she applied to her own work. These are some of the tributes from her colleagues………

Deirdre was both a mentor and a friend. I am ever thankful and grateful for her words of advice and willingness to help. She was a beautiful, giving and determined person who stood up for what she believed in. I know we have all gained, and will continue to benefit, from her passion for the forests and for those she cared about..

Deirdre‟s approach to her work was meticulous, conscientious and dedicated. There was no getting it “95%” correct, it had to be “100%” correct and the reasoning behind the decisions she made had to be fully researched and understood.

I will cherish my memory of sitting on a log in the bush at lunchtime during a training session with Deirdre. Having the

rare but enjoyable opportunity to briefly switch mind-sets and conversation, from forester to mother, from crop tree protection to pre-school separation anxiety. Deirdre was another soul who knew about both!

Deidre was much loved by her husband Tony and their children Leah and Michael. She left us far too young, with so much more to contribute to the science of forest silviculture, a knowledge and skill that will become increasingly important for sound management of the forests of the south-west Western Australia in the face of changes in climate and community expectations.

(Bob Hagan)

Ronald Francis Hateley 20 February 1948 – 24 August 2011

Unassuming Ron Hateley, a gifted ecologist and inspirational communicator, died recently, almost a year after publication of his life‟s work, The Victorian Bush – its „original and natural‟ condition.

Ron grew up in tiny Kiata, a pub and

some houses on the Western

Highway, but with the Little Desert as

his backyard. Inspired by his park

ranger father Keith Hateley OAM, an

accomplished naturalist and anthropologist, the shy, easy-going

seventeen-year-old left home in 1966 for the Victorian School of

Forestry (VSF), unaware that its Creswick campus would play a

big part in his life.

After diploma studies – he was dux – and a Bachelor of Science

in Forestry at Melbourne University, he started post-graduate

work in quantitative ecology. In 1976, he began lecturing in

botany and ecology at the VSF, at the time still run by the

Forests Commission Victoria. The extraordinarily informative

notes on Australian forest types he distributed differed markedly

from the traditional teaching of his own VSF student days, when

lectures more or less meant dictation, and the set-in-stone

course reflected European environments.

By then he had married Margaret Gorman, a midwife from Casterton. In 1978 Ron and Margaret moved to Clunes, and quickly integrated into the community, making many loyal friends. Renovating their old cottage and enhancing its substantial grounds became their passion. Ron‟s cottage garden was outstanding, with salvaged basalt and bricks used creatively

amongst heritage trees, shrubs and herbs.

His children did the lifting for these projects because, in the late 1970s, a spinal injury caused by a fall from a bridge at St Georges Lake a decade earlier inevitably caught up with Ron. In his thirties, Ron faced premature retirement. Fortunately things worked out less direly and Ron returned, albeit with increasing pain, to lecturing at Creswick, which became part of the University of Melbourne in 1980. However, his injury deteriorated further and was chronic over the last decade or so. Happily, Clunes proved a very caring community, which Ron loved unconditionally, with its friendships, book festival, bocce games, coffee shops, nearby bush and wetlands, squatting history,


volunteer medical support and proximity to Creswick campus and its library and faculty. His prized sports car took him on afternoon rural drives.

A gifted communicator, winner of two university awards for teaching excellence, Ron‟s trade would always be lecturing. A short conversation sufficed to demonstrate his knowledge, enthusiasm and ability to get his message across on any subject. His approach was to stimulate and motivate students, to generate a desire to learn rather than merely convey information. He always respected their views, thereby winning great affection and respect. Over thirty years he trained

hundreds of students now working throughout Australian forestry and other arenas, and overseas, who often attest that Ron was the initial inspiration in their careers. Ron gained great pleasure from the many who stayed in touch.

Community environmental groups often approached Ron for advice. His great generosity in this regard earned him a joint Victorian Community and Local History Award in 1999, the latter for his work in developing Creswick‟s La Gerche Walking Track, commemorating a pioneer forester of the late 1800s.

Ron sought to better understand the complexities of interacting ecological factors over time, along the way developing high-quality teaching material and aids, as well as his own ideas about the influences of natural events and human activity on our forests. Much of Ron‟s work was very advanced and should have been made more broadly available. Ironically, whilst Ron was a generous judge of others, and especially his students, he was a most severe critic of his own work. He would decline publication or wider offerings of his work because of his unfounded view that it was not of deserving standard. His doctoral thesis in the 1970s went the same way.

Fortunately in 2010, The Victorian Bush emerged, possibly his greatest professional highlight. A mountain of work underpinned the book, but how would it be published? In this Ron was indebted to the late Alf Leslie who provided years of intellectual rigour, and to Rob Youl, a forestry colleague who privately

published the book. At the same time, Ron, Rob, and Ron‟s great friend and fellow-lecturer, Brian Fry, were working on a history of forestry education in Victoria, published last year, the centenary of the VSF, as Circumspice.

The Victorian Bush represents Ron‟s views on the factors affecting our landscapes before European settlement: drought, fire, wind, snow, ice, hail, frost and Aboriginal practices, with additional less widely recognised factors since then. Whilst the book is non-technical and reader-friendly, it also challenges conventional wisdom. Of course, in Ron‟s fashion, these challenges are based on scientific evidence and painstaking searches through the logs, journals, reports and diaries of early navigators, travellers, settlers and miners. In the months after

the book appeared, and the long drought broke, Creswick Creek flooded Clunes with a vengeance, more than once. Ron realised that he had overlooked occasional major flooding and its effect on riparian vegetation, streambed profiles and the northern plains in general, and had started on a second edition.

Ron leaves behind three children, Andrew, Rebecca and James, and a younger sister Rhonda and her family. Margaret Hateley sadly passed away in 2002.

(Rob Youl and David Williams are forestry colleagues of Ron Hateley.)

John Edward Nayler SMITH (JENS) 14 May 1937 – 30 August 2011

Forestry is the poorer for the passing of John Smith, Fellow of the IFA, a very professional forester and a gentleman in the best sense of the word.

John was born in Lancashire, England, moving with his family to Australia in 1955. He had finished schooling and decided on a forestry career before the move and started his forestry training in Sydney as a Territory of Papua and New Guinea (TPNG) cadet in 1956. After two years at Sydney University, a field year in PNG and two years at the AFS in Canberra he started his PNG career in 1961. University contemporary Brian Furrer (FCNSW) recalls a good and serious student. John‟s marriage to Marie, a friend of Brian‟s wife, Barbara, in 1962 cemented a friendship and extended the traditional pairing of Canberra foresters with Canberra nurses.

The next fifteen years saw John based consecutively in Keravat, Wewak, Bulolo, Mt Hagen (Regional Forester - Highlands) and Bulolo again, with a year in Armidale (NSW; 1973) to secure one of UNE‟s earliest Master of Natural Resources degrees. A constant theme was plantation forestry, in particular tropical pines. Those were formative years for PNG‟s plantation program and today‟s plantation estate and traditions there reflect in significant part John‟s contribution.

John left PNG with Marie and their three children in 1976 for a position with the South Australian Parks Service but in 1978 moved to Tasmania to become Forest Planning Superintendent with APPM Forest Products in the Launceston area. Evan Shield (also ex PNG) recruited him to the company and recalls as an important attraction his silvicultural experience and interest.

John worked for APPM (later North Forest Products and Gunns) till his retirement in 2000, and for some time thereafter as a

consultant. His work encompassed harvest planning and land management generally, but the interest in plantation forestry remained.

Perhaps John‟s outstanding contribution to Tasmanian forestry related to development of eucalypt plantation forestry in the state and engagement with the community by the profession and industry in some turbulent decades. He chaired the Tasmanian Division of the IFA in 1985-87, and was made a Fellow of the Institute in 1999. He also had a long association with Australian Forest Growers (previously AFDI) including as Chair of the Tasmanian Branch and National President (1998-99). He was active throughout in the talks, guided tours and projects which underpin good community engagement.

In retirement John remained active in forestry and church affairs, but also discovered an interest in and talent for water colour landscape painting. He coped stoically with chronic health problems for some twenty-six years and it was a complication arising from these that finally took him.

Marie passed away suddenly in 1995 and John married Helen in 1999. He is survived by Helen, children Eleanor, Gail and Ian (also an ANU forester), their spouses and nine grandchildren.

Vale John. You are remembered with affection and respect as a thorough professional and a very decent man.


1986- Brian Cumberland took over from Tim Anderson as the newsletter editor from vol 27, 2. This issue carried a quite detailed article co-authored by Brad Potts from the Botany Dept., University of Tasmania, titled “Artificial and natural hybridization of E. gunnii'. Brad was assisted to undertake collaborative research in France with Association forêt – cellulose (AFOCEL) by the inaugural M.R. Jacobs award.

Wilf Crane, on behalf of the IFA Innovative Projects Committee, wrote at length on progress with two Bicentennial projects – a

planting spade later known as the Sylvaspade, and the book 'Think Trees, Grow Trees'. In June 1986 half of the print run of 7,120 books had sold. Does anyone know of a stash of leftover books anywhere? If so perhaps they could be sold with other IFA merchandise from the Secretariat.

The affairs of the Victorian State Foresters Association (VSFA) were wound up as a consequence of the Victorian Forestry Commission being dissolved.

Two books of particular interest to foresters were reviewed in vol 27, 2 – 'Aerial Suppression of Bushfires: a cost-benefit study' by Loane & Gould, and 'Plantation Silviculture' by Ken Shepherd.

The SA branch got involved in selecting tree species for the Botanic Park Arboretum project on the slopes of Mt Gambier. Some thirty species from around the world that were to be planted are listed on p 10 of vol 27, 3.

If you are interested in big tree statistics, then read George Bauer's 'Large trees in NSW' article on pages 7-8 in vol 27, 4. This issue was the first to feature reasonably clear photographs, but, in my copy anyway, they were not part of the printed page but had to be pasted in!

In the next issue the editor got it right and four high quality black & white photos lent great impact to an article by Dick Pegg on the Dongmen project – People's Republic of China. The President, Gary Bacon and Council were kept busy enunciating IFA views on a range of forestry issues. A particularly lengthy exchange took place between the president and Phillip Toyne, Director of the Australian Conservation Foundation, on the subject of logging in the North Queensland rainforests (pages 14-17 of Vol 28, 1).

After Steven Midgely had addressed Institute and timber industry members on 23 March, 1987 on the role that Queensland foresters and the largely unused Gympie Training Institute might play in lifting forest productivity throughout the world, the report in the Gympie Times next day began “Queensland, and particularly Gympie, has made a significant contribution to an international wood shortage ...”. Oh dear, how disappointing!?

The editor of Vol 23, 3, Brian Cumberland, did the profession a great service by reproducing in full a paper by the Deputy Editor of the Launceston Examiner presented at a seminar arranged by the IFA and ANZAAS in July 1987. Rod Scott's 'The media and Political Forestry' was a hard-hitting criticism of foresters' silence in the face of increasingly vocal attacks on their management of forests, nicely delivered in short pithy sentences arranged in small, easily digested paragraphs. Chastened and better prepared for using the media today, all foresters would nevertheless benefit by hearing again those volleys of shots from someone in a position to know what makes the media and media watchers tick. I hope I might convince the current editor to reproduce Scott's fair but firm advice in this or a subsequent

issue of The Forester. A summary of what the other speakers at the seminar (Henry Nix, Barrie Pittock, Peter Attiwell, Jamie Fitzpatrick and Warren Hewertson) had to say is on pages 41-42. of that newsletter issue.

What a treat to read Wal

Gentle's 'Comment' at the front of vol 29, 2 of June 1988! There had been a procession of contributors bewailing forester's poor standing in the community. Wal exhorted us to read a 2500 year old text by Sun Zhou titled The Art of War for strategy to combat current 'ecotactics'. It is only a short piece but unfortunately too long to reproduce here. Have a look yourself! When Wal Gentle died in October 1989 the IFA, in conjunction with the University of Washington Foresters Alumni Association, set up a scholarship fund under the auspices of the Australian Academy of Science to commemorate his life and work. The scholarship was to support post-graduate research that would benefit Australian forestry. Neil Cowley was the first recipient, studying the growth of douglas fir for his Ph.D at the University of Washington; both the

second and the third scholarships were undertaken at Southern Cross University, the latter on eucalypt regrowth dieback (John Turner, pers.comm.).

A short feature article on forestry in Bhutan by David Gough is noteworthy in vol 29, 4. David was in this remote kingdom about the size of Tasmania to commission 4 timber seasoning kilns and train operators in their use. This December 1988 issue also carried the news that John Gray had been appointed to the post of part-time Executive Officer, and news of Andy Wood's death. The launch of the Sylvaspade continued: in NSW where the Hon. Nick Greiner used it to plant a Cook's Pine at the Royal Botanic Gardens; in Victoria where the Governor, Sir David McCaughey planted a yellow box; and in Queensland where the state Governor, Sir Walter Campell and the Queensland Premier, Hon Mike Ahearn were both presented with Sylvaspades.

The legendary Harry Luke was the sole NSW representative in a

party of Australian foresters on a visit to China in September

1988. In his article on the trip in vol 30, 1, Harry describes

himself as a 'sere and yellow remnant of the AFS class of 1930-

31' .The reader might have to look up 'sere': I had to. Note that

he must have been around 80 years old at the time he went on

the trip.

Reporting on results at the end of the first year of her work on

eco-physiology of river red gum with the assistance of the MR

Jacobs fund, Pauline Heinrich had found that aerenchyma tissue

formed between parenchyma cells in the cambium, stiffened by

sclereids, carries oxygen to the roots when they are flooded.

Reports of research supported by the fund are a regular feature

of newsletters.

By 1989 the Australian Tree Seed Centre had been operating for 25 years as a tree seed bank. In that time six million hectares of eucalypt plantations, half a million hectares each of Acacia and Casuarina species, and many other plantings of Hakea, Grevillea and Auracaria had been established in over 100 countries writes Steve Midgley in vol 30, 1, page 30. At that time 80 percent of the Centre's operating funds came from outside CSIRO – from FAO, AIDAB, ACIAR, bodies in Brazil, France, USA, Denmark,

From IFA Newsletters

1986 - 89


Canada, Sweden, Germany and a number of large international companies. With seed stock from 12,000 accessions encompassing almost 1000 species, the Centre housed the most

comprehensive publicly accessible collection of its type in the world. (Currently, the collection is housed in a brand new facility at the CSIRO Division of Plant Industry's Black Mountain Laboratories, Canberra The accent now is on collection from established seed orchards rather than from wild sources (Sara Whitfeld, pers. comm.))

The ANU's Centre for Rural Development published sixteen papers in the three years since its foundation in 1986. See list page 32.

A fax machine had been installed in the Institute's office by June 1989 as part of the new communications framework devised to better link Divisions and Branches and the Executive Officer and Business Manager. Deriving from EO John Gray's monthly reports to Council, a national bulletin consisting of a closely-typed folded A4 page was added to the newsletter to report on IFA activity at the national level. Based on my own holdings, these national bulletins continued to at least July, 1991 when Mike Koodiaroff was EO.

Les Carron's moving salute to Dora Riddle in vol 30, 2 will bring a tear to the eyes of the many AFS men who enjoyed her cooking and her bright, broad smile. Mrs Riddle was a friend of forestry students from 1947 till well into the 1960s.

The Eucalypt Song (with apologies to W S Gilbert), cleverly composed in September 1981 by Dr. R Sinclair of the Botany School, Adelaide University, during a field trip of the XIII

International Botanical Congress, is reproduced on the back cover of vol 30, 3. Meant to be sung to the tune of the Major-General's Song in the 'Pirates of Penzance', it is worthy of an award I reckon!

Rod Keenan of the Tasmanian Division of IFA spent nearly a year living with his family in northern Honshu some 200 km away from Tokyo where he was visiting researcher at the University of

Agriculture and Technology. In an article in vol 30, 4, pages 6-9 he gives us a quite detailed picture of the Japanese forestry industry in the late 1980s.

The inaugural world wildfire conference held in Boston, USA was attended by 14 Australians. Roger Underwood reports on pages 9-11.

From about 1986, many of the newsletters – still published quarterly – were very large. Some issues were 40-50 close-typed, relatively small font pages, with few illustrations, covering a bewildering array of topics, making combing through them, as I have been doing, pretty heavy going. However, they are a treasury of the activities of Council and the various branches as well as a vehicle for conference proceedings and resolutions, letters, articles and notices. Anyone researching aspects of forest practice in Australia and the policies that have determined how forests are managed should not overlook the quite detailed accounts of IFA action and reaction which have appeared in past IFA newsletters. I have not been able to do justice in these notes to the many pertinent and worthwhile contributions that make such interesting and informative reading. To take advantage of this resource, the newsletters need to be made searchable. It would be too big a task to do as Alan Brown did for the 33 issues from November 1951 to December 1961, viz. index subjects (in those days under the Oxford Decimal Classification for Forestry) as well as authors. His index formed an appendix to vol 2 no 13. However newsletters back to that issue could be electronically scanned for character recognition – not an impossibly big job.

Kim Wells [email protected]


Department of Forest and Ecosystem Science

Melbourne School of Land and Environment The University of Melbourne Water Street Creswick Victoria 3363

Phone: +61 3 5321 4300

Email: [email protected]

Web: http://www.forestscience.unimelb.edu.au

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that accounts for

approximately 20% of Australia‟s total annual greenhouse gas emissions. Methane uptake by soils is the most

important terrestrial sink but the capacity of soils to take up methane is not well understood. Methane can be taken out

of the atmosphere by soil bacteria (methanotrophs) in well aerated soils. These methanotroph bacteria can be found

throughout a soil profile but their community structure and functions are susceptible to disturbance, compaction and

waterlogging.

Recent findings by researchers at the University of Melbourne indicate that undisturbed forest soils in Australia

have the capacity to take up large amounts of methane and show remarkable resilience in comparison to soils in similar

ecosystems overseas. Researchers Dr Stefan Arndt and Dr Stephen Livesley from the Melbourne School of Land and

Environment at The University of Melbourne have been studying the greenhouse gas exchange of forest soils for the

last 7 years. Both researchers were recently awarded a new

three-year ARC Discovery project to study the methane uptake of forest soils and the main processes controlling

uptake.

In collaboration with Dr Joe von Fischer from Colorado State

University in the US the researchers will 1) provide long-

term methane flux measurements in a large range of forest

ecosystems in SE Australia, 2) provide a detailed process

understanding of the main factors influencing methane

uptake in Australian forest soils and 3) provide data for

process-based models that will allow to better estimate the

methane uptake capacity for Australian forest soils.

Luke Clay first pursued his interest in forests through his

undergraduate degree, completing a Bachelor of Forestry Science and Bachelor of Science double degree at the

University of Canterbury, NZ.

Luke applied for the Masters program after a gentle push

from his then managing director, as a way to extend his knowledge and take the next step in his career. Commencing

in the Master of Forest Ecosystem Science in 2009, Luke has found the South East Asian study tour „Forests in the Asia

Pacific Region‟ to be a highlight of his MFES experience and

believes it is „one of the best professional development courses that anyone could take‟.

„When I started the course I was hoping that it may lead to bigger and better things. I never realised it would give me

the tools I needed to work in a developing country

supervising 500 staff in Cambodia‟ says Luke. The two weeks study tour gave Luke a brief introduction into forestry within

the region, this combined with his studies in Project Management and the re-enforcement of the critical thinking

skills from his undergraduate days allowed him to secure a job in Cambodia.

„I have made so many new friends and professional

contacts through the past two

years, that I will now have for life‟.

Forest soils can reduce the greenhouse gas methane

Master of Forest Ecosystem Science Student Profile - Luke Clay


Lessons Not Learned at University #5

When is the Allowable Cut not simply area times yield?

The Consultant was on a United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) mission to the Sundarbans in Bangladesh, that magnificent mangrove forest at the head of the Bay of Bengal. The area is about 300 x 100 km, with the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers flowing through the delta to the sea. The khals or rivers and creeks have

steep banks of deep mud and saucer‑shaped areas between the banks are inundated at high tide. The mangrove forest is quite productive. Sundri is cut for sawlogs and Gewa for small sawlogs and as furnish for a masonite style hardboard. The Sundri trees can be up to 25 m high and 50 cm in diameter. It is not nice forest to work in as the only access is by boat, and climbing from a boat into the forest up the slippery silt banks can be challenging at low tide. At high tide it is almost impossible to walk through the forest‟s pneumatophores.

The forest has a superb in-built protection system. This is the Royal Bengal Tiger. The forest needs protection as there are about 4 million people living within 10 km of its northern boundary, and they would plunder its resources if these were not under the care of one of the world‟s most beautiful, but most savage, Big Cats.

A quick look using Google Earth1 shows

clearly the extent of the Sundarbans forest and the stark boundary between the forest and the farmed, inhabited land. Workers in the forest retire to boats at night.

The forest management project had some estimates of growth rates to start with, and The Consultant remeasured some plots to see how good these estimates were. They were not good but they were as good as could be obtained. And, importantly, they seemed to be unbiased.

Aerial photography had shown that the

area of forest had been constant for many years. The calculation of the annual allowable cut had historically been based on multiplying the average increment for a forest class by

the area of that class, and then summing the results. It was classically simple “back of a matchbox stuff” and could have come from Kelly McGrath 101.

The FAO Chief Technical Adviser had concluded that the Sundarbans were being overcut, possibly by as much as 10%, but he didn‟t know how or why. It was impossible to check actual logged yields with predicted yields. The boats carrying the wood to the factories were allowed to use short logs to facilitate stacking and as bolsters. This wood was not measured or recorded as part of the yield.

There came a day when The Consultant was cruising along the Sipsah river, with The Chief Technical Adviser and The French Ecologist. They were idly sitting on the deck of the Bano Kannya, an attractive vessel about 30 m long with a draught of about 2 m. It was a pleasant way to view the forest, especially across a tumbler of Johnny Walker Red Label,

and a supply of freshly caught prawns and Hilsa2. It was a time to ponder the meaning of life as well as that of the Sundarbans. They looked at the passing scene, the ever-changing forest, the animal and bird life, the meandering river channels, the areas of erosion, and the areas of accretion where the Keora was colonising the newly created mudflats. And then, suddenly, the penny dropped.

The area of forest was not changing each year but the areas by forest class certainly were. Each year a proportion of forest at all ages and stages of

maturity, was eroded. And each year this was being replaced by newly accreted land which was soon covered by young Keora forest. A simple rough calculation was made on the back of a convenient envelope. It indicated

that the forest area was changing by 1-2% per year and it was obvious that accounting for this would reduce the allowable cut significantly. The earlier calculations had been correct mathematically, they had just lacked some essential information. They had made an unwarranted assumption.

Back in the office some more expert estimates of the rate of erosion „refined‟ the crude estimate of the adjustment needed to the calculation of the annual allowable cut. It roughly matched the guesstimate of The Chief Technical Adviser. It is almost regrettable to record that he was a tourism expert with very limited forestry knowledge!

Lesson: There is no one set of approaches appropriate for the management of all forest types and first

principles need to be considered in forest planning.

Jerry Leech [email protected]

1 http://www.google.com/earth/index.html 2 Hilsa is a fish that is rather bony but tastes

delightful.


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IFA MembershipIFA Membership

About IFA

The Institute of Foresters of Australia (IFA) is a professional body engaged in all branches of forest management and conservation in Australia.

The Institute is strongly committed to the principles of sustainable forest management and the processes and practices which translate these principles into outcomes.

Our membership represents all segments of the forestry profession, including public and private practitioners engaged in many aspects of forestry, nature conservation, resource and land management, research, administration and education.

Membership with us is not restricted to professional Foresters. Other persons associated with or interested in the area of forestry are welcome to join IFA!

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The many benefits of being a Member of the IFA include:

Employment vacancy notices

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Access to scholarships, grants and professional development awards

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50% off for retired foresters.


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VOTING MEMBER

You are eligible for Voting membership if you:

1. Hold a tertiary degree qualification in forestry recognised by the Institute together with at least two years appropriate forest management or forest science experience and can demonstrate knowledge of and/or skills in the core subjects of Australian forestry

Or

2. Hold any other tertiary qualification or other relevant experience acceptable to the Institute together with at least four years appropriate forest management or forest science experience and can demonstrate knowledge of and/or skills in the core subjects of Australian forestry.

Persons holding forestry qualifications of Diploma, Associate Diploma or Certificate IV will be eligible providing they meet the following forest management or forest science experience:

Diploma = 6 years, Associate Diploma = 8 years and Certificate IV = 10 years.

ASSOCIATE MEMBER

You are eligible for Associate membership if you:

1. Have an interest in forestry

Or

2. Have other relevant experience in forestry

STUDENT MEMBER

You are eligible for Student membership if you are attending as a full time student in your first undergraduate formal course of forestry related study at any University or Tertiary institution recognised by the IFA.

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Membership grades of the IFA are:

Grade Voting $158 Fellow $158

Concessional rates Student $23 Retired $80 Couple concession $80

Membership fees are payable at the time of application and renewable each financial year.

Current fee schedule for applications received during Dec 2011 - June 2012:

Grade Associate $158 Associate (YP rate) $40


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