John Dargavel

Contested forestries, contested educations: a centenary reflection

Summary The first 50 years of Australian forestry education was, like the present, a period of conflict and change in forestry, and of fierce contests about how education should be conducted. Colonial practice, British plantation culture, classic European forestry, imperial practice and American pragmatism created different types of forestry, or ‘forestries’. They resulted in contests about how forestry should be organised, who should lead it and how foresters should be educated. The contests were played out in the histories of the Victorian School of Forestry, the Australian Forestry School and the University of Melbourne. They are illustrated in the life of Alfred Oscar Piatt Lawrence (1904–1986), one of the six foresters who graduated from both the Victorian School of Forestry and the Australian Forestry School. He had a distinguished career and became Commissioner in 1949 and Chief Commissioner of the Victorian Forests Commission (1956–1968) during a period of convergence of forestry and forestry education. The single model of forestry ended in the contests of the last quarter of a century. Reflections on the future consider the biodiversity rift, the contrast between ‘the forest of care’ and ‘the wood of neglect’, globalisation and localism, general education and specialisation.

The Fight for the Forests in Retrospect and Prospect

Controversies have persisted over the use of Australias forests for thirty years, even though Governments have tried repeatedly to resolve them, and environmental managers have improved their methods, processes and practices. This apparent paradox is examined by taking a retrospective look at The Fight for the Forests (Routley and Routley 1973). Its controversial influence is due more to its assertion of environmental values and its abrasive attack on the managers of its day, than to its economic analysis. The meaning of the retrospective view for future prospects is considered. It is concluded that the paradox is inherent.

Netting the Global Forest: Attempts at Influence

Global Environment 5 (2010): 127–158 This paper looks at the history of attempts to influence the conservation and management of the world’s forests through the creation of international organisations since the 1890s. The attempts are seen in the context of changes in the world political economy, changes to the forests themselves, and changing ideas about how forests should be conserved and managed. The turning points between stages of increasing organisational complexity were the Second World War, the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment, and the 1992 UN ‘Earth Summit’ Conference on Environment and Development. The numerous organisations and their inter-relationships have created a network of influence that spans the world’s forests in the twenty-first century. It is a phenomenon of globalisation that is regarded as an additional layer to the forms of forest conservation and management.

Iron, Steel and Timber: A Transient Heritage

Abstract This paper provides an overview of the Australian sawmilling industry from 1788 to the present, against which its heritage stories can be told. Mechanised sawmilling became firmly established from the 1850s. It looked to exports where it could and competed with imported softwoods. Before WWI it was largely an industry of small steam-powered sawmills located in the forests and some metropolitan mills owned by timber merchants. It started to up-grade its technology between the wars. The booming timber market immediately after WWII led to a temporary surge in the number of small mills. The industry changed from the 1970s as small, family-owned forest mills closed or were taken over by large companies, and as softwood production from pine plantations has replaced hardwood production from native forests. The transient nature of the industry has meant that much of its heritage has been lost.

Not easy work to starve their employees: the 1921-22 Tasmanian Timber Dispute

Although there is a rich industrial history of the timber industry, little has been written on its labour history. This paper recounts the course of a dispute in Southern Tasmania in 1921-22. It occurred during a national campaign by employers against Justice Higgins 1920 decision to set a 44-hour week for timber workers and engineers. Local and state factors exacerbated the Southern Tasmanian dispute where a group of sawmilling companies commenced a lockout. The Australian Timber Workers Union resisted attempts to force them to work a 48-hour week, enter a contract system and countenance non-union labour. The dispute lasted for 15 months and was marked by violent events, court cases and attempts by the Premier, the police and leading citizens to mediate a settlement. Although nationally the union had their hours set back to 48 by the Arbitration Court in 1922, locally it succeeded in having the non-union labour removed. The social character of the region helps explain why the dispute was so long and bitter. The paper concludes that future labour histories of the forest sector are likely to find that concentration/isolation of workers is an important parameter. There were three substantial problems that any similar studies would face: those of evaluating the influence of the social context, the limitations of historical sources and the specificity of the case study approach.