FE AT U R I N G :

Member profile: Judy AlexanderResearch discussion paper: Ric SinlairIFA events: Atherton Qld and Narrogin WARiver red gum management

A PUBLICATION OF THE INSTITUTE OF FORESTERS OF AUSTRALIA FEBRUARY 2015

IFA NEWS

National President Rob de Fégely

Board of Directors Stephen Walker, QLD Ross Peacock, NSW Stuart Davey, ACT Gary Featherston, VICJim O’Hehir, SA Lachlan McCaw, WA Bob Gordon, TAS Braden Jenkin, ACFA

Chief Executive Officer Alison Carmichael

IFA SecretariatPatricia Chew

Contact PO Box 576 Crows Nest NSW 1585 P: 02 9431 8670F: 02 9431 8677E: admin@forestry.org.au www.forestry.org.au

All submissions As above

The Forester is a newsletter published by the Institute of Foresters of Australia.

Advertising and sales enquiries should be directed to admin@forestry.org.au.

The views expressed in this publication and in any inserts are not necessarily those of the Editor nor The Institute of Foresters of Australia.

Registered by Print Post Publication No. PP299436/00103ISSN 1444-8920

Contents

“Bills Hut”, Mt Delegate, NSW. Photo by Alison Carmichael

One of our newest Registered Forestry Professionals is Seamus Batstone. Seamus, like many of our younger members, holds multiple qualifications. He began his career with an Associate Degree in Applied Science (Forestry) and has followed this up with a Diploma in Engineering and Spatial Science and a Diploma in Management. His varied work trajectory is also becoming more common, where he started working in harvesting and silviculture, moved on to private forests and Landcare, and for the last decade has worked as a Natural Resource Officer.

On a trip from Canberra to Orbost earlier this year I visited Mt Delegate and found a structure that is known as Bill’s Hut, named after a fire spotter who manned the nearby tower and used to stay in the hut between shifts. The hut has been badly vandalised inside but it still sound. I am wondering if there is a group of members might would be as disappointed as I am with the condition of the hut and would like to offer to repair it, as do other groups of our members who care for the alpine huts.

We are all gearing up for the ANZIF2015 conference, and are pleased to have a very full and interesting program in place already. While the conference itself runs for two days there are social activities on Sunday and most evenings, workshops on Monday, and tours on Thursday. Not enough? Then you can join the 3-day tour to the Green Triangle and back. We have included half page promotions of our major sponsors in this issue and this promotion will continue throughout the year in recognition of their generous support.We hope you like the new layout for The Forester. It has been redesigned so as to be easier to read on a screen.

From the CEO Alison Carmichael, CEO

Seamus Batstone, RPF

2

page2 From the CEO2 Seamus Batstone, RPF3 In my opinion – A year to celebrate,

Rob de Fégely4 I practice what I preach, Judy Alexander5 Improving forest and wood products

research collaboration, Ric Sinclair8 Wheatbelt Woodland Weekend,

Lachie McCaw10 IFA Field Afternoon Atherton 26 July

2014, Alex Lindsay11 River Red Gum Forests in the Murray

Valley, Nick Cameron14 Brain Processing and Thinking, Terry Beath15 Stephen Kessell and fire in the jarrah

forest, Roger Underwood17 Golden Myanmar, Kim Wells 18 Australian Forestry School Golden Jubilee,

David Gough and Ellis Nicholson20 Obituary, Richard Roger John Stanton21 ANU News22 FSC Australia calling for foresters

input to develop first national standard, Daniel Mackey

Welcome to 2015 and I hope all of you had a very happy festive season and restful break over the December and January holiday period.This year marks the 80th Anniversary of your Institute and it has much to celebrate.We should celebrate the early role that foresters played in protecting Australia’s natural forests from over-clearing for agriculture and urban development and controlling exploitive harvesting of public forests to the point where we now have sustainable forest management plans that are equal to any publicly managed forests in the world. Australian foresters have also been great developers as our

significant plantation estate will testify. We have fought many battles with nature’s elements particularly fire and pests and we have won some and lost some but Australian foresters are always learning and ready to improve. While we must take time to celebrate we must also continue our efforts. For example we have large areas of natural forest on privately owned land that could be a significant asset but has been largely ignored in any structured management sense. These forests are generally heavily regulated but this is not a proxy for management and we can do much better than this.We have also failed to convince farmers that forestry is their friend and ally when integrated with their agricultural activities. This also represents a significant opportunity to do better. Some sections of the community also remain unconvinced or a best confused about the role we play in natural and planted forest management and do not connect their daily demand for wood products to the role we play in ensuring these products are carefully and sustainably produced. Australian foresters have a great reputation for facing challenges. These challenges come in many forms including conserving forests with limited funds, balancing competing demands in multiple use forests, sustaining wood supply from natural and planted forests, fighting bushfires and other pests or simply being great members of rural communities. Resilience is part of our nature.

In my opinion – A year to celebrateRob de Fégely, President of the Institute of Foresters of Australia

IFA NEWS 3

To view a full range of FWPA webinars please visit

www.fwpa.com.au

ANZIF 2015 – GOLD CONFERENCE SPONSOR

I hope many of you will make the ANZIF conference in Creswick in April. Our conference committee have developed an appropriate theme of Beyond Tenure - managing forests across the landscape. Australia has 125 million hectares of natural and planted forests and it all needs management and each hectare presents a different challenge. I look forward to seeing you there.Finally on a sad note we heard of the tragic accident to our colleague Richard Stanton who was fatally injured recently when his bike collapsed on an early morning ride. Richard made a significant contribution to Australian forest policy through a range of organisations and an expanded tribute is contained in this newsletter. Our thoughts remain with his wife Sonia and his two children.

Judy grew up on a property near Morwell, immersed in the agriculture of the area and a stone’s throw from Maryvale Mill and its adjoining plantations. ‘My father was working at the paper mill, and we grew up surrounded by and horse riding through the plantations’. With all of this on her doorstep, she developed a keen interest in trees, and sought to learn more about their lifecycles and sustainable production.

Her love of the area, encouraged by long horse rides through the LaTrobe Valley and the rows of trees next to her farm, led her to pursue study and a career that would enable her to work with the natural environment. She began by studying Horticulture at ANU, which gave her the invaluable knowledge of Australia’s flora that assisted her to transfer to the Bachelor of Science, majoring in Forestry.Judy has always moved around, living and working all over Australia, but she has now returned to use her family home as a base between work trips: the fifth generation to work the LaTrobe Valley property. The farm has evolved over the years, beginning as a dairy when Judy was young and then progressing into cattle farming as she grew older. In 2001 Judy purchased the land from her parents and decided to use the land for farming that was more aligned with her passion: trees. ‘I think my ancestors would probably have a heart attack at me planting trees,’ she says. ‘They spent many years clearing the land, and now I’ve planted it.’After seven years working with regional plantation committees promoting private forestry, she decided to use that knowledge back on the farm and established a blue gum plantation. Having the land has allowed her to experiment with what she has learnt about trees, practicing the advice she regularly provides as a forestry consultant.

I practice what I preachMEMBER PROFILE 4

Judy Alexander

‘I had always wanted to have a mini-arboretum of eucalypts, and with two small (1ha) paddocks on the farm’s original layout, I decided to plant two trial plots of about 20 different eucalypt species. This has proven a very interesting exercise. With a heavy clay base and flat land, tree species that I expected to struggle did very well, while some species I thought would do well, struggled’.Judy has always been interested in forestry certification and auditing, so in 2011 she formed Foresa Consulting to provide forest management planning services to clients across Australia. Working independently has come with its challenges, but she has used her flexibility as a consultant to devote any spare time back to the industry she is so passionate about. One way she has done this is through involvement with industry groups like the IFA and Australian Forest Growers (AFG).These groups ‘are important because they link us together. They are also important to give the industry a voice… and are important in sharing information and ideas, and keeping people in the industry up to date with what’s going on across Australia’.Being a next generation member of the AFG, she has felt a strong affinity to the group and has donated much of her time to developing relationships and creating support for those working in forestry. Dedicating much energy to the AFG, she has been rewarded by being recently elected as a Board Member in June 2014.‘As a grower myself, I see AFG as an important group for grower representation. I have been a member of AFG for a number of years, and wanted to become involved in providing support to the organisation at a higher level’.Judy loves the problem solving aspect of forestry, working through challenges with like-minded people and ‘seeing the outcomes of good planning and the sustainability of what we do’.‘I am fully committed to the industry, so much so, that I have planted my own plantations on my farm. I am committed to certification. I enjoy the diversity of what we do, and enjoy that element of consulting and contracting’.Judy’s experience is vast: she has worked with people and trees across Australia, and through this has been exposed to most elements of forestry. Having also grown up on and developed her own property, she has a keen knowledge and love of forests. Her advice to young foresters and people starting out in the industry is to ‘keep an open mind, get exposure to as many elements of the industry as you can so you get a diverse range of skills, and identify a good role model or mentor to help you throughout your career’.

DISCUSSION PAPER 5

SUMMARYCountries in the southern hemisphere largely rely on Eucalyptus and Pinus species for their commercial forest and wood products industries. Historically, there has been research collaboration across the southern hemisphere at the institutional and/or individual researcher level with some facilitation by multilateral and international organisations usually in the form of staff exchanges, sabbaticals, joint working groups and some other longer term activities. However, formal coordination of research activities has been limited so there may have been some unnecessary duplication or wasted research investment. The ongoing rise of electronic media, reduced costs of travel and accommodation means that future collaborations can be established and undertaken in shorter time frames either face-to-face or via long distance. Opportunities for enhanced collaboration exist along a spectrum from improved communication, to coordinated activities, to co-investment in a range of topics of mutual interest. These opportunities may also exist at a bilateral and at a multi-lateral level. Barriers to collaboration include real and/or perceived competitiveness issues, private versus public benefits, culture, language, physical distances and lack of enabling structures and systems.

Improving forest and wood products research collaboration

OBJECTIVEThis discussion paper has been developed to stimulate discussion on the potential advantages and mechanisms for improved collaboration between countries in the southern hemisphere that largely rely on Eucalyptus and Pinus species for their commercial forest and wood products industries (principally Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, New Zealand, South Africa and Uruguay).

BACKGROUNDThe development of commercial forests and associated wood processing industries has generally followed a similar path in many countries across the southern hemisphere. Typically, the natural forests were initially exploited upon the arrival of European settlers. The introduction of systematic forest management was then introduced to the natural forests, initially based on European principles but subsequently localised, to provide a sustainable source of wood products and minimise degradation of the forest estate. This was followed by the development of commercial plantations, generally on an industrial scale, mostly consisting of exotic species (i.e., Eucalyptus and Pinus species).Some countries used the commercial plantations to replace wood supply from their natural forests (e.g., New Zealand) while others used the plantations as a complementary or supplementary resource (e.g., Australia).Concurrently, the use and development of forest resources had a significant impact on the associated wood processing sector that can be best typified by increasing economics of scale and corporate concentration within the sector.The role of governments and the private sector have also changed over time in all jurisdictions but there has been a trend towards less direct government involvement in the sector and increased reliance on private capital for both forest development and downstream processing. In recent decades, there has also been a trend towards increased internationalisation of the sector with large, trans-national companies playing a key role across the southern hemisphere.By tradition, forest and wood products research has been mostly funded and delivered by government agencies and/or universities, especially where there is a focus on industry development or other public good benefits. Generally, private sector investment in research is focused on areas where there are clear commercial benefits or where costs can be shared through research consortia. Companies that are vertically integrated (i.e., own forest resources and downstream processing) often invest more in research than non-vertically integrated companies.

Ric Sinclair Managing Director, Forest and Wood Products Australia Limited

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WHY COLLABORATE?The forest and wood products sector across the southern hemisphere is largely dependent on a relatively small range of commercial species that are shared across jurisdictions. Increasingly, there is a commonality of ownership in forest resources, especially in the Timber Investment Management Organisations (TIMOs) and the large, integrated companies. In some instances, there is also a common interest in market development in relation to standardisation and performance of building materials, pulp and paper, and the development of new generation wood fibre products.The benefits of collaboration relate to both the effectiveness and efficiency of the research process and can be summarised as follows:• Reduced duplication• Leverage of different skills and experiences• Increased learning opportunities and skills development• Critical mass to solve collective problems that cannot be addressed individually

Collaboration will likely gain greater support when it is focussed on pre-competitive activities and where there are clear market failures. The ongoing rise of electronic media, reduced costs of travel and accommodation means that future collaboration can be established and undertaken in shorter time frames either face-to-face or via long distance.

COLLABORATION PARTICIPANTSAt an organisational level, the forest and wood products research ‘system’ consists of the following participants:

Research funders – governments, private companies, multilateral organisations, or non-government organisations (NGOs).Research providers – government institutes, universities, private individuals or companies.Research users – governments, companies or individuals.

The actual mix of organisational participants will vary by country.The opportunity and willingness for research funders, providers and users to work collaboratively within and across jurisdictions will vary considerably based organisational objectives, the level of perceived and/or real competition and the expected payback. At an individual level, the willingness to collaborate will also vary: there are some individuals that have a preferential management style that favours collaboration; others less so.

BARRIERS TO COLLABORATIONIn general, collaboration is hard work, and to be successful, participants must be prepared to contribute time and/or money and to give up some control to collaborative partners.The barriers to collaboration can be summarised as follows:• Administrative costs (i.e., time and money)• Individual and organisational culture• Communication and physical distance• Loss of control• Confused accountabilities

• Identifying equitable sharing costs and benefits• Reduced competitive advantage

Successful collaboration requires mechanisms or structures to overcome the barriers to working together on collective problems or opportunities.

SCOPE FOR COLLABORATIONImproved forest and wood products research collaboration across the southern hemisphere can be viewed in relation to two key parameters: (1) the subject area for collaboration; and (2) the level of commitment or ‘intensity’ of collaboration (i.e., information sharing, skills development, co-ordinated activities, and co-investment).Research topics of common interestAcross the southern hemisphere, there will be some research topics of interest for single or groups of countries. The following is a tentative list of topics of common interest:• Forest health and biosecurity• Genetics (especially gene conservation, genetics by environment)• Alternative species• Tree and forest physiology (especially water and nutrients)• Forest operations• Forest management tools, including remote sensing• Wood properties• Development of wood-based building systems and building codes• Product performance and compliance• Development of new wood-fibre based materials

Information sharingAt the simplest level, collaboration across the southern hemisphere could be improved by more information sharing, particularly between research funders, research providers and industry. The type of information to be shared could be research priorities, areas of expertise, key individuals, best practice, and research findings and outcomes.The International Union of Forest Research Organisations (IUFRO) is well placed to facilitate information sharing, especially between research providers. IUFRO is a non-profit, non-governmental international network of forest scientists, which promotes global cooperation in forest-related research and enhances the understanding of the ecological, economic and social aspects of forests and trees. It unites more than 15,000 scientists in almost 700 member organizations in over 110 countries.One possibility is for IUFRO to establish a Southern Hemisphere working group, special programme or directors forum with the aim of facilitating improved communication across the southern hemisphere.Research funders are less likely to be members of IUFRO and so there is no single structure to facilitate improved communication. For governments, there are several international organisations such as the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) or the Montreal Process that could be used to improve communication. For private companies and non-government organisations, the opportunities are much more limited.Article continues next page

DISCUSSION PAPER 6

Skills developmentGiven the similarity in operating conditions and commercial species, it may be possible to consider a coordinated approach to the development and maintenance of key research disciplines. This could be assisted by facilitating greater mutual recognition between teaching universities and institutes with a focus on forest and wood products research, including staff and postdoctoral exchange and re-targeting scholarships and other financial assistance programs.Co-ordinated activitiesThe co-ordination of research activities can be achieved through improved communication and transparency of past, current and future research activities. The primary aim is to reduce unnecessary duplication and leverage pre-competitive research outcomes. This could apply to all of the above topics of common interest, but particularly to forest health and biosecurity, genetics conservation, forest operations, and wood-based building systems and building codes.Co-investmentCo-investment can be used to address the research areas of common interest that are both pre-competitive but cannot be cost-effectively addressed by individual countries, research investors or research providers. The usual mechanism for co-investment is through fixed-term research consortia with a focus on a specific topic or goal. Managing research consortia across jurisdictions can be complex from a corporate governance perspective and there are financial risks due to currency exchange rate fluctuations. The topics of common interest most suited to co-investment would include forest health and biosecurity, genetics by environment interaction, alternative species, and development of new wood-fibre based materials.

PROPOSED NEXT STEPSTo further explore opportunities for research collaboration across the southern hemisphere, the following steps are recommended:1. Establish a small international steering group covering

most countries consisting of at least one from each of the following groups:• Government research investor• Private industry research investor• Government research provider• Private industry research provider• Industry research user

The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) is continuing its support of the Australian & New Zealand Institute of Foresters.

• DELWP, (formerly DEPI), supports the portfolios of environment, climate change, water, local government and planning.

• DELWP is tasked with creating liveable, inclusive and sustainable communities.

• We focus on caring for and protecting the environment and helping to respond to climate change through risk mitigation and adaptation strategies.

• We recognise the link between the built and natural environment in the quality of our lives.

• We work to accommodate population growth while maintaining world class liveability and protecting our heritage for future generations.

• We assist local governments to support people, communities and growth at the local level.

For more information:Visit www.delwp.vic.gov.au Follow DELWP at: Twitter/DELWP_Vic and linkedin.com/company/department-of-environment-land-water-&-planning

Supporting the ANZIF

ANZIFad-A5.indd 1 13/01/2015 2:39 pm

DISCUSSION PAPER 7

The group would be tasked with identifying research topics of common interest across the southern hemisphere that could be potentially addressed through greater skills development, coordination of activities or co-investment through appropriately structured research consortia.2. Establish a working group (or special programme) under IUFRO with a specific focus on improving transparency

and facilitating communication about research priorities and activities across the southern hemisphere, including the following:• Research directors forum on a bi-annual basis• Network of researchers by topic area• Study tours• Post-doctoral exchange• Linkage and mutual recognition of teaching universities.

ANZIF 2015 – GOLD CONFERENCE SPONSOR

IFA EVENTS 8

Remnant woodlands in the central wheatbelt of Western Australia provided the focus for a weekend activity attended by 9 members of the WA Division, plus friends and family, in August 2014. Activities centred on Dryandra Woodland which is 22 km north-west of the regional centre of Narrogin, and about 2 hours travel from Perth and Bunbury. The former forestry settlement at Dryandra with original 1930s era wooden cottages is now managed by Lions Australia as visitor accommodation, and provided an ideal setting to enjoy the outdoors and hold the 2014 annual general meeting for the Division.Dryandra Woodland consists of a number of separate blocks of remnant woodland and heathland covering an area of 28000 ha, which makes it one of the largest and most significant patches of native vegetation in an otherwise heavily cleared agricultural landscape. Rocky breakaway hills and infertile lateritic soils made large parts of Dryandra unattractive for farming, thereby protecting its values for nature conservation, recreation and utilisation of a range of forest products including bark for the tanning industry, specialty timbers, and firewood. Dryandra provides important habitat for many species of animals, birds and plants that have vanished from large parts of the wheatbelt due to land clearing, and is recognised as being of regional and national significance for conservation of previously widespread mammals including the numbat (Myrmecobius fasciatus), woylie (Bettongia penicillata) and red-tailed phascogale (Phascogale calura). Conservation, recreation, community education, and small scale timber production are integrated through an area management plan administered by the Western Australian Department of Parks and Wildlife.The early decades of the 20th century saw extensive and largely unregulated exploitation of stands of brown mallet (Eucalyptus astringens) to strip and subsequently export the bark for tannin extraction in Europe. The advent of systematic management under the Western Australian Forests Department in 1919 saved brown mallet from extirpation, and ushered in an enlightened period of plantation establishment and silviculture that extended through until the early 1960s when the market for natural tannins all but disappeared. Silvicultural trials were undertaken

John Clarke and Frank Batini enjoying the evening light in a Brown mallet (E. astringens) plantation at Dryandra.

Wheatbelt Woodland WeekendLachie McCaw, WA Division

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John Clarke and Frank Batini enjoying the evening light in a Brown mallet (E. astringens) plantation at Dryandra.

John Clarke re-locating a corner peg for one of the thinned plots in South block. Diameter growth of six trees from South block re-measured during the August 2014 weekend activity. Dotted lines are indicative rather than actual growth patterns.

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9IFA EVENTS

to investigate the response of brown mallet to spacing and thinning treatments, and to quantify the potential for stem growth and bark production from the developing plantations. As part of the weekend activities the group re-located several trial plots, including a replicated thinning experiment in South block that had been established in 1937 and re-measured in 1939, 1952 and 1954. Although plot maintenance was discontinued many years ago, wooden pegs marking the corners of some plots were re-located, and a number of trees were found with numbered copper tags still attached to them. This allowed individual trees to be re-measured and compared with previous records of stem diameter and crown dominance. Commercial harvesting has altered the spacing and density of the stand, but the individual tree records provide an interesting and valuable insight into eucalypt growth in an area of relatively low annual rainfall (500 mm). There are few long term data sets for dry woodlands in Western Australia, and the IFA could play an important role in championing the need to maintain significant experimental sites and data sets for use by future generations of land managers, silviculturalists and tree growers.

FURTHER READINGDryandra Forest – a story of industrial and conservation history in the WA Wheatbelt, Roger Underwood, August 1994

Twenty-seven foresters, family and friends met up in Atherton on an overcast July day to attend a gathering organised by the IFA for foresters in North Queensland to make and renew acquaintances and discuss current forestry matters of interest. The itinerary started in Rotaract Park with a guided tour by IFA member Don Nicholson of a private arboretum which he had established during his long career as Researcher for the Queensland Forestry Department. Many of the trees in Don’s garden may not be in cultivation anywhere else in Australia, or possibly even the world. We were very fortunate to have been shown around by Don, as he and his wife are in the process of moving to Brisbane to be closer to family.

Don Nicholson (second from left) under a Bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii) from Mount Lewis, one of two stands of Bunya in North Queensland, over 1000 km north of any other naturally occurring Bunya Pines. Aboriginal people in southern Queensland used to feast on the kernels of the Bunya cones; but whether the northern trees were transported by ancient people, or are remnant from a previous epoch is unknown. The next destination was Wongabel State Forest, 10 minutes south of Atherton, where IFA member Keith Gould provided an extremely interesting account of the history of forestry in North Queensland. Wongabel was the first recorded planting of trees for timber in Queensland, when several hundred red cedar seedlings were planted in 1903–04; apparently the planting program was halted due to the public outcry at the waste of government funds, at a time when red cedar was so plentiful. Next, IFA member Andrew Millerd discussed the significance of Wongabel as a training forest, and of the Wongabel botanical walk as a resource for tourism and the wider community. Andrew’s talk also touched on his career which has primarily involved management of conservation lands, providing an insight to the non-foresters

on the tour about the many paths a forester’s career may take. The tour group included many retired foresters who have had highly distinguished careers, and there was general consensus with Keith Gould’s comment that one of the proudest parts of being a forester is the ability to wear multiple hats: to manage the forest for wood production while also managing for conservation.The group then heard from Dan Collins, a local researcher who has studied the potential for harvesting rattan from Calamus species (wait-a-while) in the rainforest. This lead to a discussion around the complexity of undertaking any activity in the world heritage listed sections of state forest. That was a good introduction for John Bennett, from HQ Plantations, who, along with Andrew, talked about the challenges of managing the Hoop Pine resource at Wongabel given the presence of “Type 5b” or “Mabi” rainforest, which is listed as critically endangered under Federal legislation. The afternoon ended with John leading a short driving tour through the araucaria plantations, including a stand of Kauri pines (Agathis robusta) planted in 1914. There was general agreement that the day had been a success, and that there should be an effort to get together (IFA members and non-members alike) on an annual basis. There is a real sense of urgency about the need to conserve and share the knowledge about tropical forest management that was learned at Wongabel and elsewhere in North Queensland over the past century.

IFA Field Afternoon Atherton 26 July 2014Alex Lindsay Photos: Lou van Rikxoort

10IFA EVENTS

20-year old Queensland maple (Flindersia brayleana) planted by Don Nicholson (second from left) being admired by Andrew Yates (left), Daryl Killin and Geoff Dickinson.

Keith Gould (right) outlining the history of the century-old Kauri pine plantation to Max Grimbacher (left), John Bennett and Daryl Killin. Wongabel State Forest is one of the few areas where “Mabi” rainforest still grows, as seen here amongst the planted hoop pine and kauri pine.

From the air the vast flatness of the Riverina landscape is its defining feature. The Murray River and its adjoining River Red Gum forests appear natural in a landscape that has been otherwise divided up for agriculture. Intensive irrigated cropping and horticulture is prominent within a few kilometres of the river giving way to a patchwork of much larger properties that extend for as far as the eye can see. Many of the larger holdings still support stands of open box woodland.

Figure 1 – Murray River with adjoining River Red Gum forest near Cobram/Barooga, irrigated crops in foreground and dryland farms at top

The Red Gum forests only occur where the flood waters of the Murray and its tributaries can reach. This is often limited to a thin strip of a few hundred meters wide. Exceptions exist where geological phenomenon and the convergence of other rivers have created more extensive floodplains. The largest of floodplains covers around 60,000 hectares and supports the Barmah and Millewa forests which are have been respectively dedicated as Barmah National Park and Murray Valley National Park.

In mid-December 2014 I was fortunate to visit the Murray Valley’s River Red Gum forests as the IFA’s representative on the NSW Forest Industries Taskforce. The Taskforce was formed in 2012 by the Minister for Primary Industries (the Hon Katrina Hodgkinson) and is currently chaired by the Hon Rick Colless, MLC. The Taskforce comprises 20 part time voluntary representatives that provide strategic advice to the NSW Government on forestry and related policy. The purpose of the Taskforce’s trip to the Murray Valley was to gain first-hand insight into the management of the State’s Red Gum forests.

Figure 2 – Eastern End of Murray Valley and Barmah National Parks The key piece of knowledge I gained from the visit was that the Murray River Red Gum forests are neither old nor particularly natural. The extent and structure of these forests as we know them is significantly different from how they were prior to white settlement. From the documented accounts and maps of the early explorers and surveyors (Charles Sturt, Edward Curr, Thomas Townsend, Clement Hodgkinson) it is clear that where there is now large homogenous stands of dense regrowth there was

once either extensive reed beds and open grassy woodland. This change is not confined to a singly discrete area it is regional landscape phenomenon. The catalyst for the expansion and thickening of the River Red Gum was the cessation of aboriginal burning around 150 years ago. River Red Gum is a naturally invasive species but also fire sensitive, particularly when young. The Forestry Corporation has traditionally relied upon forest grazing and firewood collection to reduce the bushfire hazard. Controlled burning remains an option in older regrowth but is seldom practiced because of the risk of escape (areas not burnt for long periods accumulate buried layers of forest litter (fuel) that if ignited can give rise to underground fires that are very difficult to extinguish) Altered fire regimes have also been accompaniedRiver regulation has also been a dominant influence on the character of the River Red Gum Forests with major changes having been made to the timing and amount of flooding. Everywhere we went we saw man made channels that were redirecting water to where it was wanted. At the time of the visit the Murray River was close to full flow with upstream storages being released to cater for the requirements of irrigators over the summer growing season. Prior to river regulation natural flooding occurred mainly in Winter/Spring.

Nick Cameron IFA Member, NSW Division

River Red Gum Forests in the Murray Valley – a look at past and current management

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11MEMBER ARTICLE

Figure 4 – Healthy River Red Gum regrowth thinned by FCNSW and now in Murray Valley National ParkThe NPWS are less convinced of the merits of thinning and so are undertaking their own ecological thinning trial at a cost of $600k per annum. To date the trial has proven to be a very poor return on public investment with much money being wasted on trying to assess ecological benefits that will not be realised for many years into the future. The NPWS’ thinning policy guidelines are also highly questionable. One ecologically thinned site that we visited was in very poor condition with the retention of a disproportionate number of sub-dominant and suppressed stems many of which were in poor health or had

died (allegedly these trees were retained because the shape of their crowns was conducive to the future development of hollows). This site also had large quantities of harvesting debris left on the forest floor creating an unwanted fire hazard. It is understood that the NPWS trial is currently suspended due to concerns from the Commonwealth about possible non-compliance with the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. This is somewhat ironic if one considers the silvicultural history of these stands.

Figure 5 – Discussing the merits of ecological thinning at an NPWS trial siteAs part of our tour we also learnt about the socio-economic impact of the 2010 government decision which created the Murray Valley National Park. The greatest impacts have occurred in Mathoura, Deniliquin and Koondrook. Up until 2010 forestry was an economic mainstay of these towns. The mayors, councillors and general managers who we met from the Murray and Deniliquin Shires all lament the 2010 decision. They believe the impact on the timber industry

Figure 3 – Regulating flow on the Murray River – Torrumbarry Weir near Koondrook

In 2010 the management of 117,000 hectares of River Red Gum forest on the NSW side of the Murray River was transferred from State forest and the Forestry Corporation of NSW to National Park managed by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service. This followed a similar decision in 2008 where the Victorian Government dedicated 140,000 hectares of National Park along the Victorian side of the Murray River corridor.Four and a half years on we were given the opportunity to compare past and current management practices and review the merits of the 2010 decision. Our visit included a formal meeting with local government and industry representatives and a bus tour through the new Murray Valley National Park. The tour allowed inspection of forest that had been subject to grazing, no grazing, timber harvesting, wildfire, commercial and non-commercial (ecological) thinning. Accepting that the Murray Valley River Red Gum forests are man-made puts a different context on how we should manage them. The dedication of native forests in National Park is usually justified on the basis that it provides the best form of protection for conserving biodiversity and natural heritage. If we accept that we have a single species eucalypt forest that did not exist in its current form 150 years ago, the argument for the need for conservation (through passive management in National Park) becomes less compelling. Given the right conditions and in the absence of fire, River Red Gum will grow like hairs on a dog’s back. Its growth habit naturally lends itself to active management (more so than many other species). Commercial forest thinning has proven to be a highly effective way to manage the health of the River Red Gum regrowth forests (and to also achieve large diameter trees more quickly). It is also the cheapest.

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(sawlog quotas were reduced by around 85%) with the resultant loss of jobs and impact on their local economies was unnecessary. The Local Councils also believe that the cessation of forest grazing and increased regulation restricting the removal of firewood has increased the bushfire risk and impacted on elderly citizens who have traditionally depended on wood for domestic heating. They are also concerned that the removal of grazing has facilitated the spread of weeds. On our forest tour we saw first-hand the impact of wildfire, passing through many kilometres of forest where the entire canopy was dead. We also saw areas of National Park much in need of weed control. In Mathoura, visitation levels have dropped 28% (32,000 in 2010 to 23,000 in 2014), the IGA supermarket, the bakery and a bed and breakfast have all closed, the pub is up for sale and the local footy club is struggling to find players. The Mathoura locals live in hope that one day the 2010 decision may be revisited and that forestry will again play a role in the management of the Murray Valley River Red Gum forests. I share their hope.

Figure 6 – Mathoura, perched on the western edge of Murray Valley National Park

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Terry Beath Continuing Terry’s series that invites members to re-think how they think

INTRODUCTIONOur brain is about 1.4 kilograms of sophisticated power. It has evolved to be energy efficient, but as “thinking hard” uses about 40 watts of power, similar to a small light-bulb, we avoid it where we can and this leads to potential traps and tricks. Nassim Taleb’s1 comments: “But there is a deeper question. What are our minds made for? It looks as though we have been using the wrong user’s manual. Our minds don’t seem to be made to think and introspect;” and “my counterfactual, introspective and hard thinking ancestor would have been eaten by a lion while his non-thinking but faster-reacting cousin would have run for cover. Consider that thinking is time-consuming and generally a great waste of energy;” … “Evidence shows that we do much less thinking than we believe we do – except, of course, when we think about it.”So how has evolution reconciled the need for speed and the need for energy efficiency?The brain optimises minimises the energy required to solve recurrent problems. An example is that Chess grand masters only use about 20 watts when playing as they have spent a lifetime burning chess strategies into their economical, rote algorithms. At their career outset, many more neurons would have been involved with each move.

NON-CONSCIOUS OR CONSCIOUS MINDS – DUAL PROCESS THEORY OF MINDCritically, minds can be either non-conscious or conscious and these are commonly called Type 1 and Type 2 processing respectively. A good example of this dual processing is when we walk home by our normal path, but all the time we are deep in thought about some other problem in our life. We still get home safely as we take advantage of a non-conscious skill that we acquired in previously conscious exercises when we followed a learning curve. As we walked home we only needed our consciousness to monitor the general aim of our trip and the rest was available for other creative use.Sleep is a form of non-conscious being as well. Sleep is often described as being mid-way between our conscious and unconscious minds – an altered mental state. Douglas Fields2 describes it in the following way: “Sleep is a vigorous period of brain activity. It is an altered state, not an inert state. Sleep is an active mental process in which some circuits of the brain paralyse the body to allow our mind to cavort in a wild night-time fantasy. This paralysis prevents us from leaping out of bed to run from the pursuer in our dreams or chase whatever fantasy we may be living in our dreaming minds.” Personally, once it didn’t paralyse me enough: Early in my forestry career as an Air Photo Interpretation Specialist I was navigating to a place to measure a plot by looking at the tree crown shapes, head in air, and I stood on a tiger snake. Instinctively, when I felt the “stick” move, I jumped

1 Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. “The Black Swan – The Impact of the Highly Improbable” Penguin Books, London. 20072 Fields, Douglas R., “The Other Brain” Simon & Schuster New York, 2009

Brain Processing and Thinkingaway and before I knew it was standing on a stump about five metres away. That night I had been studying and left my briefcase and papers next to the bed before dozing off. During the night the snake episode was revisited by my mind – and I once again jumped away – and woke standing in my irrevocably damaged briefcase. Obviously some daily events are more powerful to our mind than others!Fields continues: “There are cycles and patterns of activity during our nocturnal unconscious life shuttling enormous amounts of activity through different brain circuits. Events of the day - both conscious and unconscious - are re-examined, sorted, associated, puzzled, filed or discarded.”

COGNITIVE TUG-OF-WARThe Type 1 and Type 2 processing interact in many ways, and a good demonstration of the conflict between them is the famous “Stroop Effect” named after J. Ridley Stroop who discovered this phenomenon in the 1930’s.As a demonstration of the effect you should try the following:

Here is your job: name the colours of the following WORDS. Do NOT read the words...rather, say the colour of the words. For example, if the word “BLUE” is printed in a red colour, you should say “RED”. Say the colours as fast as you can. It is not as easy as you might think!

As mentioned above, Type 1 processing can’t be turned off and when we are shown the word in English that is familiar to us, we will read it, unless our attention is totally focused elsewhere.To refocus and follow the instructions for the task set, we require Type 2 decoupling to suppress the automatic response from Type 1 to read the word. Otherwise Type 1 tells us what the word spells!The task requires us to do a little re-program of our mind so that the interpretation of the colour shown was to hand. This decoupling feels a bit of a strain and slows us down. It is a good little demonstration of the conflict between a task set for us and an automatic response that interfered with it.The decoupling is a small part of what our Type 2 processing does, and perhaps even in this little exercise you felt it was hard work and took full concentration. During this you probably only focused on the task at hand and any distraction caused Type 1 to fill the gap for you – incorrectly!

TYPE 1 AND TYPE 2 ARE DIFFERENTIATED IN SUMMARY BY:Type 1 is automatic and fast, and is not energy intensive;Type 2 allocates attention to the mental activities that take effort, and includes complex computations. It is aversive and we revert to Type 1 as soon as possible.We’ll explore this more in later essays.

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Roger UnderwoodThumbing through an old forestry journal the other day, I came across a lengthy article by S.L. Kessell dealing with forestry in Western Australia in the 1920s1. Kessell had been appointed Conservator of Forests in WA as a twenty-three year old in 1921, following the resignation of Charles Lane-Poole.The article is full of historical interest as it reflects contemporary knowledge about the jarrah forest and it’s management at the dawn of professional forestry in WA. Many ideas about forest conservation and protection were embryonic at the time, and foresters faced many puzzling challenges. The article was written at a time when Kessell advocated the complete exclusion of fire from the jarrah forest, a policy that his predecessor Charles Lane-Poole had introduced, and which was widely supported by foresters at that time. It is on fire that I would like to focus in this story.Setting the scene in his paper, Kessell observed that Western Australian forests must tolerate:

.......five summer months, practically without rain each year [rendering] all problems of natural regeneration, planting and fire control extremely difficult, and also [limiting] the number of exotic species which may be introduced with reasonable hope of success.

He then goes on to make a fundamental point about forest management in this environment: Efficient fire control must be the basis of all [forest] work.

This is a belief still current amongst experienced forest managers, and is summed up by the mantra I was taught when I first joined the profession in 1962: without effective bushfire management, no other forest management objectives can be achieved. The issue that survives to this day, however, is the means by which this is to be achieved.Having set the scene, Kessell went on to examine the two fundamental alternative approaches to forest fire control: (i) ‘fire protection’, by which he means fire exclusion, where the forester relies upon fire suppression to achieve the objective; or (ii) fuel management, the application of periodic low intensity burns so as to render a bushfire easier and safer to suppress. Reflecting the influence of Lane-Poole (who in turn had been influenced by 19th century European foresters, especially colonial foresters in India)2 Kessell was perplexed to find in Western Australia that:

Local timber-men of long experience have maintained that fire [exclusion] is impossible. And he deplored the:

... insidious doctrine that frequent creeping fires assist the forests in their growth and [the fact that in WA there is] a universal mania for setting “the bush” on fire.

Kessell had to admit, however, that there was a major drawback to justifying a fire exclusion policy in the jarrah forest. This was the fact that “the bush” did not seem to mind being burned. Far from wilting away under a regime of periodic fire, Kessell observed that:

The wonderful vitality of the eucalypts has maintained a green-looking forest after being subjected to comparatively fierce fires every few years for the past 50 years ...

and he added almost wistfully: The forester in Western Australia is often driven to wish that burning caused more apparent damage in the forest...

I am a great admirer of Kessell, not just for his magnificent administrative achievements as Conservator of Forests during the 1920s and 1930s, but because he was an excellent practical forester. He was a careful observer of the bush and he somehow found time to carry out silvicultural research at the same time as running the department. And he was capable of intellectual development. By the late 1920s he came to realise that the jarrah forest could not be managed as if it was a temperate hardwood or coniferous forest in Europe. He now accepted that the “local timber men of long experience” knew what they were talking about when they said that it was impossible to exclude fire from the jarrah forest. Finally he came around to accepting the concept of using creeping fires to reduce fuels – not to prevent fires, but to make their control possible, and to a recognition that fire was part of the natural forest environment, not a foreign interloper3 and that burning had role in promoting the health and vigour of the forest.Kessell had been responsible for construction of fire lookout towers through the jarrah forest, for a comprehensive bush telephone network and for establishment of forest officers and fire crews at district headquarters, trained and ready to attack fires. But they were fighting a losing battle, and he knew it was a battle that could only be won if preceded by effective fuel reduction. Thus we read the following instruction to field staff in the first version of The Foresters’ Manual produced under Kessell’s direction4:

Controlled burning, together with popular education, should go far towards solving the fire problem. All areas which do not require complete fire protection will be burned systematically by light, controlled fires5.

But making policy is one thing, Implementing it is another, and here Kessell was faced by two difficulties.First, how to get the work done? The Forests Department was a very small organisation, and during the depression years of the 1930s its slim budget became even more meagre. This situation worsened when he began to lose both staff and forest workers to the military forces after 1939. Kessell was innovative in his use of “sustenance workers” (the unemployed during the depression), but these were not the sort of people who could undertake demanding bushfire operations, such as the burning of fine regrowth forests carrying heavy fuels.The second question was how best to protect the regrowth forests regenerated after logging in the jarrah forest. It was one thing to accept that fuel reduction burning would reduce the threat of wildfire damage. But at what age could fire be safely reintroduced to regrowth forests without incurring the very damage to young trees that must be prevented.He initially attempted to do this by dividing up the forest into compartments of about 400 ha, with each compartment surrounded by a band of forest about 100 metres in width, which was to be

Stephen Kessell and fire in the jarrah forest

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burned under mild conditions, and so protect the interior of the compatment from fire. In practice this was a failure, because wildfires would easily throw spot fires beyond the fuel reduced buffer. It also became extremely difficult to burn these buffers without hopovers into the main compartment.Kessell never discovered the answer to this dilemma. It was a question that bedevilled Western Australian foresters for many years, indeed for long after Kessell’s departure from the scene6. And it was a question that intensified in significance after Conservator Allan Harris introduced a policy of broad-acre fuel reduction burning in 1953, committing the department to a comprehensive burning program. There was considerable nervousness about the new policy in some quarters. Frank Campbell has told me how when he (Frank) was DFO at Dwellingup in 1960, Harris’ Deputy Conservator Roy Wallace attempted to define a ‘safe burn’ in the jarrah regrowth forest in terms of acceptable crown scorch. Under the Wallace doctrine, no burn was considered acceptable if “a single leaf of a single tree” was singed. This greatly reduced the productivity and the effectiveness of the burning program.It was not until the late-1960s that the issue of when to introduce fire was resolved (for jarrah) by George Peet and until the 1980s (for karri) by Lachlan McCaw. They were able to develop bark thickness/age relationships and test the degree of protection afforded against low-intensity prescribed burns by bark of different thicknesses. This work demonstrated that 12 year old jarrah and 15 year old karri saplings could withstand low intensity fuel reduction burning without damage to the cambium of the lower stem. Scorching the full tree crown is never desirable, but light scorch of the leaves on the lower limbs has little impact on tree health or growth, as both species are able to replace their crowns within a few months of this occurring (especially after spring burning). Moreover, burning before age 12 in jarrah or 15 in karri does not kill the tree, it only damages it, thus reducing its future commercial value. Even if saplings are apparently killed, jarrah regenerates with ease from the lignotubers and young karri will coppice from the stump even after a severe fire. This is not to say, of course, that earlier burning is OK. No forester wants to keep on re-setting the trees in a regrowth forest to age 0 every time a prescribed burn is carried out. There was a further problem. By the time it was clear to Kessell that fire must be introduced to the interior of the compartments to protect regrowth forests from high-intensity wildfire, it was too late for this to be easily done. The compartments were by then carrying 25-30 tonnes/hectare of flammable fuel on the ground and in the form of bark on the trees. This made burning hazardous and dangerous, and ensured that any fire would be intense even under quite mild weather conditions. It was well into the 1950s before the technique of “haircutting” was perfected to overcome this challenge. This involved successive light (or “creeping”) burns on the same area conducted on calm, sunny days in winter, each burn taking off another layer of fuel. My former boss Steve Quain once told me that he was still doing haircut burns in the jarrah forests near Gleneagle as late as 1959, and that they sometimes had to give the same area three successive winter haircuts before the fuels were low enough to enable a spring or autumn burn to be safely carried out.Kessell’s statement that 1920s-era foresters in WA often wished that burning “caused more obvious damage” has a curious echo in the voices of the modern anti-burning environmentalists and academics. I was with a group of them in jarrah forest near Jarrahdale in the early 1980s, and we were standing in a glorious area with lush green crowns on the trees, wildflowers abounding, and the air full of birdsong. “Surely you would never consider burning such a lovely area as this!” one of them exclaimed. “Well,” I said, “actually it was burned three years ago and again five years before that” and I produced the fuel age history map to demonstrate. They did not believe me.

The problem of implementing a burning policy in forests carrying heavy fuels has again reared its head. Like Kessell in the 1930s, today’s forest managers (the Department of Parks and Wildlife, or DPaW) are having diabolical difficulties achieving a safe and economical burning program, and they have had some nasty shocks. This is a result of the legacy of widespread, heavy forest fuels handed on to them from their predecessor agency (the Department of Environment and Conservation, or DEC), whose attitude to fuel reduction burning was ambivalent to say the least. DEC were never able to come to grips with the concept that unless a calculated minimum area was burned every year, the whole program soon became sub-optimal, indeed ineffective in allowing suppression of fires on bad days.The day of the haircut burn has come again. A new generation of jarrah forest managers will now be forced to emulate an approach that came and went in the 1950s, in an attempt to implement an effective fuel reduction objective. I can’t see them succeeding, at least not in the short term. Bushfire management was the top priority of the Forests Department in the 1950s and 1960s, and the work was driven by dedicated and skilled professionals, supported from the very top. Everyone was either behind it, or involved in it. By comparison, fire management was relegated below “biodiversity protection” by DEC and professionally-led field districts (the key centres for implementation of a burning program) were shut down. DPaW will need to completely rebuild its field administration and professional staff to have a hope of getting back to the level of of bushfire mitigation achieved in the jarrah forest by the Forests Department in the 1960s. Safe burning requires skill and science, but above all it requires practice on the ground: the more burning that is done, the easier it becomes.I cannot help thinking how dismayed Stephen Kessell would be to find that his hard-won lessons have been forgotten and must be learned all over again.

END NOTES 1 Kessell, SL (1926): Forestry in Western Australia. The Empire Forestry Journal, Volume 5(1)2 Underwood, Roger (2013): The turn of the wheel. In: Foresters of the Raj. York Gum Publishing3 All of this was taking place before professional land managers had any idea about the intricacies and frequency of

Aboriginal burning in the Australian landscape, nor any conception of the way in which the biota of the jarrah forest had been long- adapted to an environment in which fire occurs frequently.

4 Forests Department (1927). Fire control. In: The Foresters’ Manual Bulletin 39 Part III. Government Printer, Perth, pp. 23-69.

5 The areas from which fire was to be exluded were (i) areas treated for regeneration except that, where the crowns of the trees have reached a sufficient height to be beyond damage by a light surface fire, instructions may be given by the Conservator for controlled early burning under such stands and (ii) areas partially treated for regeneration and awaiting final treatment pending seed years.

6 Kessell was seconded to the Federal Government in 1941 to oversee national timber supplies during the War. In 1946 he took up a position as Managing Director of ANM in Tasmania. He was replaced as Conservator of Forests in WA by Dr Theodore Stoate.

I thank Jack Bradshaw, Frank McKinnell and Vic Jurskis for comments on a draft of this article.

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‘Golden Myanmar’. The souvenirs proclaim it, and of course it is evident in the gold-leafed figures inside the many already gold pagodas dotting the landscape. Gold is even reflected in the faces of the women and men wearing ‘thanikha’ (paste of ground bark of Murraya spp or Limonosa acidissima, small trees of semi-arid regions).A number of Australian foresters had been in touch with me before I left for Myanmar in December asking to be remembered to Myanmar with whom they had studied in Australia. The opportunity to do this came at a reception held for me at a Yangon restaurant. Organizing it was a big job for fellow forester Aung Kyaw Myint with whom I studied at the ANU in 1981. Thirteen Myanmar who had studied in Australia between 1958 and 1994 were either at the reception or met us later at Taunggyi, Shan State: four from AFS, eight from ANU, and one from UNE. Their names are listed below and the IFA can provide contact details on request. In some cases they provided up to date biographical material.

Australian Forestry School Australian National University University of New England1961 U Kyaw Myint 1994 U Than Myint 1991 U Soe Win Hlaing1959 U Tin Maung Oo 1990 U Khin Maung Lwin1958 U Than Htay 1989 U Shwe Thein1958 U Thein Lwin 1982 U Aung Kyin

1981 U Aung Kyaw Myint1981 U Tin Ohn1978 U Shwe Kyaw1976 U Sein Thet1973 U Mehm Ko Ko Gyi

All Myanmar who studied forestry in Australia are listed in a small eight page A5 compilation, ‘Myanmar Foresters in Australia’, that Aung and I updated and distributed at the reception. It is on the IFA website; alternatively I have a few copies (6) that I could post to interested persons along with more up-to-date biographical details, where available. The beautifully crafted beaded peacock sitting in a tree against a starry night sky, pictured here, was presented to me at the reception by U Thein Lwin (AFS 1958–59). I see it as a gesture of appreciation for the friendship of Australian foresters who came into contact with Myanmar in their student days: as such, I will be watching for an opportunity to share it with others....perhaps at the ANZIF conference in April.Meantime, foresters over there would be delighted if you would like to re-establish contact.

Golden MyanmarKim Wells editing_plus@cenart.net

Peacock

Reception

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In our younger days we used to think it was only Kings and Queens who had Golden Jubilee Celebrations, but in early December our Australian Forestry School class of 1963-1964 celebrated its own Golden Jubilee, marking our graduation from the AFS in December, 1964. Our Malaysian classmate Salleh Mohd Nor was the original instigator of the reunion and various locations in Australia were considered. Canberra was an obvious choice, but with favourable airfares on offer and the Malaysians, led by Salleh, being keen to organise the event in Kuala Lumpur, we plumped for the Malaysian option.And so it came to pass, with Salleh at the helm, ably assisted by Lall Singh Gill, that a jam-packed program was organised in Malaysia. Twenty of the original class attended, most accompanied by partners, and another most welcome attendee was Paula Reid, who as most readers will know, served as a librarian at the AFS and ANU for forty two years. She is still amazing. Our group at the AFS in 1963 and 1964 was a diverse, but close knit group of thirty-five, who came from Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and Nigeria. Sadly, seven classmates out of our original class are no longer with us. Those participating in the Celebrations were:

Australian Forestry School Golden JubileeCLASS OF 1963–1964

David Gough and Ellis Nicholson

Australian Forestry School Class of 1964

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John DUGGIN (NSW) John DUUS (Q) David ELLIOTT (NZ) Lloyd EVANS (NZ) David FISHER (NSW) Lall Singh GILL (Malaysia) David GOUGH (Q) Graham GRAY (NSW) Allan GRAY (SA) Terry JOHNSTON (Q)

LOW Chong Foong (Malaysia) Abdul MANUP Ahmad (Malaysia) Mustafa Bin MUDA (Malaysia) Ellis NICHOLSON (NSW) SALLEH Mohd Nor (Malaysia) John SIMPSON (Q) John TADMAN (Q) Phil TELFORD (Q) Peter WALLIS (NZ) Ron WILSON (NSW)

Fifty years on, it’s hard not to drag out the old cliché about it being the best years of our lives. Most feel they don’t want to do it all again, but they were great times: no worries, no warden, lots of fun, parties whenever we wanted them, a minimum of study for most and you could still pass. So much nostalgia. Football, running meals from the Wing Dingers, drinking sessions at the Wello or the back bar at the Canberra, fancy dress at International nights and Spring balls, the fish pond out the front.

Then there was Forestry House and the Waldorf in winter, with the only ‘rule’ from Kel McGrath being: “Behaviour shall be such as not to offend the reasonable susceptibilities of the rest of the community”. We regarded our community as being the one at Forestry House, up to, but not beyond Banks Street.Reunion celebrations began with an Icebreaker Dinner at the Grand Continental Hotel, which was a blast from the past, meeting up with our classmates, some of whom we had not seen for the intervening 50 years. Appearances may change over 50 years, but most personality traits seem to remain.Our second day included a bus trip to Malacca, a historical city now listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a visit to an eco-house specially designed to suit Malaysia’s humid, tropical climate. The following day commenced with a visit to the Forestry Faculty at Universiti Putra Malaysia, where Emeritus Professor Dr Abdul Manup Ahmad – one of our very own – was the founding dean. Unlike Australia we found out that forestry education is flourishing in Malaysia with up to 100 graduates each year. We then visited the Palm Oil Institute where we were acquainted with this important Malaysian industry. With 5.5 million hectares of palm oil plantations, Malaysia accounts for 39 % of world palm oil production and 44% of world exports. In the afternoon, the group was bussed to Putrajaya, a very modern, planned city, 25 km south of Kuala Lumpur, which serves as the federal administrative centre of Malaysia. It’s very much like Canberra, with a beautiful lake and huge ministerial buildings.On our final day, we visited the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (FRIM) where Dr Salleh Mohd Nor, again one of our own, was the first Director General, a position he held for 20 years. Under Dr Salleh’s leadership and subsequent leaders, FRIM has developed into one of the world’s leading tropical forestry research organisations with more than 700 staff. It is located on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, within 1 500 ha of verdant tropical forest, rich in biodiversity. Many walking and jogging trails meander through the forested area that has a treetop walk and a spectacular waterfall. The FRIM forest area gets nearly 1 million visitors a year. Malaysia certainly has environmental problems. It has a burgeoning population equal to that of Australia, but packed into a much smaller area, placing pressure on the fast disappearing tropical lowland forests. Deforestation, accompanying expansion of palm oil plantations is fragmenting the ecologically sensitive lowland tropical forests, adversely affecting wildlife populations such as elephants and orang utans. Inland and marine waters are being polluted with industrial expansion and soil erosion accompanying palm oil plantation

expansion and re-establishment of later rotations. It will be important that forestry professionals continue to play a prominent role in the mitigation of many of Malaysia’s environmental problems. Our official celebrations finished that evening with a Farewell Dinner, where gifts were exchanged and the many sponsors were acknowledged. A highlight of the final dinner was the invitation of the following Malaysian foresters, who had also graduated from AFS: Kamis Awang, Harry Cheah, Zul, Low Beng Hock, Saad, and Chong Peng Wah who gave a brilliant after dinner speech. What a night it was.This memorable reunion exceeded all expectations, its success mainly due to the hard and dedicated work put in by Salleh Mohd Nor and Lall Singh Gill in Malaysia with David Gough and Terry Johnston co-ordinating the Australian and New Zealand end. In addition Peter Holzworth, who unfortunately had to withdraw from attending at the last moment, collated and edited individual profiles that feature in a fine reunion booklet which Salleh arranged to have published.

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Legislation to promote the trade in legally logged timber is now law.

If you are a business importing timber or timber products into Australia or processing domestically grown raw logs, you need to be aware of your new responsibilities.

From 30 November 2014, you need to undertake due diligence to minimise the risk that the timber you are importing or processing has been illegally logged.

The department recognises it may take time for some businesses to transition to the new requirements. For this reason, for the 18 months following the regulation’s commencement, the department’s focus will be on helping importers and processors to comply with the regulation requirements.

To find out more visit agriculture.gov.au/illegallogging or call 1800 657 313.

Do you import or process timber products?

ANZIF 2015 – GOLD CONFERENCE SPONSOR

Richard, Roger, Dodgy … or Mr Immaculate?

Our colleague and friend Richard Stanton has died tragically as a result of a fall from a bicycle early Thursday morning, 29 January, aged only 49.

Having grown up in Armidale, northern New South Wales, Richard came to Canberra in 1985 to study forestry at ANU. He arrived known as Roger, because previously he went by his second name to avoid confusion with his father, who is also Richard.

Living on the ANU campus at Bruce Hall, Roger was noted for dressing a little more sharply than the other forestry students. Whether that reflected more on their shabby standards than on him, it earned him the nick-name ‘Mr Immaculate’. In contrast, when he changed from using the name Roger back to his first name the sceptics dubbed him ‘Dodgy’!

In the words of one of his forestry school lecturers, Richard was ‘an exemplary student, intelligent, resourceful, always courteous and well behaved, and well liked and respected by all’. Despite this high praise, his fellow students report that he indulged in the usual undergraduate frivolities, but always knew where to draw the line and was always careful enough to not be caught. They also report that his intellectual capacity, writing and speaking skills, and reliability were much in demand by other students in the group work often required in a forestry course.

After a few years working in eucalypt plantation research, the above attributes led Richard to a career in policy and management, notably as Executive Assistant to the Managing Director of State Forests of New South Wales and later in senior roles and as CEO of forestry and forest products industry organisations including: the National Association of Forest Industries; Plantation Timber Association of Australia (PTAA); Australian Paper Industry Council (APIC); and the Australian Plantation Products and Paper Industry Council (A3P).

In these various roles Richard worked on: the regulation of timber preservatives and registration of chemicals used in forestry; promotion of plantation expansion through the government/industry strategy ‘Plantations for Australia – the 2020 Vision’; quarantine and plant health issues; greenhouse and renewable

energy; taxation; infrastructure; and genetic modification. His work in these areas showed Richard was a great communicator, facilitator, listener and negotiator. His incisive intellect, and his ability to think and communicate clearly and strategically, were ideal attributes for this role.

Richard continued much of this work in A3P upon the merger of PTAA and APIC, as Senior Policy Manager. The new role had more of an advocacy flavour and was expanded to include, among other things; climate change and emissions trading; forest management certification; water allocation and management; bio-security; taxation; and investment. The carbon tax, Murray Darling Basin water resources, and parliamentary inquiries into the forest industry were major issues at that time. On the resignation of A3P’s first CEO Richard took over the reins and proved yet again, as would be expected, a highly regarded and capable manager. He had an excellent knowledge of the industry and the critical issues affecting its success, leading by example and consolidating the reputation of the association and the industry in the eyes of both government and the community.

Having successfully facilitated the merger of A3P and NAFI into the new AFPA, he was headhunted for the role of CEO and National Secretary for the Australian Forestry Standard, and was therefore responsible for managing the certification scheme that promotes responsible management of Australia’s native and plantation forests and use of wood products from sustainably managed forests. He was responsible for establishing AFS on a secure footing with strong sector support, and successfully steered through the challenging processes of accreditation, standards review and international endorsement of the Australian Forestry Standard and its recent adoption as New Zealand’s National Forestry Standard.

As part of Richard’s role with the Australian Forestry Standard he was an active participant in PEFC International, an organisation devoted to facilitating the sustainable management of forests globally. Richard contributed to many meetings and policy discussions and achieved a high level of respect and affection around the world. The high esteem in which he was held is shown by condolences from PEFC colleagues in Europe, Africa, Asia, North America and the Pacific.

A natural athlete, Richard competed in triathlons andis one of only 15 people to have completed 23 consecutive Sydney Half Marathons and was training for the next one later in 2015. He also loved cycling, riding around Canberra with a group each week and going further afield whenever he could get away.

Richard was a man with strong principles and a generous nature. He was devoted to his wife and family, and fully involved in family affairs, including his girls’ school and sporting activities. As in his professional life he was known for his willingness to roll up his sleeves when help was needed, without fuss. It was therefore not surprising to learn Richard had volunteered as an organ donor, a decision he had fully discussed with his family, and was supported by them. As a result Richard’s untimely death provided hope for a number of people who benefitted from this generous decision.

Richard is survived by his wife Sonia, daughters Emma and Julia, and father Richard.

The Institute appreciates the assistance of Sonia Stanton, Mark Parsons, Miles Prosser, Hans Drielsma, Peter Juniper and the many people who wrote condolence messages in compiling this obituary.

Richard Roger John Stanton, 1965–2015 B.Sc. (Forestry)(Hons.), M.B.A.

OBITUARY 20

Intensive courses over the summer semester were once again successfully run by the Fenner School of Environment and Society with capacity classes this year. The “Fire in the Environment” course explored important themes concerning bushfires in Australian and international environments through a couple of weeks of field experiences, workshops, modelling practicals and seminars. Similarly, field experiences from the coast to the mountains enabled students in the “Geomorphology” course to examine and even measure the influence of geologic substrates, climate, biota and tectonics on landform evolution processes.Further afield, Dr David Freudenberger took an intrepid group of 19 students on the 9th ANU Vietnam Field School during January 2015. They explored the challenges of sustainable livelihoods in urban, peri-urban and rural central Vietnam. Field excursions included homestays with rice farmers and a visit to an ethnic minority (hill tribe) community near the border with Laos. Australian Acacia’s (A. mangium and A. auriculiformis and hybrids) are now a ubiquitous feature on low productivity hillslopes and area unsuitable for wet rice. There are now over 3 million ha of Australian plantations species exported as woodchip primarily for kraft paper pulp. Students learned that small farmers have been able to integrate the plantations trees into their production system due to their rapid growth rates (5–7 year rotations), ability to grow on degraded soils, and access to domestic and international woodchip markets facilitated by excellent road and mobile phone networks. Student interviews with small holders and local government officials indicated that silvicultural challenges include risks of severe windfall, insect damage and maintenance of soil fertility (unfortunately plantations residues harvest for firewood or burned prior to replanting). Importantly students gained insights into the positive and negative effects of globalisation – even the price of water buffaloes are greatly influenced by the price of Singapore Oil.

UNIVERSITY

ANU NewsAssociate Professor Cris BrackFenner School of Environment & SocietyCollege of Medicine, Biology & EnvironmentAustralian National University

ANU students exploring a water catchment supporting a diversity of livelihoods including small Acacia plantations, patches of planted cinnamon trees, bananas, cassava and the village’s water supply.

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22ACCREDITATION

Daniel Mackey is Deputy CEO and manages policy and standards for the Forest Stewardship Council Australia (FSC), a non-government, non-profit organisation that promotes responsible forest management practices through multi-stakeholder standard setting and an internationally-recognised certification program.The Forest Stewardship Council Australia (FSC Australia) continues progress in its efforts to create FSC’s first locally owned and locally relevant, independent and voluntary forestry standard for Australia.Having completed the first round of public consultation on the draft FSC Australia guidelines for responsible forest management I’m proud to say we are on track in our standards development process. With two more rounds of consultation to go the team is on schedule to deliver a final draft of Australia’s first ever standard.But in order to create the best possible standard, we require further input from a variety of stakeholders with a wide range of expertise and experience.Specifically we need assistance from independent experts and those within the industry, including foresters, scientists, forest managers, community representatives and Indigenous leaders to help us create a standard that can be applied across all of Australia in a way that is accessible, but also is scientifically credible and meets the aspirations of the FSC and its members.

WHO IS DRAFTING THE NEW STANDARD?The Forest Stewardship Standard is being developed by the Standards Development Group (SDG)*, elected by FSC Australia’s members in September 2013. The group of nine representatives is tasked with coming to a consensus position on behalf of the FSC’s membership about how Australian forests should be managed.The SDG representatives have an even balance of social, environmental and economic backgrounds – including representatives from the union movement, specialists on environmental issues and natural and plantation forestry. They will reach a consensus on more than thirty key forest management issues, including: • Workers’ rights and employment conditions• Protecting the rights of, and creating benefits for, Indigenous communities• Maintenance and conservation of ecosystems and environmental values where lands are subject

to harvesting activities• Water catchment management practices

• The protection of rare, threatened and endangered species.• Enhancing the social and economic wellbeing of local communities

The group considers all input throughout the consultation phase and enlist advice from academic and industry experts where required. All elements of the standard require the consensus of the group for final approval.

FSC AUSTRALIA NEEDS YOUR HELP2014 saw completion and consultation on the first draft of the FSC Australia – Forest Stewardship Standard (FSCA-FSS)Foresters were well represented in the feedback and we appreciate their input to assist with the further technical adaption of the standard for the Australian context.While a positive start, we are working to gather more input throughout the final two consultation phases as we progress the second and third drafts of the standard.We encourage all people with an interest in how Australian forests are managed to provide their feedback throughout these key phases of the standard development process, to ensure their views are considered.

TECHNICAL EXPERTISE REQUIRED FOR STANDARD DEVELOPMENTDraft one of the FSCA-FSS was a first attempt at adapting FSC International’s draft generic indicators (IGIs) to the Australian context. There were a number of issues in that draft that were ‘parked’. That is, the SDG chose to not proceed with further work on them until they had received stakeholder feedback and also seen what direction FSC took with the final version of the IGIs. The group is now working with this information to progress into more detailed work on issues such as sustainable yield, best available information, maintenance of environmental values and indigenous rights to name a few. Another key concept that is now being worked on within the group is the concept of scale, intensity and risk (SIR). SIR is key variable throughout the standard that influences the way in which forest managers are expected to meet the intentions or various criteria.As such, Draft 2 of the standard is expected to be more detailed and technically specific compared to the first draft. As such it is vital that through the consultation process we here from experts with a wide range of backgrounds including, environmental scientists, botanists, zoologist, hydrologists, forest managers, silviculturists, employment and environment lawyers, social scientists, resource economists, Indigenous liaison and stakeholder engagement .

Daniel Mackey

FSC Australia calling for foresters input to develop first national standard

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SEEKING INDIGENOUS VOICES ON FOREST MANAGEMENTDuring consultation on draft 1 we also teamed up with Indigenous consultation experts at the Aboriginal Carbon Fund (AbCF) to engage Indigenous Australians. FSC Australia has recognised for some time that to deliver a credible forestry standard for Australia, the level of engagement with Indigenous stakeholders needed targeted focus, expertise and resources.For this reason FSC Australia committed $60,000 of funding to the project that has seen the AbCF gather feedback from Indigenous communities around the country.By engaging Indigenous stakeholders at all levels of the forestry supply chain, we aim to create the first set of Australian forestry standards that respect the rights and values of all Indigenous Australians while also protecting the economic and environmental benefits of forests for current and future generations.An important outcome of this process is the appointment of an Indigenous Working Group (IWG). This group will help the SDG ensure the views and experiences of indigenous communities related to forestry in Australia are properly considered in the standard. The group will meet for the first time in March.With the help of FSC Australia’s members and stakeholders it is hoped that we can develop a truly unique forestry standard that has the support of all Australians with an interest in our forests. Bringing together people with economic, environmental and social interests and moving forward under the new standard, we hope the FSC can continue to drive change in how Australian forests are managed.

23ACCREDITATION

Firefighters, Stories from Australian foresters$35 plus $5 P&H from Roger Underwood yorkgum@westnet.com.au