History Of Forestry In Australia

This book tells the story of the giant eucalypt, the Mountain Ash, which grows in the north and east of Melbourne. A single tree can reach a height of 120 feet in 20 years, making it the worlds tallest hardwood.

Eighteen papers dealing with Australias forest history and environmental history, many on a regional basis; cultural as well as natural environments are discussed; questions of assessing heritage values of forests.

For more than twenty years, Australia's forests have been the subject of angry controversy. Industry groups, timber towns, professional foresters, trade unions, economists, developers and environmentalists have all voiced different proposals, based on mutually exclusive values. Major battles have aroused intense passions and influenced elections. But the book not only covers recent events; it reviews forest management from Aboriginal times, demonstrating that the forests and our conceptions of them are socially constructed Dr Dargavel weaves together the story of industrial development and forest use with the slow acceptance of the case for forest conservancy. He shows how various 'resource regimes' evolved, and how they fashioned the forests in different ways-ecologically, spatially and socially. He then describes the challenges to these established patterns since the 1970s--industrial restructuring, woodchip exports, unsustainable harvesting, and the rise of the environmental movement. The book concludes with the prospects for the forests, their industries and workers, in a highly uncertain future. Australians must choose between travelling the "low road" of apathetic submission to market forces and ignorance and taking a long, hard "high road" towards sustainable development in which both social and environmental needs are taken seriously. The issues discussed will interest those involved in forestry, historical geography, and environmental sciences, history, and politics.

Personal recollections of Australia's unique landscape and its folklore. Living history.

"Jinkers and whims traces the development of the methods and machines used to harvest the forests of Western Australia over the last 150 years, from first settlement to the present day, from horse and steam power to modern mechanical harvesters. It describes the bush workings and logging operations that underpinned WA's sawmilling industry-once the third largest industry in the state behind wheat and wool. It is also a tribute to the skill and innovation of the bushmen and engineers who brought about the changes and who designed and built those weird and wonderful machines that were unique to the industry and to this part of the world."--Back cover.