The Victoria Forests Commission ( FCV ) is the government's primary authority responsible for the management and protection of state forests in Victoria, Australia between 1918 and 1983.
The Commission is responsible for "forest policies, prevention and suppression of forest fires, issuance of leases and licenses, planting and thinning of forests, plantation development, reforestation, nursery, forestry education, commercial timber harvesting and product marketing, development and maintenance of forest roads , providing recreational facilities, water, land and wildlife protection, forestry research and making recommendations on the acquisition or alienation of land for forest use?
The Forestry Commission has a long and proud history of innovating and managing the forests of the State of Victoria but in November 1983 lost its discrete identity when it was incorporated into the newly formed Marine Conservation, Forest and Land (CFL) Department with the Crown and Surveys Department, the National Park Service , Land Conservation Agency and Fisheries and Wildlife Service.
After amalgamation, state forest management and the forestry profession continued but the pace of change was accelerating, with many department restructuring taking place over the next three decades. The current responsibilities are shared between the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP), Victoria Park, Air Melbourne, Alpine Resorts Commission, a privately owned commercial entity belonging to VicForests State Government and Hancock Victorian Plantations (HVP).
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Prior to European settlement in the early 1800s, about 88% of the 23.7 million hectare colonies that became the State of Victoria in 1851 were covered trees. However, the Victorian Victorian rush of the 1850s combined with wide and indiscriminate land clearing for mining, agriculture and settlement became one of the main causes of forest loss and degradation. This causes an alarm between the forester and the wider community.
Forest management in the late 1800s became chaotic. On September 16, 1869, the first "Forest Inspector and Guardian", William Ferguson was appointed and he founded the first State Nursery at Macedon in 1872.
In 1871, the local Forest Council attempted to control, but the task of managing wasteful clearance proved to be very strong and was abolished in 1876. In 1873 it was estimated there were about 1150 steam engines in the gold mining industry, devouring more than one million tons of firewood.
At the urging of the Victorian Governor, Lord Henry Brougham Loch, who had served in the Bengali cavalry and kept an interest in the forest, the Government invited Conservator Frederick D'A. Vincent from the Royal Forest Service in India visited in 1887 and made a recommendation. But to seek counsel is one thing; to retrieve the others, and Vincent's scathing reports have never been filed in Parliament. But on June 14, 1888, the first Conservator of the Forest, George Samuel Perrin was appointed. He has previous experience in South Australia and Tasmania and, although he has little power or authority, is able to appoint a number of foresters over the next 12 years. Perrin became acquainted with the government botanist Ferdinand Von Mueller named, Eucalyptus perriniana after him.
Meanwhile, the gold rush subsided and Melbourne's ground boom in the 1880s was inevitably followed by financial ruin in 1893, combined with the Federation Drought from 1895 to 1902, depressed economic conditions for a decade or more. Not surprisingly, the Colonial Government has little desire to change the status quo and introduce restrictive forest legislation.
But separately, in a bold and visionary political movement, the management of forest water catchments in Melbourne from Yarra Atas was held in Melbourne and the Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) in 1890 but with a controversial closed capture policy in which logging and public access were not allowed.
Perhaps exemplifying the influence of Indian forestry throughout the British Empire, in 1895 the Government invited Inspector General Berthold Ribbentrop, also from the Royal Forest Service and his report underlines the "Conservation of the country's forests and the management is in remarkable backwardness." The Ribbentrop Report prompted another Royal Commission which began in 1897 and produced 14 separate reports before closing in 1901.
The department restructuring is not new. Between 1856 and 1907, responsibility for Victoria's forest estate administration avoided at least eleven times between the three Government Departments including Land and Surveys, Agriculture, and Mining.
1900s
In 1900 the forests were still often regarded by the general public, and by most of their parliamentary representatives, as the "endless" Holy Land "homeland" and ready to be thrown into exile into property property for agricultural purposes.
All the questions of the Government, the Royal Commission and the law were unsuccessful before the Victorian Parliament between 1870 and 1892 had no effect. It was not until the former British colony merged in 1901 into the Australian state of Australia which was finally ratified the Victoria Forest Bill.
Despite the enthusiastic opposition by agricultural and pastoral interests, the Forest Act (1907) eventually established the State Department of Forestry (SFD) in Victoria, formally setting aside timber reserves and providing rehabilitation after mining and logging. The first Forest Conservator was Hugh Robert Mackay who had been Senior Inspector and Secretary to the Royal Commission of 1897-1901 while the first Minister was Donald McLeod and the first Secretary was William Dickson, who was also Secretary for Mines.
The establishment of the State Department of Forestry represents the most significant institutional development in the history of Victoria's forest management up to that time. The young department had 66 staff on December 31, 1900 including, 1 Conservator, 1 Chief Inspector, 1 Inspector, 23 Forestry and 40 Forest Forces but a shadow that it was expected to increase for years to come. Nevertheless, the challenges facing the new organization are remarkable, including protecting a little scientifically understood ecosystem, and the responsibility for a small, isolated, remote area of ​​the little-known state.
The next ten years saw a steady expansion in staff numbers, enacting regulatory legislation, increased production from forests, depletion and fire protection work such as fire fighting construction, along with native forest rehabilitation that had suffered sloppy cuts.
1910s
The new Forestry Act (1907) also recognizes that effective forest management requires properly skilled staff, stipulating that no person can be appointed to a forestry position without completing a relevant course and passing a special exam, paving the way for the establishment of a forestry school. The Victorian School of Forestry (VSF) at Creswick was founded in 1910 and is located in an old hospital built in 1863 during the gold rush. The creation of the VSF is one of many recommendations from the 1901 Royal Commission and the school being the first of its kind in Australia.
Twenty employees of the Forestry Commission are known to have been registered in the Great War including the famous heroes at Gallipoli and the Western Front - Albert Jacka, VC.
1918 - The start of the Victoria Forest Commission
Then in December 1918, a comprehensive amendment to the Forestry Act created the Victoria Forest Commission (FCV) with three Commissioners to lead a new independent organization. The first chairman is the young Welsh Forester, Owen Jones and the new Minister is William Hutchinson. The main principles of the 1918 Act are considered to have originated from the previous 1907 law and include:
- the conservation, development and utilization of customary forests, based on sound forestry principles;
- the development of exotic softwood plantations;
- prosecuting important research work on natural forest products; and
- the need for effective fire prevention and fire prevention organizations.
Significantly, the new law is provided for the establishment of the Forest Fund so that the Commission can increase its own income from timber sales and enter into lending and thereby provide the capacity to implement its own policies and programs. Revenue from wood royalties and other sources grew fivefold in the first five years. The Commission is also authorized to recruit, hire and manage its own staff.
1920s
Returnees from the First World War renewed pressure on forest clearing with the expansion of various settlement schemes. Between 1903 and 1928, Crown plantations were reduced significantly to about a third of the State or 8.6 million hectares.
Victoria is blessed with a variety of native forests, dominated by eucalypts (often known as gum trees). These forests contain many diverse habitats and include those found in cool mountainous areas, mountains, tall in the eastern part of the country, and at Otways and Strzelecki Ranges near the coast. This wet forest is dominated by alpine ash stands, messmate, shining gum and mountain ash (the highest hardwood tree in the world). They remain a major source of high quality wooden spices for furniture, floors, joinery and pulpwood. The forest at the foot of the dryer has a mixture of messmate and other commercial species, while the Murray River has a lot of long-lasting red gums along the edges. Large tracts of mallee desert and iron-box forest are found in the drier northwest.
Silviculture is defined as the art and science of controlling the formation, health, growth, quality, protection and use of forests. This can involve a variety of treatments such as planting, seeding, thinning, along with various harvesting techniques such as clear-cutting to single tree selection. Much of the initial silvicultural knowledge was translated from Europe but in response to some difficulties of achieving a satisfactory regeneration after harvest the Commission pioneered many early scientific studies into eucalyptus biology and developed many innovative operational techniques for combustion of high intensity slash, air seeding. planting, thinning and maintenance. This commitment to silvicultural research continued throughout the life of the Commission.
In the days before all-weather roads and strong dredging trucks, sawmills were steam-powered and often deep in the forest with logs dragged short by horses or bulls. As the industry grows and becomes more mechanical, trams with wooden or steel rails are scattered throughout the forest. The tram line is also used to transport the sawn material to the local towns and then onwards on the State rail network to markets in Melbourne and beyond. Log size combined with steep terrain and frequent wet conditions in the mountains limit the use of animals and steam-powered cranes that drive "high lead" cable systems that substitute them. The Commission also operates its own sawmill plant in Erica with wood tramlines and steam locomotives. Sawmills were processed in an experimental spice working in Newport from 1911 until closed in 1956 under controversial circumstances. But some ready-made timber from Newport was sent to London for flooring at the Australian High Commission building. In 1931, it was estimated that 80% of the floor laid out in Melbourne was Mountain Ash which was dried by draining from state forest.
Productivity increased enormously with the emergence of electric saws after WW2 which replaced the ax to fall and cut large trees. At about the same time, diesel and electric motors replace steam, while crawler cranes and tractors replace dangerous humans that handle logs and timber but sawmills and logging are still dangerous workplaces.
Sawmills and sleep cutters are usually allocated a single right to the forest area to exploit but by the early 1920s the system was gradually replaced by one in which royalties were paid based on the amount of sawn timber produced. Much later in January 1950, a system of royalty equations was introduced which calculated the distance that logs were taken from the forest to sawmill, the quality and size of logs along with the distance to the central market in Melbourne. It is intended to reduce waste but also simple and uniform and with various modifications still in operation.
1920 saw Australia's first Premiers Conference considering the "forest" issue. The meeting concluded that 9.8 million hectares nationally should be permanently protected as forests to secure timber supplies. The Victorian component is 2.2 million hectares. Then in 1928/29, the first United Kingdom Forestry Conference was held in Australia. The conference, among other things, helped focus on the need for the establishment of a safer forest reserve.
Also during the 1920s battles continued to permanently reserve more forest areas, experiments with eucalypt pulp and timber maintenance occurred, concerns about timber imports (from interstate and abroad) continued to be expressed, and an eucalyptus refinery plant was established by the Commission on 1926 at Wellsford State Forest near Bendigo. During the same decade, the earliest use of fire was recorded by a Government land manager to reduce fuel levels on public land in Victoria.
1930s
The track of the Forestry Commission since its inception in 1918 to the beginning of World War II is one of periodic political conflicts, varying budgets but continuous organizational expansions and relative autonomy.
Although revenue from timber sales declined during the Great Depression, the Government channeled substantial funds to the Commission for unemployment assistance work that was particularly suited to unskilled laborers such as firebreaks, silvicultural thinning, weed spraying and rabbit control. In 1935-1936, the Commission employed nearly 9,000 men in relief work and 1,200 boys under the "Youth Plan for Conservation". One of his success stories is in Noojee's "Boys Camp" which is made possible with the support of two prominent Melbourne businessmen and philanthropists, Herbert Robinson Brooks and George Richard Nicholas along with the Chairman of the A V Galbraith Forest Commission.
A considerable amount of effort is directed towards building support infrastructure, often in remote areas such as depots and office work, home for staff, pointing towers, roads and water supply dams.
By the end of World War II, the Victorian society's attitude had changed from a one-century campaign to open 'The Crown' waste land for private settlements.
Internationally, southeastern Australia is regarded as one of the three most fire-prone landscapes on Earth, along with southern California and the southern Mediterranean. A major forest fire in Australia occurred on Black Thursday in 1851, where an estimated 5 million hectares were burned, followed by another fire at Red Tuesday in February 1891 in South Gippsland when about 260,000 hectares were burned, 12 people were killed and more than 2,000 buildings were destroyed. The death pattern continued with more major fires on the Black Sunday on 14 February 1926, seeing the count increase to sixty lost lives and extensive damage to agriculture, houses and forests.
Considered both in terms of loss of property and loss of life, the Black Friday bush fire on January 13, 1939 fires is one of the worst disasters ever to occur in Australia and certainly the worst forest fires to date. Just the next Wednesday bush fires in 1983 and bushfire Black Saturday in 2009 have resulted in more deaths. In terms of the total area burned, the Black Friday fires in 1939 were the second largest, burning 2 million hectares, 69 crumbling plants, 71 dead, and several towns completely disappeared. Among those killed were four from the Commission.
The next Royal Commission conducted by Judge Leonard Stretton has been described as one of the most significant questions in the history of Victoria's public administration. Its recommendations led to major changes including strict regulations on burning and fire safety measures for sawmills, pastoral license holders and the general public, compulsory construction of excavations on sawmills, upgrading of forest road links and fire bins, development of forest dams, firefighting towers fire and RAAF aerial patrols connected by the VL3AA Commission radio network to the ground observer. The Commission's communication system was considered at the time more technical than the police and military. These pioneering efforts were directed by Geoff Weste.
Before January 13, 1939, many fires had been burned. Several fires started in early December 1938, but most started in the first week of January 1939. Some of these fires were not extinguished. Others were left unattended, or as Judge Stretton wrote, the fire was allowed to burn "under control", because it was wrong and called dangerous. Most of the fires declared by Stretton, with an almost biblical gravity, are ignited by human hands.
As a result of Spice Court Justice Stretton's report, the Forestry Commission obtained additional funds and took responsibility for fire protection on all public lands including state forests, Unsanitary Land and National Parks plus a buffer that stretched a mile beyond their limits to private land and responsibility grew in a jump from 2.4 million to 6.5 million hectares. The Stretton recommendation officially approves and encourages the practice of a controlled general bush fire to minimize future risks. The next big fire in the 1943-44 forest fire season in Victoria is a key factor in the establishment of Country Fire Authority (CFA) for fire fighting in rural land. Prior to the formation of the CFA, the Commission, to some extent, had supported an individual volunteer brigade that had formed in rural Victoria in previous decades. Fire protection officer from the Forest Commission, Alf Lawrence, was appointed a member of the CFA Council.
The Victorian forests are destroyed to an unprecedented extent in the memory of life and the effects of 1939 bushfire dominate management thought and action for over the next ten years. Rescue fire-lit wood became an urgent and dominant task that still drained the Commission's resources and efforts a decade and a half later.
It is estimated that more than 6 million cubic meters of wood need to be saved. Great tasks were made more difficult by the labor shortages caused by the Second World War. In fact, there is so much material that some of the logs are cut down and dumped in large dumps at the bottom of the river and covered with soil and trees to stop them from cracking only to be recovered a few years later.
Since the early days, the Commission has promoted the use of forest waste and sawmills for pulp production. The industry finally began to show interest and in December 1936, the Commission was led by A.V. Galbraith and Sir Herbert Gepp from Australian Paper Manufacturers Ltd (APM) finalized a pioneering legislation agreement that grants certain pulpwood rights to the company for fifty years over some 200,000 ha of state forest. The Commission maintains control over pulp logging operations to ensure that pulpwood remains secondary to the utilization of more valuable types of products such as sawlogs, poles and piles, the main source being eucalyptus eels both from mature trees and thinning.
The company started building a plant at Maryvale in Gippsland for Kraft paper making. It began production in October 1939 and for several years, much of its raw material came from burning ash forests in 1939.
1940s
Many Commission employees, timber workers and volunteers for military service in WW2 with several joint units deployed to the UK and elsewhere as 2/2 Forestry Companies at the Royal Australian Engineers (RAE) and presented with a distinction to produce timber. for the war effort. Others are served back home by continuing to save burning forests and also producing firewood and charcoal for domestic use.
One of the urgent requirements of the Commission during the War was to regulate emergency fuelwood supplies for various uses including military and civilian heating and cooking, and instead of coal for locomotives due to miners strikes in Wonthaggi. At one stage, annual production increased by half a million tons. Most came from a fire rescue operation, but then in 1942, Paddle Steamer Hero was bought by the Commission to transport much-needed redgum firewood to the Echuca pier and then by train to Melbourne. Most of the workforce is provided by Italian internees.
Also as long as gasoline WW2 is mostly reserved for essential services, so regular riders are offered another energy source, charcoal to be burned in gas converters. Kurth Kiln was built by the Commission near Gembrook and is the only commercial charcoal facility in Victoria that can operate continuously. The furnace was fully manufactured in mid-1942, but the difficulty of transporting and surplus char supply from private operators meant that the kiln was only used intermittently during 1943 and closed shortly thereafter. Unique sites now have historical and scientific significance.
In addition to chainsaws, the Commission also provides all kinds of forest products including salt, eucalyptus oil and tea tree fences from mallee desert, charcoal, railway sleep, controlling livestock grazing along the Murray River and some mountain areas, clothes liners and separation fences. palings, cut blocks for state performances, power poles, as well as durable wood specially for ships and marine docks.
The physical properties of indigenous forest woods are not suitable for some applications and planted cultivated timber offers an opportunity to replace expensive imports of Baltic Pine, Oregon and other wood with domestic supplies. Several exotic softwood species have been tested but Pinus radiata has found that its growth in Victoria conditions is promising for commercial cultivation starting from 1880.
In 1949, the Commonwealth Forestry and Wood Agency proposed a national cultivation program to make Australia more autonomous in wood products after experiencing shortages during the war. The threat of woodwasp sirex was introduced in the early 1950s and the final discovery on the Australian mainland in 1961 brought the questionable softwood plantation program. However, quarantine and control measures are in place.
Establishment of the Australian Forestry Council The minister appeared later in 1964, one of the Council's first decisions was to further increase the national softwood target, with the Commonwealth agreeing to lend money to the United States to plant 30,000 hectares of softwood per year for 35 years in what is known as a Plantation Extension Program (PX). Victoria accepted the challenge of building and sustaining its estates almost half the average cost of other countries. By the end of 1982, the Commission had established 87,000 hectares of softwood plantations, a fivefold increase since 1940. The softwood plantation zones were concentrated around the Ovens Valley, Portland-Rennick, Latrobe Valley-Strzelecki Ranges, Ballarat-Creswick, Ben- Upper Murray near Tallangatta-Koetong, Otways and the Middle Zone near Taggerty. Some degraded agricultural lands were purchased for the PX program but the controversial area of ​​native forest areas have been cleared and converted into softwood plantations - a practice that was stopped in 1987 after pressure from conservation groups.
The steep hills of Strzelecki Ranges in South Gippsland have been cleared in a failed soldier settlement scheme after WW1 and then abandoned as it proves too difficult for farming to succeed. Lulur, blackberries, rabbits and weeds then took over and the area became famous locally as a heartbroken hill. So the Commission started a massive reforestation scheme in 1945/46 that continued for about 40 years into the future. A large nursery on the Morwell River linked to a low-security prison is built to produce over one million eucalyptus tree seedlings each year. There is another prison near Yarram in the Won Wron pine tree. Prisoners do a lot of nursery and planting work. After years of lobbying by conservation groups, large amounts of eucalyptus reforestation were incorporated into the new "core and Links" conservation reserve in 2015.
Other regional nurseries in Tallangatta (Koetong), Benalla, Trentham and Rennick produce softwood crops for the Commission planting program, holders of the Forestry Agreement of Agriculture and other private landowners.
In addition to the Commission's plantations, there is a lot of private investment in plantations, especially from APM who buy farmland close to its pulpmill at Maryvale. The company also established a tree in Crown Land at the foot of the Strzelecki hills which includes long-term leases from the Commission. Meanwhile, to encourage smallholder owners to build woodlots, not only increase agricultural revenues but also, to contribute to plantation targets in Victoria, the law was enacted at the end of 1966 for the Commission to provide financial assistance up to $ 5,000, on condition without interest for 12 year, under the Agricultural Forest Loan Scheme . In 1980, the Commission reported that there were 300 agreements covering about 6000 ha. Separate virtue schemes are in place to help state schools to create small pine trees with the intent of schools retaining earnings after they are harvested.
1950s
The destruction by the 1939 fire in the Central Highlands around Melbourne and the conclusion of a massive rescue operation forced the massive movement of timber production into East Gippsland and northeast Victoria. The demands of new sawmills in regional cities, and the shift of timber industries to untouched forests transformed the native Victoria forest from small operations into operations with large capital investments in machinery and trucks.
The advent of stronger bulldozers, crawler tractors, and truck carriers directed to dramatically alter logging practices. It is feasible for wooden trucks to be transported directly from the forest landings to the city-based sawmill within hours. The country towns then became the center of activity, rather than the deeper factory in the forest which was characteristic of the previous period, and settlements such as Heyfield, Mansfield, Myrtleford, Orbost and Swifts Creek grew into busy centers based on the wood industry. In addition, after learning the valuable lessons of the 1939 forest fires and tragic casualties, the Commission used the Licensing and Royalty powers to regulate where new plants could be built.
The result of a shift eastward is the massive expansion of forest roads and network tracks of nearly a thousand kilometers in years. Major construction projects such as Tamboritha and Moroka Roads north of Licola at Gippsland and Big River Road in northeastern Victoria were destroyed through steep mountains to access new timber resources and provide much-needed fire access. However, the ever-expanding road and bridge networks and the need for costly maintenance in remote locations create long-term funding headaches. Winter snow and storms cause large trees to fall and flash floods prove to be a catastrophe requiring major engineering programs every spring and summer. Large workers with truck fleets, bulldozers and graders are required to keep open 4WD roads and paths open and to repair or replace damaged wooden bridges. The Commission's monkey's monkey monkey blew up and smashed rocks from a large mine in the forest to provide much-needed pebbles on the surface.
The Commission has always made great efforts in forest inventory, mapping, tree measurement, monitoring and growth analysis. This information is used not only to identify timber resources but also to monitor forest health and to calculate sustainable yields and allowable harvest levels. In the early years before roads and public transport, this was a work done by the assessment crew who traveled frequently on horseback. Horsemanship is included in the curriculum at Creswick when the district boundary is determined by how far the district foresters can ride their horse in a day. During the 1930s and up to the late 1950s, it was common to go for weeks on the bushes on horses either doing field assessments or long-range firefighters.
The emergence of motor vehicles, airplanes, radios and telephones extends the knowledge and scope of management as well as operational control and supervision. This provides the Commission better coverage for dealing with a vast area of ​​responsibility for forest fires. The Commission acquired some of the advantages of WW2 army vehicles and equipment because the forest road network thrived behind the Royal Stretton Commission into the 1939 Black Friday forest fire.
The Commission also pioneered the use of aircraft for firefighters in Australia. Aircraft used for fire fighting, crew transport, air-burning jobs, aerial photography, infrared cameras and reconnaissance. The first fire spacecraft was deployed on 18 February 1930 (RAAF Westland Wapiti) and the first helicopter (RAAF Sikorsky S-51 Dragonfly) was tested in Erica shortly after WW2 in 1949. The organization has been at the forefront of ever-existing aircraft technology. since. The Snowy Range airfield to the north of Heyfield, which is the highest place in Australia at 1600m (5300 ft) ASL, was built by the Commission in 1961 to help fight fires in remote mountain areas. His success led to the development of other bombing airstrips such as the Victoria Valley at the Grampians.
1958 saw a major revision of three parts of the supplementary rules - Forest Act, State Fire Authority (CFA) and Land Law . The goal is to establish a bold new framework for the future of Victoria's public land and provide a set of supporting regulations. It also aims to bring all the rules into alignment, providing clarity, avoiding duplication and confusing overlap. For example, many of the legal forces for Forestry Commission staff related to fire fighting are taken from the CFA Act. The legislative package is proven to be strong and largely intact today. The first National Park Act was passed only two years earlier in 1956 and underwent a major revision in 1975. In 1959, building a model similar to APM in Maryvale, an agreement was reached to supply timber to Bacchus Marsh for Masonite Corporation for the manufacture of the product hardboard.
The Commission dominated forest management during the post-war 1950s housing boom and this proved to be the culmination of its influence. More confident, strong politically and a good resource with around 130 staff.
1960s
Providing for forest recreation became an important focus for the Commission from the late 1960s onwards, although it first developed a substantial interest in recreation with the development of Mt Buller as a ski field in the early 1950s. The commission pursues the construction of alpine resorts on Mt Buller, Mt Baw Baw, and Lake Mountain with passion. Challenges to build roads, communications, water and sewerage, accommodation and other services in remote locations are very much in line with the experience and skills of the Commission.
In fact, ornamental gardens, arboretum, golf course in Olinda and picnic areas developed in Dandenong Ranges and elsewhere. The Commission is also active in providing access to orientation, rally cars, and the development of the Alpine Walking Track remotely.
In addition to many smaller recreational areas, walking trails and picnic grounds in state forest, the Commission runs a forest park in Sherbrooke, You Yangs, Macedon, Grampians, and Lerderderg Gorge. Finally, many of these areas were transferred in various reviews by the Land Conservation Council (LCC) to be managed by Victorian Parks Parks Service (now Victorian Parks) or the Victorian Alpine Resorts Commission (ARC).
Getting firefighters into a difficult and inaccessible field is a timeless matter. The development of rappelling - the decline of firefighters from a flying helicopter, was first piloted at Heyfield in 1964, the first in Australia, using a Bell 47G helicopter and two crewmen. The system had been in place for the next two fire seasons but failed until the emergence of stronger helicopters such as Bell 204 and Bell 212 in the early 1980s.
On February 6, 1967, two Piper Pawnees from Benambra near Omeo made the first shutdown of operations in Australia with a small lightning raid. Drops are able to withstand long-range shots long enough to allow the ground crew to walk for hours across heavy terrain to reach it and make it safe. Until then there has been a tremendous range of experiments with different planes like heavy military bomber bombers, single seat fighters and small farm aircraft with different materials, techniques, and equipment. But this is the first real bombing job, and the beginning of modern air fire operations in Australia.
Much has been written about the socially volatile 1960s and Cold War with its nuclear threat from the Soviet Union but the main geopolitical feature is Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War and controversial issue of conscription. Forestry professions are not excluded from the National Service and a number of Commission staff are called to serve in Vietnam.
Meanwhile, in the post-WW2 era, from 1947 to mid-1980s, the FCV sponsored the only Australian military sawmill, 91 Forestry Squadron, which is a special reserve unit of the Royal Australian Engineers (RAE). Founded and ordered by FCV veterans and WW2 veterans, Major Ben Benallack, "Woodpecker" because they are known to consist of a small group of special soldiers capable of rapid mobilization if there is a need. Several other Victorian departments like the State Electricity Commission (SEC) did the same thing by supporting the Newborough-based construction squadron at Latrobe Valley. This creates a very active and capable part-time military group that completes many viable projects across the country. 91 Forestry Squadron operates a wood sawmill, builds wooden bridges along the Murray River, suspended bridges at Tarra Bulga National Park, Snake Island pier, logging roads and various demolition duties. Many Commission employees and others from the forestry sector serve long periods in the unit.
The 1960s again saw longer droughts and deadly forest fires on the outskirts of Melbourne in 1962 and again in 1968. There were growing concerns about long-term water supply security so that in 1965, the Public Works Committee of Parliament initiated an investigation of water supplies the future for growth of the city and reported in 1967. In response to the investigation, the Bolte Government immediately approved the work for a transfer tunnel 20 km from the Thomson River and planned to begin construction of a massive Thomson Dam in Gippsland to increase water storage capacity (The Hulu Yarra Dam was completed in 1957). In addition to Thomson, a number of small diversion sites known as Yarra Tributaries were set aside under lease agreements between the Commission and MMBW in 1968 to supplement water supplies. All newly established catch areas are in state forest (unlike the MMBW catch that was set aside in the 1890s).
The Forestry Commission has long opposed the closed-capture policy of MMBW on grounds that logging, controlled public access and the protection of compatible water supplies. Earlier, in 1958-60, the State Development Committee conducted an investigation into the utilization of timber resources in the country's watersheds and the Commission strongly advocated for access to closed-catchment. However, on this occasion they are more concerned that access to timber resources in Thomson will be limited by the construction of new and advanced reservoirs as evidence for a successful parliamentary inquiry to harvest in many of the catches announced throughout Victoria. The Government of the State had no intention of abandoning the MMBW's closed capture policy that had stood since 1890 but it was decided that logging would continue in the Yarra Tribs and Thomson catchment but with some additional protection. The construction of the Thomson Dam started only in the early 1970s and was completed in 1984.
MMBW has started research on forest cover on water supplies as early as 1948. In the early 1960s he formed a series of new fishing trials in wet mountain forests near Healesville to measure the long-term impact of logging and forest fires on water quality. and quantity. It took another 10 years for the results to appear more clearly. It was found that while logging has an impact, the most dramatic threat to river flows remains a bushfire catastrophe like Black Friday in 1939.
1970s
Beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s a series of environmental controversies emerged throughout Australia that were different in nature and more hostile than ever before. Development proposals at Lake Pedder in Tasmania, Great Barrier Reef, and Little Desert among them.
The electoral reaction of the proposal to open public land in the Victorian Small Desert for agriculture led to the establishment of the Land Conservation Council (LCC) in 1971. Its main role was to independently assess public land and provide recommendations to the government about its use in a balanced manner. The Board's process is tight and ninety-six percent of all its recommendations are accepted by the Government. As a result, the Park area and other reservation places are growing rapidly with appropriate reductions in state forest areas.
At the end of 1973, the Australian National University (ANU) published "The Fight for the Forests" a critique of forestry aimed at intensive timber production, timber cutting and native forest clearing for pine plantations. The publication of "The Alps at the Crossroads" in 1974, was clearly directed at the Victorian Government and the policies and practices of the Forestry Commission and other Victoria institutions.
For much of the previous century the forestry profession has been synonymous with the conservation and sustainability and multipurpose combined principles as first set out in Schlich's "Bible" of forestry written in 1904 but, for the first time, this idea came under attack frontal and forensic. Different views of conservation based on the virtues of intrinsic ecological values, especially wildlife, are being strongly asserted by non-governmental environmental organizations and some staff are disillusioned by their persistence. The debate is sometimes heated and divisive and many staff who feel their loyalty to the Forestry Commission and justifiable pride for being long-term forest guards along with their status in the local community are being questioned. FCV's close group of staff always has a strong commitment to forest protection and conservation and their pain and frustration are reflected repeatedly in staff association meetings and bulletins.
The wave of environmental criticism has changed and what is generally described as the second wave of the Australian environmental movement. Sometimes it is unfairly alleged that the senior leaders of the Commission are struggling to adapt quite swiftly to the changing societal attitudes and too attached to the doctrine of forest use as a solution.
But during the Commission's remaining years, he continued to expand his focus on non-timber aspects of forest management, promoting the conservation of recreation, tourism, flora and fauna, water catchment, plantation, extension counseling in Creswick, Macedon, Mildura and Wailing growing almost one million native plants to support tree trees in agricultural initiatives (predecessor to Landcare that started later in 1986), biological research, community education (including the construction of a special pavilion at the Royal Melbourne Showgrounds) and landscape impact management from forestry.
World Forest Day was proclaimed in 1971 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. It is set for 21 March each year to coincide with the vernal equinox or the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. For many years Commission staff celebrated the event by holding various community events.
While almost everyone can remember when the decimal currency was introduced to Australia on February 14, 1966, few remembered that it would take 8 more years before the metric finally came to the woods and timber industries and the measurement of sawn timber and sawn timber was changed from the traditional empire. steps such as the superfoot of sawn timber, pile of stacked wood pulp, rope and firewood steres and hoppus log volumes to a simpler cubic meter. Some redundant imperial sizes exist like homo or bundle of sticks but are not commonly used. The Commission reported satisfactory preparations for the metrics in June 1973 but this transition is not without challenges along the supply chain for foresters, supervisors, logging contractors, wood sawmills, hardware stores and builders. The length of the wood changes from foot to meter but is still sold in multiples of one foot or 0.3 m, while the classical blob is 4 by 2 inches to 100 by 50 mm. The full conversion took two years and was completed in 1976. The measurement and calculation of the area is much easier in acres than complex acres, roods and perches.
Meanwhile, the Commission placed a significant emphasis on fire research and development in the 1960s and 1970s and undertook some innovative work with air strikes and fire equipment. Initially, fire extinguishers such as Bedford tankers and locally designed Slip On Units were mounted onto 4WD rigid body trays of rugged and imperfect vehicles but developed from time to time in his Altona workshop.
The summer of 1977-78 was characterized by a buildup of extreme fire hazards in most parts of the country. There were 606 outbreaks of fire, of which 77 occurred for three days from January 15-17. Lightning causes most of this in mountainous areas of the State. Many were controlled quickly but eight developed into major fires and phase 2 of the State Disaster Plan was put into effect. Then the Army and Air Force were summoned to assist Commission staff and employees. An important feature is a very important part played by military helicopters in moving crews and supplies to combat multiple fires in mountain areas.
Lightning is the main cause of forest fires in the mountainous areas of Victoria followed by intentional and reckless ignorance. Direct attacks are normal tactics in the early stages of bush fires. It involves walking a small crew to the edge and then building hand footprints with rakehoes and chainsaws. It is possible to control a small fire using this technique if the flame height is less than one meter or more, the fire is accessible on foot, the scrub is not too thick and the weather is stable. Sometimes retardant loads that fall from small agricultural aircraft can be used to buy time for land crews, especially if a small fire or a tree is struck by lightning. A small D4 first bulldozer attack (FAD) transported in a truck is often used to build a control line close to the edge of a fire. Larger FCV D6 engines, as well as contractor machines, are called when the fire increases.
This initial attack technique was not without risk but proved to be very effective for decades in keeping small fires, especially in remote locations. Because of the stronger helicopters developed in the 1960s and 1970s, you often rappelled into a fire or helipad cut.
This aggressive direct attack technique is known as dry firefighting and because its implicit name involves having limited or no access to water. Physical work is difficult but an essential skill to combat remote forest fires. It was something the Commission staff was historically famous for and very few people, other than their families, were even aware that they might spend weeks in the mountains.
Initially, simple basecamps were set up in a small open space in the forest near the river and close to the fire. They are quite primitive and the crew is expected to remain independent for the first 48 hours or so until better arrangements for food and supplies can be made. But over time, basecamps become more comfortable and well organized with hot showers, toilets, electricity, medical services, and well-cooked food.
Because fires are getting bigger and harder to control with direct attacks or if the weather or terrain is a bad crew is often forced backwards, sometimes many kilometers, down the road or ridges and congestion when conditions are safer. This has the negative effect of making the fire area much larger and more importantly longer perimeter to patrol. The first use, anywhere in the world, from DAID (Delayed Action Incendiary Devices - similar to the big double ended match with a safety fuse length in between) to a large fire backdrop of 4,800 acre in northeast Victoria is done by Commission in 1968.
The planning and approval process for burning fuel reduction (FRB) was not very sophisticated or bureaucratic until the late 1970s. If the fuel conditions are suitable, and after checking the weather on the McArthur Meter, it's common for the local Forester County or experienced Forest Superintendent to light up the bush at the end of autumn or even winter by using a torch or by throwing a large fusee game out of the vehicle window at afternoon on the way home from work. For larger operations in remote mountains or deserts, the helicopter will fly along the ridge and burn hundreds of hectares by dropping the DAID. The fire will be allowed to then drip slowly to the north facing the slopes at night until exiting overnight with dew the next morning or running into a wet gutter. But the 1970s was a relatively wet decade so the trenches were wet and full of wet fern trees that would stop most of the burns. In addition, there are not many people in the forest other than loggers and breeders making it possible to do this with minimal risk.
However, the fall of a helicopter that carried out airborne ignition in the fall of 1977 with the deaths of two forest officers and pilots badly shook the small "Forestry Brotherhood". This leads to better accident insurance for staff involved in air operations and the development of safer air engines.
This is the era before information technology creates the deepest change in the forestry profession with sophisticated computer, internet, iPad, smartphones, accurate GPS Positioning System, digital maps, plotters, Geographic Information System (GIS), live weather data, video conferencing , digital cameras, satellite imagery and Phoenix fire modeling. Basic navigation, surveying and map-making are important skills of a field guide. A large piece of parchment A0, a light table, Derwent color pencil, Rotering ink and a stable hand are required to make a map. Once produced, these artificial maps are carefully stored in antique wooden drawer drawers or modern vertiplan cabinets. A pocket stereoscope is required to interpret pairs of black-and-white air photos dogged before a Google map is found. Mathematics, triangulation and theodolite for accurate surveys or dumpy levels to establish bridge and culvert construction in the field. Trees are measured with various instruments such as large callipers, special diameter tapes or wedge ground plane for thickness and clinometers or Biltmore sticks for altitude. Distance finders to measure distances, aneroid barometers to estimate altitudes and follow contour or sexline lines to obtain accurate latitude and longitude before accurate GPS became widely available in May 2000 when selective availability was turned off by the US military. Having good directions, being able to read maps and using gauge chains, prism compasses and dead calculations is an important skill, as well as a pair of walking boots, somehow navigating through the bushes to return home at the end of a long day. But getting lost is an ordinary thing, especially in a damaged or bumpy terrain with multiple paths or paths, and in the days before a GPS goes to the top of a hill or ridge to get a better view and rearrange your bearings, often times is the most practical solution.
There was no mobile phone in the 1970s but a simple VHF radio device mounted on a 4WD vehicle fleet and some great handheld portable devices were available. Technology is primitive and acceptance is poor unless the user is at a high point somewhere. The radio signal is "line-of-sight" and bounces between the fire tower and the transmitter relay across the mountains back to the district offices. Safety is a real concern if someone is injured or trapped in a remote valley somewhere on "dead" radio. Interestingly, Nokia was the world's largest developer and handset manufacturer in the early 1980s, originally a Finnish forest company.
Warm and wet conditions during the 1970s helped to spread the famous land and water-borne fungi Phytophthora cinnamomi, especially in the coastal forests and foot of Victoria's mountains where large areas suffer from dieback trees. Extensive surveys and innovative scientific research were conducted by FCV scientist Dr. Gretna Weste to try and better understand the biology of pathogens and develop practical methods for controlling their spread. Mushrooms are also a major problem in the jarrah jungle of Western Australia.
In the late 1970s the Commission employed about 300 foresters plus 500 more technical and administrative staff and more than 1,000 crew workers scattered across Victoria's country in 48 counties and 7 division offices with total expenses of more than $ 32M offset by revenue from timber sales of $ 16 million.
More importantly, there is an increasing recognition of the significant social and economic contribution that Forestry Commission staff, and their families, have long made only by living in small towns and becoming part of rural communities. Together with other professionals such as schoolteachers, bank managers and police, foresters often volunteer for important community leadership roles in local, social and civic sports groups such as CFA brigades or service clubs such as Rotary. In addition to its permanent workforce, the Commission offers a number of employment opportunities for young people as firefighters during the summer. And as far as possible the purchase of materials and shops made to support the local economy.
1980s
Social awareness for the environment that had developed in the late 1960s and 1970s then moved to mainstream political discourse in the 1980s. Problems and confrontations erupted on many fronts for the protection of flora and fauna, tin possum, landscape, medium rain forest, water catchments, old growth, wood chips, fuel burning and silvicultural debating techniques such as forest clearance dominate most of the frequent forestry debates polarized.. The conflict became increasingly marked, when in 1983 the Australian Conservation Foundation declared its policy that 'timber production should be transferred from indigenous forest to plantations established outside of the present forest'. Meanwhile, supported by their success in the Franklin Dam dispute in Tasmania in the early 1980s, environmental groups then took action into their own hands, especially in far-east Gippsland, to confront logging and to campaign for prolonged protests and forest blockades.
Meanwhile, the Victorian Forest School in Creswick continued to be managed by the Forestry Commission until 1980 when he joined the University of Melbourne. 1980 also saw the graduation of the last group of three-year diplomacy funded by the Forest Commission scholarship, bringing its total since the school started in 1910 to 522 students. It also marks the end of the flow of graduates entering the Commission with significant personnel consequences over the coming decades.
The core of the Commission's flight staff has accumulated considerable expertise in using and managing Victoria's growing fire brigade for decades and once again leading the innovation of new air fire techniques in Australia. During the summer of 1981-82 equipment was borrowed from the US Forest Service for evaluation under operational conditions in Victoria. The equipment known as the "Modular Airborne Firefighting System" (MAFFS) was piloted with a bushfire bomb with chemical pulp with a chemical slurry in the amount of up to 11000 liters per drop. This is much larger than the volume possible with smaller farm aircraft contracted to the Commission at the time. C-130 Hercules was obtained from the Royal Australian Air Force for trials. MAFFs are used effectively in forest fire suppression in Broadford, Bright, and Orbost. This opens the way for the Great Modern Water Tank (LAT's) which is now commonly used in Australia every summer.
While light helicopters such as the Bell 206 Jet Ranger are used for reconnaissance, medium helicopters such as the Bell 204 (civil version of military hue) are routinely used for crew and equipment transportation.
In 1982, after nearly 18 years of absence, rappelling operations began with the use of specially trained and specially trained crews, usually in multiples of 4 or 6 descended from larger Bell 212 helicopters to attack small fires in remote location. The Rappell crew is also used to build helipads in larger fires where there is no trace of the vehicle so that crews and other equipment can be transported in and out by helicopter.
These intermediate helicopters can also be installed with Canadian-made abdominal tanks, which despite having a limited water bombard capacity of around 1400 liters, are still very effective in rugged mountain areas providing close support for ground crews working near the edge of the fire. Their ability to take from small dams, tanks or rivers, and make accurate drops, especially with short lap times makes them an invaluable fire extinguisher. The introduction of heavy fire-fighting helicopters such as the Erickson S-64 Skycrane (Elvis) that can lift and carry 9500 liters of water did not occur until much in 1997.
Forward Looking Infra Red (FLIR) cameras mounted on lightweight helicopters became available and proved very useful in identifying hot spots that burn through thick smoke and to direct the ground crew during the sweeping phase. Other developments previously studied and tested operationally, "coming of age" in the 1984/85 season. An infrared line scanner mounted on a Kingair 200C plane is used to monitor the spread of major fires and the progress of reheating. Scans are usually done between midnight and 2 am and images are available for fire controllers by 5 am. This allows fire tactics to be well developed before the day shift crew is due to leave the base camps. The Victorian firefighters rarely had such accurate and detailed information for them at that time.
Abu Ash forest fire occurred in southeastern Australia on February 16, 1983. Over twelve hours of rage, more than 180 wind-induced fires of up to 110 km/h caused extensive damage throughout Victoria and South Australia. The years of severe drought and extreme weather combined to create one of the worst fire days in Australia since Black Friday in 1939.
In Victoria, 47 people died that day, while in South Australia there were 28 further deaths. Many casualties occur because the firestorm conditions are caused by sudden and loud wind changes at night that quickly divert the direction and size of the front flame. The speed and ferocity of fire, aided by abundant fuels and landscapes drowning in smoke, makes fire suppression and fire impossible impossible. In many cases, the population survives for itself when a fire destroys communications, cuts off escape routes and cuts off electricity, telephone and water supplies. Up to 8,000 people were evacuated in Victoria at the height of the crisis and a state of disaster was announced for the first time in the history of South Australia.
More than 16,000 firefighters are facing a blaze, including staff and crew workers from the Forestry Commission, the National Park Service, and volunteers from the State Fire Authority. Also involved more than 1,000 Victorian Police, 500 Australian Defense Forces personnel and hundreds of locals. Various equipment is used, including 400 vehicles (fire trucks, water tankers and dozers), 11 helicopters and 14 fixed wing aircraft.
And like the previous forest fires of 1939, the Abu Wednesday fire resulted in other government investigations and massive wood rescue programs throughout the Central Highlands. 1983 - The end of the era.
Not long after Ash Ash bushfires, the long and distinctive use of Victoria's legal authority such as the Forestry Commission was rejected by the newly elected Labor Government John Cain who sought to assert control over policies and expenditures. Thus, in a surprise move, the Forestry Commission, along with many others such as MMBW, was replaced by central executive control and departmental models.
The establishment of the Department of Conservation, Forests and Land (CFL) was announced in mid-1983 and entered into force on 2 November 1983 with a brief Parliamentary Act. The Commission was then merged into a newly established department along with the Department of Land and the Crown Survey, the National Park Service, the Land and Fisheries Conservation Authority and the Wildlife.
The last Liberal Government Ministers of the Forestry Commission are Tom Austin, MLA and the first CFL Employment Minister is Rod MacKenzie, MLC. However, the appointment of British academician, Professor Tony Eddison, as the new Director General of CFL is most surprising.
The new mega department manages 38% of Victoria's mainland area with about 4,500 staff and in the first year of its financial operations, 1984/85, has a budget of $ 154 million. Nearly half of the CFL staff came from the Forestry Commission.
Each component component of the new department has its own challenges in merging but some foresters and technical staff in particular struggle to make the transition from a strong, highly organized and homogeneous culture to a new mixed organization. Others see it as a career opportunity to diversify and are ultimately elevated to many senior, conservation, operational and regional policy roles in emerging organizations.
Significantly, existing Forest Funds successfully since 1918, withdrawn and all wood royalties and revenues are returned to the State Treasury. The department then needs to compete with other agencies and rely on annual budget allocations with little ability to save and invest.
1983 to 1990 - Conservation, Forests, and Lands.
The pace of change in forest management is accelerating with the Government of the new State impatient to implement their institutional policies and reforms including:
- Creating 18 new Consolidated, Forest and Land (CFL) areas in a new, comprehensive law.
- The establishment of the Inquiry Council, led by Professor Ian Ferguson, to the Victoria Timber Industry in December 1983.
- The Timber Industry Strategy (TIS) in 1986 that provided a new policy wave including a plan
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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