The history, size and status of each of Australia's 12 public wood collections, or 'xylaria', are reviewed in light of the uncertain future of most of them. Their history is traced from the colonial era to the present. Australian colonies sent wood samples to Britain and international exhibitions from early in the nineteenth century to promote their timber exports. In the 1880s Queensland and New South Wales started the first two scientific reference collections of wood, other states followed, and in the 1920s the Commonwealth started two large national collections. The collections were used to develop classification systems for identifying samples of wood in the absence of botanical specimens. There are currently 12 collections held by public institutions, of which the largest, with 47 000 specimens, is held by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Their expansion was followed by gradual retractions of government funding, staff and interest over the last 30years. Ten of the 12 collections are now considered to be secure, six are in institutions that can conserve them, and only two are in use. Consolidation of the national collections under a professional curator is needed.

There is a process by which scientific collections become heritage. The case of a wood collection, or xylarium, at the Australian National University (ANU) is discussed from its start in the Commonwealth Forestry Bureau in 1926, its association with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research/Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation from 1928, its transfer to ANU in 1965, its manifold uses at ANU, and its decline and heritage assessment in 2011. The collection, consisting of 8,400 wood samples, microscope slides, panels and artefacts, was used for teaching forestry students, research into wood anatomy, and for identifying timber. Its future is uncertain.

One would not normally expect an inventory report to be reviewed in a scientific journal, let alone one published on the far side of the world from its topic, but this is an unusual report. Six fea...

Australian forestry has both a history and a heritage; a history of its science, endeavours, institutions and people, and a heritage of its fashioning of Australia’s forests. Its history is its story, replete with the trials and triumphs, successes and failures of its heroes and the ranks of people long forgotten. Its heritage is different; it is something received, and something that may be passed on or abandoned as we choose. We think of heritage as places and things, but heritage needs its stories. Without their stories, forests are just trees and grass, possums and beetles, soil and water, landscapes and old mills, but with their stories they have human meaning. It is the difference between a few stones in the bush and a sacred site. History and heritage are intertwined.

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

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

This paper provides an overview of the Australian sawmilling industry from 1788 to the present, against which its heritage stories can be told. Mechanised sawmilling became firmly established from the 1850s. It looked to exports where it could and competed with imported softwoods. Before WWI it was largely an industry of small steam-powered sawmills located in the forests and some metropolitan mills owned by timber merchants. It started to up-grade its technology between the wars. The booming timber market immediately after WWII led to a temporary surge in the number of small mills. The industry changed from the 1970s as small, family-owned forest mills closed or were taken over by large companies, and as softwood production from pine plantations has replaced hardwood production from native forests. The transient nature of the industry has meant that much of its heritage has been lost.Keywords: Band sawsbox millsBunnings Ltdcircular sawsDonnelly River millExportsforest sawmillsframe sawsJ. Wrightspot millsvertical sawsW. H. Warrenwater mills Additional informationNotes on contributorsJ. DargavelDr John Dargavel is a Visiting Fellow in the Fenner School for Environment and Society at the Australian National University. He has degrees from the universities of Edinburgh and Melbourne, and the Australian National University. He has worked in the forest service in South Australia, and for over 20 years as an industrial forester with the pulp and paper industry in Victoria.Since coming to the Australian National University in 1978, John has been researching and teaching in the areas of forest economics, policy and history. He is the immediate past President of the Australian Forest History Society. He has written and edited 10 books, including a history of the forest sector, Fashioning Australia’s Forests (1995). He is the author of more than 70 published papers, covering forest management, industrial and labour history, trade, and culture. His biography of Charles Lane Poole, Conservator of Forests in Western Australia 1916-1921, and later the Commonwealth’s Inspector-General of Forests, will be published in 2008 under the title of The Zealous Conservator: a Life of Charles Lane Poole (UWA Press).

Abstract The forces that started formal forestry education in Australia and New Zealand from 1910 and 1924 respectively are traced. The controversies and difficulties experienced by the forestry schools that were started are examined and the links between the two countries in forestry education are noted. Forestry education arose amidst inter-state jealousies, class divisions and personal animosities. It emerged in the 1960s as a truly university education that melded some of the ethos of imperial forestry with other philosophies in ways that could be applied in Dominion realities.

Charles Lane Poole (1875-1970) was engaged from 1922 to 1924 to locate forest resources that could be exploited for a timber export trade from the Territories of Papua and New Guinea. He took his brief beyond this in order to establish a scientific base for forestry, explore country beyond the limits of white contact, and contribute to the mapping of the Territories. He did not find a timber resource for export, but he classified the forests, assessed likely areas and collected some 800 herbarium specimens. This paper examines his surveys in light of these dimensions, the context of time and place, and Lane Poole's beliefs and energy.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsDeforesting the Earth: From Prehistory to Global Crisis. By Michael Williams. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. xxxvi + 689 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth $70John DargavelJohn Dargavel Australian National University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 9, Number 1January 2004 Published for the American Society for Environmental History and the Forest History Society Views: 1Total views on this site Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/3985949 Views: 1Total views on this site © 2003 American Society for Environmental History and Forest History SocietyPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsEcological Pioneers: A Social History of Australian Ecological Thought and Action. By Martin Mulligan and Stuart Hill. Cambridge University Press. 2001. vii + 338 pp. Illustrations, bibliography, index, Cloth $75.00, paper $28.00John DargavelJohn Dargavel Australian National University in Canberra Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 8, Number 3July 2003 Published for the American Society for Environmental History and the Forest History Society Views: 2Total views on this site Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/3986208 Views: 2Total views on this site © 2003 American Society for Environmental History and Forest History SocietyPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Summary Consideration of the prospects for Australian plantations in 2002 follows national conferences on the topic, held in 1989 and 1974. Four parameters of change shape the prospects in 2002 in ways that differ from the earlier considerations. Globalisation has reduced the Australian content of the forest products industries. A new forest economy has been mooted based on tradeable permits for carbon emissions and credits for providing ecosystem services. The advance of neo-liberalism in public policy has led to the privatisation or corporatisation of state plantations and a wider range of types of plantation enterprise. The purposes of plantations are now more elaborate and public policies less direct or certain of their outcome.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsPacific Forest: A History of Resource Control and Contest in the Solomon Islands, c. 1800–1997. By Judith A. Bennett. Cambridge, England: White Horse Press, 2000. xvi + 512 pp. Plates, maps, illustrations, figures, tables, bibliography, index. Cloth $110.00, paper $35.00John DargavelJohn Dargavel Australian National University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 7, Number 1January 2002 Published for the American Society for Environmental History and the Forest History Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/3985456 © 2002 American Society for Environmental History and Forest History SocietyPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.