Canberra's Foresters and Forestry Workers Tell Their Story
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When Canberra was selected to be the site of Australia’s capital in 1908, the area was desperately short of suitable timber to build the new city. It was thus imperative that a forestry program be established as early as possible to supply this need. Founded in 1913, forestry was one of the first industries to be set up in the ACT. The forests were vital to Canberra’s water supply, too, as the major factor in protecting the catchment of the Cotter. And as the trees forestry tell their stories workers foresters and Canberra’s grew, they contributed to the aesthetic setting of the city and Territory at large, restoring hills and valleys that had been devastated by generations of ringbarking and tree-felling. In more recent times, Canberra’s foresters and the forests became favourite recreational outlets for Canberrans. forestry workers tell their stories The development of Canberra’s forestry industry represents the achievements of foresters and forestry workers over more than a century. This is the story of some of those who took part, told in their own words. Brendan O’Keefe Interviews conducted and edited by Brendan O’Keefe ACT ACT P A E R P C I A K E V R C S I R K V A E S N S R A E D N N S C D O IO N NS VAT CO IO ER NSERVAT ACT Parks and Conservation Service Forest Capital FOREST CAPITAL Canberra’s Foresters and Forestry Workers Tell Their Story Interviews conducted and edited by Brendan O’Keefe ACT Parks and Conservation Service Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate GPO Box 158 Canberra ACT 2601 First published 2017 Copyright © ACT Parks and Conservation Service, 2017 All rights reserved. This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced without written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publisher. Front cover photos: Forests cover the flanks of the Cotter Reservoir, about 1972 (Archives ACT, NDC1732/39) Logging operations at Pierces Creek, 1961 (Archives ACT, Logging Study – Part 2 – 59/282F, Figure 5) Back cover photo: A logging truck laden with freshly cut pine logs makes its way along a dirt road through the forests (J. Drysdale) Cover designed by Stacey Zass Text designed and typeset by Michael Deves, Lythrum Press Printed and bound by Finsbury Green, Adelaide ISBN 978 0 646 97851 2 CO2 saving ACT P A E R C I K V FSC logo S R A E N S D N CO IO NSERVAT Contents Foreword vii Introduction ix Chronology of ACT forestry, 1913–1995 xvii Interviews 1 Ian Gordon 2 Professor Lindsay Dixon Pryor, AO 41 Harold William Tuson 80 Thomas William (‘Bill’) Bates 115 Attilio Padovan 151 Ron Murray 175 Franco (‘Frank’) Rosin 207 Cecil Robert (‘Bob’) Cruttwell 255 Anthony (‘Tony’) Fearnside, OAM 288 Terence John (‘Terry’) Connolly 327 Foreword Brendan O’Keefe has played a key role in documenting the history of forestry in the ACT for several decades. In 1994 he was commissioned to undertake a series of video interviews with key people who had been influential in the history of forestry in the ACT. The original project was the brainchild of Graham McKenzie Smith who was the Director of ACT Forests and a keen historian in his own right. Graham had the foresight to identify the value in recording this unique history for future generations. On 18 January 2003, disastrous fires swept into Canberra, killing four people, destroying more than 500 houses and devastating more than 60% of the plantation estate. The vast majority of ACT Forest’s historical records and photographs were also destroyed when these fires swept through the main Stromlo office and until recently it was thought that the recordings and transcripts also perished in this catastrophic event. In 2016, during a routine office clean–up at the Hume Weighbridge, we discovered a copy of the transcripts of all ten interviews that had been conducted in 1994. Although the sound recordings are almost certainly gone forever, we have again engaged Brendan O’Keefe to restore to life the interviews of these key people who shaped the early forest industry in the ACT. What follows in this book is a fascinating venture into the history of forestry in the ACT as told through the eyes of those that help build and shape the industry. It is fitting that this book is now launched in 2017 – 100 years since Thomas Weston undertook the first planting of commercial forestry on the slopes of Mt Stromlo. It makes me immensely proud to be one small part of this fascinating and enduring story around the longest continually running industry in the ACT. Neil Cooper Manager Fire, Forestry, Roads, ACT parks and Conservation Service vii viii Introduction The landscape in which Canberra as the ‘bush capital’ sits is to a large extent a forest landscape. This is not just in the immediate city environs, but also in the Capital Territory at large. The term ‘bush capital’ when applied to Canberra’s surrounding forests conveys the impression that the city occupies a pristine natural environment. However, the native tree species that populate Canberra’s hills and ridges are as much a man-made artefact as the exotic species or, indeed, as the trees and shrubs that adorn the city’s streets. By the time Canberra was chosen as the site for the nation’s capital, the hills and ridges had largely been stripped of trees for grazing purposes and for firewood, and they were eroded and infested with rabbits. The clearing and erosion extended much further afield, too, notably to the Cotter River catchment. It was one of the principal purposes and tasks of a concerted program of forestry to redress the ravages that had taken place.1 Quite apart from restoring the forest cover and arresting erosion, Canberra required for its development a ready supply of timber for construction purposes. At that time, ‘very little timber of commercial value exist[ed] in the Territory.’ The native timber that was available was generally not suitable for building and what did exist was inaccessible and in short supply. Nothing less 1 Griffith Taylor, ‘The Physiography of the Proposed Federal Capital Territory at Canberra’, Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology, Bulletin no. 6, Melbourne, 1910, pp. 12, 13; John Gray, ‘The initiation of planting, afforestation and conservation at the federal capital site 100 years ago’, Canberra Historical Journal, no. 67, December 2011, p. 28; Ken Taylor, Canberra: City in the Landscape, Canberra and Sydney, Halstead Press and the National Capital Authority, 2006, pp. 46–7, 59–60, 64, 69. ix Canberra’s Foresters and Forestry Workers was needed than the establishment from scratch of a local forestry industry.2 Although forestry was one of the earliest industries to be established in and for the Capital Territory, few people are aware of the role it has played in the capital’s development. Canberra’s pine forests are more likely to be associated with the terrible bushfires of January 2003 and, conversely in a positive light, with providing an aesthetic backdrop to the capital and an outlet for recreational activities. Notwithstanding the tragedy arising from the forest fires of 2003 – as well as similar conflagrations in 1939 and 1952 – forestry has been an important and, indeed, essential element in the development, economic and otherwise, of the nation’s capital. Forestry in the ACT is more than a century old, originating with the appointment of Charles Weston as Officer-in-Charge of Afforestation in Canberra in May 1913. As part of his duties, he was given responsibility for laying the foundations for a program of afforestation in the Capital Territory. The first manifestation of his program was the planting of radiata pine on Mt Stromlo in mid-1915 to reintroduce forest cover on the hill’s summit which had been ravaged by fire, deliberate clearing and the depredations of rabbits. Native trees were also planted to replace those lost on Mt Pleasant and Mt Mugga Mugga, while the natural regeneration of native tree species was encouraged on Mt Majura. From the outset, however, Weston had been well aware of the commercial dimension to establishing forests in Canberra. Earlier in 1915, for example, he had floated the possibility of setting up a 50-acre experimental plantation of wattle on Mt Stromlo to produce bark for tanning hides.3 In the end, the wattle bark proposal came to nothing, but the pine and native plantations started by Weston marked the origins of forestry in the ACT for both aesthetic and more utilitarian purposes. As with much else in the development of the national capital, it was the inception of the Federal Capital Commission (FCC) in January 1925 under J.H. Butters – later Sir John 2 Second Annual report of the Federal Capital Commission for the period ended 30th June, 1926, p. 39; G.J. Rodger and M.R. Jacobs, ‘Forestry’, in H.L. White (ed.), Canberra: A Nation’s Capital, Canberra, 1954, pp. 191–2. 3 Greg Murphy, ‘Weston, Thomas Charles (1866–1935)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 12, Melbourne, 1990; L.D. Pryor, ‘Landscape Development’, in White (ed.), Canberra: A Nation’s Capital, p. 221; Taylor, Canberra: City in a Landscape, pp. 64–70; Queanbeyan Leader, 17 June 1915, p2; 26 August 1915, p2; Leader [Melbourne], 15 May 1915, p5. x Introduction Butters – that spurred a more ambitious and vigorous forestry program in the ACT. The commission wanted to put afforestation ‘on an economic basis as early as possible.’ A Forestry Branch was established in 1926 and Geoffrey Rodger appointed Chief Forester, with Max Jacobs as Assistant Forester.