Fashioning Australia's ForestsFor 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. |
Contents
FASHIONING 1850s TO 1960s | 15 |
CHANGING 1970s TO 1980s | 81 |
CONTESTING FROM THE 1970s | 161 |
Copyright | |
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000 hectares agreement Amcor APPM areas Assessment Australia's forests Australian Conservation Foundation campaign cent changes Commonwealth concession Conservation Council cubic metres Dargavel East Gippsland ecological economic employment Environment Centre environmental movement environmentalists eucalypts expanded Export Woodchip forest contests Forest Industries forest management forest products forest sector forest services Forestry Commission groups hectares Heritage Commission important increased inquiry issues Japan Lake Pedder land licences logging major Melbourne National Estate national parks native forests operations organisations paper mill pine plantations plantations political proposed protection Pty Ltd pulp and paper pulp mill pulpwood Queensland rainforests region Report resource regimes roads sawlogs sawmills social softwood sogo shosha South Australia South Wales south-east species strategy Sydney Tasmania timber industry timber workers tonnes trees values Victoria Wesley Vale Western Australia Wildlife wood woodchip exports woodchip industry woodchip mill workforce World Heritage