SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
A Forest Policy for Australia. 
By C. E. LANE-POOLE.* 
(Continued from page 93.) 
USTRALIA has suffered greatly through her isolation. Canada 
naturally followed in the footsteps of America. She drew on the 
forestry schools of Yale and Harvard for her skilled men, and 
her people quickly developed a forest conscience. Australia has no 
such near neighbour—New Zealand being, if possible, a worse offender 
: than herself—and she has had till recently no forest school in which 
to train her foresters. It is little wonder, therefore, that the country as a whole 
has not yet realized the seriousness of the situation. Already we rely on an impor- 
tation of close on £3,000,000 of lumber a year, a figure which, for our small popu- 
lation and the infancy of the country, is a startling one. We find that our tanners 
cannot satisfy their needs from local supplies, but must rely on Natal for their 
wattle bark, bark obtained from trees grown under cultivation from seed imported 
originally from Australia. Our coachbuilders must look to America for their 
hubs, spokes, and shafts. The total area of Australia is 1,904,000,000 acres, and 
of this the forest area, according to the statistics, is 102,000,000 acres, or 5 per 
cent. But this area arrived at by the statistician is not the area of timber 
country, but the area on which trees, be they mulga, mallee, or other scrub, are 
growing. ‘The actual area of forest country, that is, country covered by timber 
for milling purposes, or capable of growing such timber, was set down at the 
Inter-State Forestry Conference held in Perth in 1917, at 24,000,000 acres. 
This estimates excludes, of course, agricultural land on which timber may be 
growing. Such land cannot come into the forest estate. The percentage of forest 
in the Commonwealth is, therefore, 1 per cent., a percentage which all will 
readily admit is utterly inadequate for the needs of the population which the 
country will support in the future. It was Evelyn who wrote in 1664*:— 
Since it is certain and demonstrable that all arts and artisans whatsoever 
must fail and cease if there were no timber and wood in a nation (for he that 
shall take his pen and begin to set down what art, myStery or trade, belonging 
any way to human life, could be maintained and exercised without wood, will 
quickly find that I speak no paradox), I say when this shall be well considered, 
it will appear that we had better be without gold than without timber. 
If the Commonwealth is to attain her full development, then it is essential that 
she should take every step possible towards improving her forest asset, so that she 
may draw from it in the future a maximum output of timber to serve the many 
industries to which wood is the essential key. 
_ The situation has caused many thinking men to issue notes of warning. The 
Inter-State Commission on Timber, after an exhaustive research into the timber 
resources of all the States, commented on the alarming situation in very plain 
terms} :-— ; : 
Our timber industry presents features of exceptionally grave importance 
from an industrial point of view. The national aspect of the question hitherto 
has received but scant attention, notwithstanding the fact that, in the absence 
of immediate provision for afforestation and re-afforestation, the industry in 
respect of Australian timbers is, within a brief period of time, practically 
doomed to extinction. 
_ Hxcepting perhaps the State of Western Australia, it is highly probable that 
within a period of thirty years, at the present rate of consumption, we shall, 
for all practical purposes, exhaust our accessible marketable supplies of all the 
more yaluable timbers; and from the present outlook it is not unreasonable to- 
anticipate a later period, when Australia will depend upon other countries for 
her supplies of eucalypt hardwoods. ‘ 
Our policy hitherto appears to have been based upon the assumption that 
our timber resources are inexhaustible. It cannot be too strongly emphasized 
that, although we have magnificent timbers, which in beauty and utility for 
many industrial requirements are Unexcelled, the forests upon which we may 
rely for these timbers are comparatively very limited in area. They are 
poe eramed for the most part in isolated localities, on the ranges adjacent to the 
coast. ; : ; gua! : j 
Mr. Hutchins, whose wide knowledge of forestry in the Dominions gives special 
value to his criticism of Australian forestry, places the cost of the last 100 years. 
of bad forestry at the enormous figure of £588,500,000.% -'The expert foresters, 
*Evelyn’s “ Sylva,” 1664. : 
+Report of the Inter-State Commission, Tariff Investigation. Timber, 9th May, 1916. 
t* Australian Forestry.” D. E. Hutchins. 
T52) 
