WA’s forest products sector is being transformed. The industry Djarlma Plan and end to native forest logging has brought greater focus to investigations into a sustainable industry. A proposal to develop a multi-user timber yard has been explored and conservation groups are proposing sustainable economic development strategies for the sector. Traditional owners will be key to that discussion and precolonial history offers a useful reference point. Accounts from settlers recall a very different ecology to that found in either conservation estates or logging areas, with much more open, healthy, parkland like forests at the time of European settlement. Farmer Robert Sexton’s grandfather spoke about Kojonup (one of WA’s oldest districts), “By the 1840s it had become illegal for Noongar people to burn the bush”, despite settler accounts referring to the bush as ‘park-like’. Historian Bill Gammage noted that these “parks chequered Australia” and “were the result of burning every two to four years”, a practice that promoted perennial grassland. These changes to forest structure are also attributed to denser, post logging multi-trunked, mallee regrowth and the uniform regrowth of clear-felled and scrub rolled sections of forest. The forestry industry is historically an important part of south-western WA’s regional economies particularly in higher rainfall areas. Return to 1826 suggests an approach that can reconcile the objectives of conservation, communities and industry stakeholders, restore pride in the sector, deliver new jobs and growth and restore ecological sustainability. These core benefits are projected to underpin a broader suite of sustainability benefits, including: • Enhanced bushfire safety through fewer ‘hot burns’ and runaway fires because of the reduced fuel load with a mosaic of different ages and more widely spaced, larger trees with a higher canopy. • Forest management practices that support the tourism sector as demand for nature- based tourism grows globally. • Economic opportunities for Aboriginal people in Return to 1826 forest management and public education programs and nature- based tourism operations. • Carbon offset credits, new income streams and reduced soil and water catchment salinity through strategically establishing new private and public hard and soft wood timber plantations to draw down the water table on agricultural land.
I believe that with the combination of Nyungar traditional knowledge and modern scientific method, it will be possible to create an extremely robust and effective land management system. A cross- cultural land ethic, if you like. I also believe, very strongly, that this can ensure the long- term survival of the land we now share.
Glenn Kelly, South West Nyungar, Karla Wongi Fire Talk
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