The Western Australian regional forest agreement: economic rationalism and the normalisation of political closure

This article explores the constraints imposed by economic rationalism on environmental policy-making in light of Western Australia\u27s (WA) Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) experience. Data derived from interviews with WA RFA stakeholders shed light on their perceptions of the RFA process and its outcomes. The extent to which involvement of science and the public RFA management enabled is analysed. The findings point to a pervasive constrainedness of WA\u27s RFA owing to a closing of the process by the administrative decision-making structures. A dominant economic rationality is seen to have normalised and legitimised political closure, effectively excluding rationalities dissenting from an implicit economic orthodoxy. This article argues for the explication of invisible, economic constraints affecting environmental policy and for the public-cum-political negotiation of the points of closure within political processes

From Exploitation to Science: Lane Poole's Forest Surveys of Papua New Guinea, 1922-1924

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

The Travels of a Slim Book: Rockhampton Stonemasons, 1890-1899 and Beyond

If you travel to the streets of Rockhampton you can tell of the Customs House, the Town Hall, the Post Office and other nineteenth and early twentieth century stone buildings that you saw there, and if you delve into their history you can tell of their architects and the dates they were opened, but rarely anything of the people who actually built them. But somehow a slim book has survived that provides a tiny glimpse into their stonemasons. And that slim book has its own traveller's tale to be told her

Contested forestries, contested educations: A centenary reflection

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 Piatt 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 biodiversity rift, the contrast between 'the forest of care' and 'the wood of neglect', globalisation and localism, general education and specialisation