History
Plantations
As Australia’s cities grew, demand for wood products also increased, and softwoods from America began to be imported to meet building demands. It was soon realised that Australia must establish its own softwood plantations if it wanted to reduce its dependency on imported products.
Photo: SAForestry
State forest nurseries were established from 1872 and small plantations trialled a number of exotic tree species. These included Monterey or Radiata Pine (Pinus radiata) in South-east Australia, Maritime Pine (P. pinaster) on the coastal dunes of Western Australia, Cuban and Slash Pines (P. carribaea and P. elliottii) and indigenous Hoop Pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) in the humid coastal regions of southern Queensland and northern New South Wales.
The success of plantations was most important to South Australia, as the state naturally had few native forests suitable for timber production. From 1926, South Australia was able to secure funds from the Overseas Settlement scheme to plant 2,000 hectares a year for a decade. By 1939 it had built up an estate of 37,000 hectares and had over 40% of the plantations in Australia.
The success of the South Australian pine plantations created considerable enthusiasm for planting by both governments and industry. In 1967 the Federal Government started to provide deferred-repayment, low-interest loans to the States for planting. This also encouraged private investment in plantations, and increased production in softwood plantations from 15% of the country's sawlogs in the 1960s to 64% by 2000.
Investment in plantations continues today, although most plantations in Australia are now established and managed by private companies.
Case study – Plantations of South Australia
Early forestry in South Australia was concerned with finding the best timber producing tree which would grow under South Australian conditions. This was necessary because many of the native forest trees such as sugar gum, red gum and blue gum were being cut down to provide timber for building, railway sleepers, telegraph poles, jetty pylons and supports for mining shafts and tunnels.
The first trial plantings took place at Bundaleer in the mid-north in 1876. It was soon discovered that the Radiata pine from California was one of the fastest growing trees in areas with more than 600 millimetres of rain each year. Today, ForestrySA manage the largest areas of Radiata pine forests are in the south-east near Mount Gambier where 80% of the State's forest plantations grow.
Early hauling logs by vehicle
Photo: SAForestry
For further information about South Australia’s early forestry history visit the ForestrySA website.
