The role of Australian foresters in international forestry

ABSTRACT

Australian foresters have played major roles in international forestry for many decades. The scope of the work in which they have been involved can be thought of as falling into five broad and somewhat overlapping categories:

(i) introduction of Australian germplasm to smallholder and industrial plantations

(ii) developing operational modalities, technical options and supporting regulatory frameworks to adapt forestry to improve community and smallholder livelihoods

(iii) developing systems and procedures for reduced-impact logging in tropical rainforests and demonstrating its application in Asia and the Pacific

(iv) distilling the lessons learned from field experiences to influence policy and practice of international organisations such as The World Bank, International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO), Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations and International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)

(v) building capacity of developing country professional and technical staff.

As a result of a large investment in capacity building, the professional staff of forestry and related agencies in many developing countries now have the technical skills that were provided by Australian foresters in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Consequently, the role of Australian foresters in the contemporary international arena has changed substantially. This has involved a shift from a direct hands-on approach to facilitating change through trained and competent national professional staff. Recent Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) projects have followed this approach with considerable success, and it is a trend that will no doubt continue into the future.

The theme of this conference of the Australian and New Zealand Institutes of Foresters (ANZIF) relates to managing the forest estate to meet community objectives. In the international arena, some Australian foresters have demonstrated an ability to see forest management from the perspective of the ‘community’, to seek out and respect community objectives, to learn from communities and to explore modalities of forest management based on this paradigm. One wonders whether the same can be said of Australian foresters working in Australia. There is clearly much that could be learned from the experience of Australian foresters working in the international arena and applied to Australian settings, but there is little evidence of a willingness or desire to do so.

KEYWORDS:

• Community forestry
• foresters
• development assistance
• Australia