Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
1924, Robertson toured Australia's forests for six months studying its flora and
climate. His report offered an analysis of similarities and differences between
Australia and South Africa with recommendations on the habits and true
classifications of species and genera (Robertson, 1926: 1). Robertson included a
map that transposed the latitudes of each country onto each other as a way of
demonstrating their similarities. The map did not explicitly recommend which
regions to select species from (because, as Robertson noted, the countries' altitudes
and climatic ranges varied), but it helped foresters to visualise more clearly how the
two countries' climates potentially overlapped, and provided a rough guide of
regions that might have climatically matched exotic species.
Ultimately, only experiments with a wide variety of species could truly show
foresters the best species to plant. Most experiments led nowhere, but the few that
succeeded laid the basis for plantation forestry in the twentieth century. Eventually,
the results from experiments run from 1910 until the 1930s by the Department of
Forestry helped inform foresters and private industry of exotic species to select and
the methods used to plant, tend and harvest them. Some of the findings revealed
the inadequacies of widely planted Eucalyptus species, especially
Eucalyptus globulus
,
and opened the door for the use of other species, especially
Eucalyptus grandis
(then
misidentified as
E. saligna
),
E. paniculata
and
E. maculata
.
19
Around the early 1930s,
Eucalyptus grandis
became the most widely planted Eucalyptus in South Africa.
Experiments by I. J. Craib in the 1920s and 1930s helped to expand production of
Acacia and pines (Hiley, 1959: 43).
20
The results of such experiments found direct
application in the private plantation industry. Private plantations, especially of
species of Eucalyptus in the Transvaal and Acacia and Eucalyptus in Natal, rapidly
outpaced the size and profitability of their state counterparts (Reekie, 2004: 73-74).
From pinnacle to nadir, 1948-2010
Forestry research into climate and exotics reached its pinnacle between 1948 and
1994. During this period, the Nationalist government widely supported the
expansion of private plantations of exotic trees. Forestry continued to evolve away
from the Cape and into the Transvaal and Natal, the regions with the highest
concentration of plantations of Australian trees. Government funds continued to
support state research into selecting and testing exotic trees in sample plots and
different sites. South African foresters continued to visit foreign countries and to
comparatively study climates in order to find new species and better genetic strains
of existing species to plant in South Africa (Loock, 1950). New theoretical
modelling of climate suggested areas to plant exotics such as
Eucalyptus grandis
(Vowinckel, 1961: 91-104). By the early 1950s, following 70 years of research
based upon 'a gradual process of elimination', foresters had become increasingly
confident in their ability to list which species grew best where (King, 1951: 12-14;
Poynton, 1959). Foresters recognised the lasting influence of Hutchins; a short
biography was published on him as a Department of Forestry bulletin in 1977
(Darrow, 1977).
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