The Forests Commission Victoria (FCV) was the main government authority responsible for management and protection of State forests in Victoria, Australia between 1918 and 1983.
The Commission was responsible for ″forest policy, prevention and suppression of bushfires, issuing leases and licences, planting and thinning of forests, the development of plantations, reforestation, nurseries, forestry education, the development of commercial timber harvesting and marketing of produce, building and maintaining forest roads, provision of recreation facilities, protection of water, soils and wildlife, forest research and making recommendations on the acquisition or alienation of land for forest purposes″.
In September 1983, the Forests Commission Victoria lost its discrete identity when it was merged into the newly formed Victorian Department of Conservation, Forests and Lands (CFL) along with the Crown Lands and Survey Department, National Park Service, Soil Conservation Authority and Fisheries and Wildlife Service.
After the amalgamation, the management of State forests and the forestry profession continued, and additional departmental restructures occurred over the subsequent three decades. Responsibilities are currently split between the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA), Parks Victoria, Melbourne Water, Alpine Resorts Commission, the State Government-owned commercial entity VicForests and the privately owned Hancock Victorian Plantations (HVP).
Late 1800s Before European settlement in the early 1800s, around 88% of the 23.7 million hectare colony of what was to become the State of Victoria in 1851 was tree covered.Victoria State of the Forests Report (2013). Dept of Env and Primary Industries. However, the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s combined with widespread and indiscriminate land clearing for mining, agriculture and settlement became one of the major causes of forest loss and degradation.Forest Cover Changes in Victoria 1869-1987. Peter Woodgate and Peter Black. (1988) Conservation Forests and Lands. Remote sensing group, Lands and Forests Division. This caused alarm amongst early foresters and the wider community.
Forest management in the late 1800s was chaotic. As early as 1865, the Argus Newspaper took up the cause of ‘protecting our forests’ arguing the substantial benefits of timber production, avoiding the wasting of soil, conserving natural streams, avoiding adverse climate impacts and beneficially distributing storm runoff.
Later on 16 September 1869, the first "Overseer of Forests and Crown Land Bailiff", William Ferguson, was appointed. The second progress report of a Royal Commission on Foreign Industries and Forests in 1872, included a recommendation for the establishment of a State nursery near Macedon railway station "with the object of raising useful timber trees for distribution to selectors, and for the planting of reserves denuded of indigenous timber". Ferguson then established the first State Nursery at Macedon in 1872.
By 1871 the Australian Natives Association (ANA) was formed and joined the campaign and were active on forest conservation for a prolonged period. The Field Naturalists Club of Victoria (FNCV) became involved in 1881.
It is surprising and perhaps ironic that organised mining interests, including influential mining parliamentarians, were the early public advocates for forest protection, taking up the cause in the 1860s. Their advocacy was based more on the profitability of their mining interests than forest conservation. The miners selfishly wanted well-regulated state forest reserves to ensure a plentiful future supply of mining timbers at reasonable prices.
In 1871, local Forest Boards attempted to exercise some control, however the task of regulating wasteful clearing proved formidable and they were abolished in 1876. By 1873 it was estimated that were some 1150 steam engines in the gold mining industry, devouring over one million tons of firewood.
In October 1882, the pioneering forester John la Gerche was appointed as one of sixteen Crown Lands Bailiffs and Foresters within the Agriculture Branch of the Department of Lands. Their appointment held out a promise to end the forest destruction under the 1884 Land Act which recognised the significance of forests for public purposes but the budget allocation was a paltry £4000. La Gerche established a nursery at Sawpit Gully in 1887 near what is now the Victorian School of Forestry at Creswick. He went onto become one of the founding Inspectors in the new State Forest Department in 1907.
Inquiries, indecision and inertia At the urging of the Governor of Victoria, Lord Henry Brougham Loch, who had served in Bengal cavalry and maintained an interest in forests, and had seen there the results of forest management under the great European foresters Brandis, Schlich and Ribbentrop, the Government invited Conservator Frederick D'A. Vincent from the Imperial Forest Service in India to visit in 1887 and make recommendations. But to seek advice was one thing; to take it was another, and while Vincent's scathing report was available to subsequent inquiries and was eventually tabled in the House in 1895, it was "so frank and outspoken that it has never been published".
I am very unfavourably impressed with the state of the forests .... I am surprised that some effectual measures have not been taken to prevent further waste .... present arrangements are quite puerile and so ill-conceived that they can scarcely be discussed — Conservator, Frederick D'A Vincent, Imperial Forest Service, 1887.
Later on 14 June 1888, the first Conservator of Forests, George Samuel Perrin was appointed. He had previous experience in South Australia and Tasmania and despite having little power or authority, was able to appoint a number of foresters over the next 12 years. He produced a report containing a number illustrations to Parliament on 30 June 1890. This visionary report clearly identified the issues and set out reforms to ensure Victoria would have a healthy, diverse and extensive forest estate 130 years later. Perrin was also acquainted with the Government botanist Ferdinand Von Mueller who named, Eucalyptus perriniana after him.
Meanwhile, the gold rush was petering out and Melbourne's land boom of the 1880s was inevitably followed by a financial crash in 1891, which combined with the Federation Drought from 1895 to 1902, depressed economic conditions for a decade or more. Not surprisingly, the Colonial Government had little appetite for changing the status-quo and introducing restrictive forest legislation.
Matters had come to a head previously on Black Wednesday (9 January 1878) when the State Government sacked over 300 senior public servants and judges suddenly overnight without warning. The sackings were in part directed at the desire of the Premier, Graham Berry, to penalise those in the public service who backed the intransigence of the Legislative Council which was dominated by pastoral and grazing interests and which had resisted land reform. Berry's election manifesto proposed a punitive land tax designed to break up the squatter class's great pastoral properties – about 800 men at this time owned most of Victoria's grazing lands.
Separately, the management of 157,000 hectares of Melbourne's forested water catchments of the Upper Yarra were vested in the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) in 1891, including a closed catchment policy where timber harvesting and public access was not permitted.
In 1895, the Commissioner of Crown Lands and Survey, Sir Robert Wallace Best, invited Inspector-General Berthold Ribbentrop, from the Imperial Forest Service. His report prompted yet another Royal Commission which commenced in 1897 and produced 14 separate reports before closing in 1901."State forest conservancy and management are in an extraordinary backward state" .... Inspector-General Berthold Ribbentrop, Imperial Forest Service – 1896.Departmental restructuring and uncertainty is not new. Between 1856 and 1907 the responsibility for administration of Victoria's forest estate shunted back and forth at least eleven times between three Government Departments including Lands and Survey, Agriculture and Mines.
1900s In 1900 State forests were still commonly regarded by the general public, and by most of their parliamentary representatives, as the inexhaustible "wastelands of the Crown" and ready for disposal via alienation into freehold property for the purposes of agricultural settlement.
For nearly 50 years there had been Government inquiries, three independent reports from D'A. Vincent (1887), Perrin (1890), Ribbentrop (1895), the Royal Commission (1897–1901) together with impassioned speeches and separate pieces of legislation calling for the conservation of the states forests which had all been brought unsuccessfully before the Victorian Parliament. It was not until the former British colonies combined in 1901 to become the states of a Federal Australia that a Victorian Forest Bill was finally passed.
State Forests Department – 1907 Despite spirited opposition by agricultural and grazing interests the Forest Act (1907) No. 2095 finally constituted the State Forest Department (SFD) which came into effect on 1 January 1908, formally setting aside timber reserves and providing for rehabilitation after mining and logging. The first Conservator of Forests was Hugh Robert Mackay who had been both a Senior Inspector and Secretary to the Royal Commission of 1897–1901 while the first Minister was Donald McLeod and the first Secretary was William Dickson, who was also Secretary for Mines.
The creation of the State Forest Department represented the most significant institutional development in Victoria's history of forest management to that point. The fledgling department had 66 staff on 31 December 1900 including, 1 Conservator, 1 Chief Inspector, 1 Inspector, 23 Foresters and 40 Forest Foremen but foreshadowed that it expected to increase over the years to come. Nonetheless, the challenges facing the new organisation were formidable, including protecting ecosystems about which little was scientifically understood, and responsibility for vast areas of rugged, remote country about which little was known.
The next ten years saw a steady expansion in staff numbers, promulgation of controlling regulations, increased production from the forest, thinning and fire protection works such as fire break construction, together with rehabilitation of the native forest which had suffered from indiscriminate cutting.FCV Annual Reports
However, frustrated at the lack of progress in forestry and broader forest conservation, several foresters and scientists formed the Australian Forest League (AFL) in 1912 which stayed active for the next 34 years. The inaugural President was notable botanist, Professor Alfred James Ewart from Melbourne University, who oversaw the curriculum at the Victorian School of Forestry. They received valued support from Governor-General Sir Ronald Munro-Ferguson during the war years over political interference in forest management, securing adequate funding, reducing waste, expanding softwood plantations and addressing growing international concern at impending timber shortages.
1910
The new Forest Act (1907) also recognised that effective management of forests required appropriately skilled staff, stipulating that no person could be appointed to a forestry position without completing a relevant course and passing a special examination, thus paving the way for the establishment of a forestry school. The Victorian School of Forestry (VSF) at Creswick was established in 1910 and was located at the old hospital which had been built in 1863 during the gold rush. The creation of VSF was one of the many recommendations of the 1901 Royal Commission and the school became the first of its kind in Australia.
1918