Forestry and WA's South West

Jack Barrett

The South Wests’ timber industry was a major endeavour that assisted the development of that part of Australia during the colonial development phase.

By the late 1890’s it had become the second highest source of Western Australian exports, gold mining then being the main component.

The region was and still is environmentally critical so that both its history and maintaining its natural setting are very important.

The area is recognised as one of the world‘s major biodiversity hotspots, and with climate change now present, its future is even more critical and difficult to protect.

This talk initially outlines the steps undertaken in its development, from the mid 1800’s through the last century until current times. The stage that it is at now and the factors effecting its uncertain future are then outlined.

A bit about Jack

Jack initially had a focus on civil engineering at the U of M and then trended into geotechnical projects. After a short period with Victoria water supply group he did  a PhD in Rapid Drawdown of Earth Dams.

A new design and testing approach was found to be needed and after a subsequent year consulting with the early Coffey group, MIM put him in their mining research team to develop a mine fill for better extraction of their 1100 underground orebody. Jack spent a period on a post-doc designing roads for repetitive large wheel loads. He spent 4 years of research at CSIRO in underground mining, mainly in mine fill and in undersea post pillar mining through a King Island project.

Subsequent consulting led to experiences in local and off-shore protects in a range of communities, mainly in Africa, South-East Asia incl New Guinea, Canada and the Pacific. Clients ranged from project developers, mine operators, resource seekers, and banks. His final work steps were in WA after being in charge of Mine Tech for a few years at MIM. Initially there was a stint at Western Mining’s nickel operations to improve safety, followed by more consulting, drafting a Mining Degree course for UWA, and looking a R&D needs there.

His current endeavour is to develop an approach to Australia’s history with an orientation to its development, that gets more people to think about it when looking ahead.