ST Tas Hollow Men

History revisited it seems – back to the old Forestry Tasmania days!

In 2012 I crafted the story below for Tasmanian Times relating to the proposed logging of Coupe BA388D adjacent to my then property Myrtlebank.

Amongst other articles and pleas, a portion of BA388D was allocated to the World Heritage Area in 2013.

Now Sustainable Timbers Tasmania has repeated the miscreant behaviour with the establishment of a new coupe BA388C – see feature image above.

This borders the old BA 388D encompasses Mountain Road (a reserved road) and is the only access to Myrtlebank for the current owners. So what do they do for access? Helicopter?

It also encompasses Aboriginal rock shelters used by a local pallittorre elder for school education, smoking ceremonies, and story art learnings – see below.

The coupe is neighbouring a shelter used by bushranger Martin Cash during his northern transit from Epping Forest see schematic below.

So just what are the new Hollow Men thinking? 

Back to the caves boyos – you might find Bob Gordon in there hiding.

THE HOLLOW MEN

We are the hollow men 

We are the stuffed men 

Leaning together 

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! 

In the wooded areas of Tasmania the opening lines of the 1925 poem by T.S.Eliot – written five years after the then Forestry Commission was created – was applicable at that time. The relevance was reinforced in 1948, again in the 60’s and 90’s, and fully evident in 2012.

It appears that the innate culture of our forestry GBE was developed in a very early timeframe, honed during the period of and after the Second World War, and fine-tuned over the past 20 years since the demise of the Forestry Commission. As described by one Government insider, it appears that a ‘shadow’ has paralysed all their activities so they are unable to act, create, respond, or even exist.

The next lines of that august poem aptly describe the emotional and intellectual state of this anachronism of a Jurassic economic entity in the 21st century, viz:

Our dried voices, when 

We whisper together 

Are quiet and meaningless 

As wind in dry grass 

Or rats’ feet over broken glass 

In our dry cellar 

So what epiphany did I have during my 15 days in Bali and Lombok in mid-June to create this metaphor of the emerging dismal swamp?

Let me take you on a brief journey of the history of the Hollow Men of Forestry Tasmania. (All of this is courtesy of some dear friends named later in the article).

In the 1920’s, after the creation of the Forestry Commission, there was a concerted effort by those in charge to recover forested areas that had been sold or leased to ‘private interests’ in order to access potentially commercial reserves.

This activity was placed on another plane during the late part of the Second World War and the late 1940’s under the auspices of one Colonel Lane (Forest Demarcation Officer) and one S.L. Kessell (Conservator of Forests).

The writings of Kessell have particular relevance to the inherent culture of the Hollow Men. In a number of epistles to the Government and the Minister  for Forests, Kessell categorically reinforced that surveys of potential private land for acquisition was not needed; ‘assessment was not necessary before dedication’; and the objective was to ‘create boundaries of convenience’ to ensure maximum reserve aggregation.

Moreover, identified private parcels were always categorised as being ‘over- valued’ and should be readily acquired ‘for a fraction’. This was straight after WWII, and times were tough for the average private citizen, particularly if they were land holders!

How pertinent the next lines of the Eliot poem:-

Shape without form, shade without colour, 

Paralysed force, gesture without motion; 

Those who have crossed 

With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom 

Remember us—if at all—not as lost 

Violent souls, but only 

As the hollow men 

The stuffed men. 

A very pertinent example at that time (1948) was the case of one D.J. Burns who held some 20 hectares (49 acres) in Golden Valley. Burns had at one time held ownership of some 25 hectares (62 acres) immediately adjoining this property and had ‘given it back’ due to financial circumstances after ‘spending considerable monies on scrubbing the property’.

Burns was in need of reclaiming the property to assist his son who ‘had fallen on hard times having lost sight in one eye’ and needed a capacity for earning a living by accessing some small timber on the larger property for rail and post supply to the local community.

After some internal debate amongst the Hollow Men, this most reasonable request was rejected as the minuscule area (and remember that Forestry was seeking at the time to assume some 1.62 million hectares (4 million acres) of ‘alienated’ private and Crown Land in this period) had Eucalyptus trees of some 4 to 20 years growth.

Adjacent to this block a number of similar size private properties were acquired in the Golden Valley, Liffey and Quamby areas because ‘the soil and weather conditions were conducive to future plantation growth of pinus radiata’.

How does that plantation bent sit with the need for FT to secure the 25 hectares of new growth E. Gigantea (their description) and prevent Burns senior and his family from earnings potential?

Pure bloody mindedness and greed I suspect.

Despite being rejected, Burns held out in the face of the assault on his neighbours and retained the now land-locked smaller property. That private title still exists.

I suspect a few more lines of the poem describe the situation:-

Let me be no nearer 

In death’s dream kingdom 

Let me also wear 

Such deliberate disguises 

Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves 

In a field 

Behaving as the wind behaves 

No nearer— Not that final meeting 

In the twilight kingdom 

But the Hollow Men were not finished.

In a series of remarkable property dealings and title aggregations, the Forestry entity secured over the succeeding 40 plus years a vast swathe of private and Crown Land Reserves under mysterious rights issues, property resumptions and land swaps, famously in 1990. (I will let John Hayward comment on this one)

All of these dealings are detailed in the fully researched article attached. (This detail is courtesy of Bronwyn Williams and Maggie).

So where are the Hollow Men now? 

 Let’s review the poem again for the answer… 

The eyes are not here 

There are no eyes here 

In this valley of dying stars 

In this hollow valley 

This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms 

In this last of meeting places 

We grope together 

And avoid speech

Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless

The eyes reappear

As the perpetual star

Multifoliate rose

Of death’s twilight kingdom

The hope only

Of empty men.

And the last piece of the poem states…..

Between the idea

And the reality

Between the motion

And the act

Falls the Shadow

 For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception

And the creation

Between the emotion

And the response

Falls the Shadow

 Life is very long

Between the desire

And the spasm

Between the potency

And the existence

Between the essence

And the descent

Falls the Shadow

Without a doubt, over the past 85 years, the evidence points to the fact that the Forestry GBE and successive Ministers have indeed acted as the Grim Reaper.

By the way that landlocked property that D.J. Burns so assiduously protected in 1948 from the Hollow Men is now mine = Myrtlebank! Thank you D.J. Burns!

And all of the research explicitly shows that Mountain Road, my only access route, was a Crown Land reserved road in 1930, was still one in 1948, remained that way in 1991, and is still a reserved road in 2012 – supported by two legal opinions and DPIPWE!

Despite what the Minister and the Hollow Men assert, it is not a Forestry road that requires me to pay homage and funds to access. 

Bryan Green, Bob Gordon and the Board of FT are indeed both hollow and strawless! 

The canary in the mine – ‘BA388D’ – is singing loud and clear in the snowy 820 metre elevation just below Projection Bluff!

JLP 26/06/2012

Full poem and depictions from: –

http://www.slideshare.net/Kurt_Warren/the-hollow-men-by-ts-eliot-analysis-powerpoint

Featured comment – Robert and Vicki McDonald, owners of the affected property, cited 17 August 2022

Dear Stephen.

Further to our meeting on 9th August ,we wish to vehemently oppose this proposal for ‘selective logging’ in these two coupes which border our 50 acre covenant and a World Heritage Area. We have already pointed out some of our concerns verbally and also in a written letter. We are still waiting for a reply and also formal notification which we are legally entitled to.

Further to our communications with you ,we would like to add;

1. The images of selective logging we took from our area and via the internet are inconsistent with the Regulations of Forestry in Tasmania.

Regulations of Forestry in Tasmania

The forest practices system provides the standards which must be met to provide reasonable protection for the cultural and natural values of the forest. Administered by Forest Practices Authority it applies state-wide to all land.

China, as the principal importer of most Australian wood products (bio-mass), in the last decade ,happens to have a policy of ceasing any further logging of its own native forests since 2020. It’s disgusting we are selling our precious resources without considerations to the future generations, to a country that chooses to protect its own bio-system. The people (the Commonwealth) need and have a right to transparency, as to where our trees are going and why.

2. The area being proposed for selective logging is a particularly sensitive to infestation of foxgloves, which tend to propagate in disturbed soils extremely easily. Will STT be accountable to address this problem should it occur?

3. We have maintained the Reserve Road (870 metres) called Mountain Road at our own expense. It is the only access from Highland Lakes Highway to our property. We are most concerned about having to share this road with your log trucks and that it will not be left as you found it. It has an amazing bank of moss growing in the middle running the full length of road. We see the road as a natural and valued extension of the surrounding forests. See photo.

4.Proposals by STT have suspended here twice since 2012. We would like to be informed as to why the decision has been reversed. Surely the arguments then are still relevant now.

5. We are supported in our opposition by The Friends of the Great Western Tiers, Aboriginal Keepers of Culture and a former land owner and many others. In this regard, you have not given enough time for us or other concerned members of the public to express their concerns.

We urgently request a reply as soon as possible.

– Robert and Vicki McDonald