Board set up in 1875 to manage and protect new forests in South Australia: a first for Australia and empire

The first forestry office at Bundaleer forest, south of Jamestown in South Australia, birthplace of the Australian timber industry in 1875. Inset: Key figures behind getting a forestry board set up: board chairman George Goyder (left) and member of parliament and botanist Friedrich Krichauff.

South Australia became the birthplace of Australia’s forest industry when it appointed a forestry board in 1875 to manage and protect 195,000 acres of natural forest and cleared land, and to develop plantations and encourage reafforested farmlands. 

With South Australian government surveyor general George Goyder as chairman (and until 1883), the board also headed the first government forest management organisation in the, then, British empire. Another key player in getting the forestry board appointed was Friedrich Krichauff, a botanist from Schleswig and first South Australian German member of parliament, who campaigned passionately for forests to be established in South Australia.

With the help from Scottish nurseryman Edwin Smith, Goyder carried out a survey for possible forest and nursery sites. The colony’s first forest tree plantings began in 1875 at Bundaleer, just south of Jamestown in the mid north, called the birthplace of the Australian timber industry. The next plantations were at Wirrabara in the mid north and Mount Gambier in the southeast. 

Adelaide Botanic Garden curator Richard Schomburghk recommended Wirrabara as a suitable nursery site to find what trees were most suited to South Australian conditions.

In January 1877, the South Australia government opened the first plant nursery in Australia, about five miles from Wirrabara along Ippinitchie Creek. Robert Lucas as nurseryman oversaw the large variety of Australian and overseas trees, including nearly 20,000 seeds of walnut, chestnut, ash, oaks, sycamores, pines, willows and bamboos, to find the right timber for South Australian conditions. 

Pinus radiata from California, first introduced by Schomburghk from Monterey in 1866, was selected as the most suitable.

In 1879, the South Australian forestry board employed some local Wirrabara residents as cadets for training in forest management. Among them was Fred Melville, who eventually became inspector of forests in 1914 and assistant conservator of forests in 1924.