The centenary of the Forests Act 1918 marks an important milestone in the history of systematic forest management in Western Australia, and more broadly throughout Australia. Widely regarded as some of the best forest legislation in the British Commonwealth, the Western Australian Forests Act was far reaching and established a strong foundation for forest administration and management that endured for 66 years until its repeal in 1985. Although an unsuccessful attempt had been made to establish a forest service in the 1890s, and a Conservator of Forests (John Ednie-Brown) appointed, this lapsed, and Western Australia was the second last of the states to enact forestry legislation, followed in 1920 by Tasmania. Legislation recognising the importance of forests and the need for systematic management was passed by the colonial government of South Australia in 1873, followed by Victoria (1876), Queensland (1906) and New South Wales (1909, 1916). As was the case in all states, this represented the culmination of a protracted struggle by professional foresters to convince governments of the need to protect forests from alienation for agriculture, regulate the activities of the sawmilling industry, rehabilitate and regenerate areas disturbed extensively by timber cutting, prospecting and mining, and recognise the intrinsic value of forests for catchment protection, recreation and nature conservation. Heavy reliance by the Western Australian economy on agriculture, gold mining and an export-focussed timber industry made this task particularly challenging, and administration of the state’s forest languished during the hiatus between the early death of Ednie Brown in 1899 and the appointment of Charles Edward Lane Poole in 1916 (Mills 1989). Upon his appointment as Conservator, Lane-Poole laid down the fundamental principles of professional forest management: first, secure the forest estate against alienation; second, regenerate the forest after disturbance, especially timber harvest; and third, protect the forest from injurious agencies, especially fire. Widely recognised as a forceful and visionary forestry administrator, Lane-Poole set about the task of drafting legislation which was introduced to the Western Australian Parliament in September 1918 and assented to in January 1919 (Meyer 1985). The Act provided for the establishment of a Forests Department with a professionally trained Conservator of Forests as its permanent head, and the power to make regulations on all matters connected with carrying out the objects of the Act. Important provisions included the classification of forest land, dedication of State forest as permanent forest estate and control of timber extraction through a system of sawmilling permits (Havel 1989). Royalties were payable on the volume of timber harvested, with three fifths of the revenue collected to be used for reforestation and forest improvement works. However, full implementation of the Act could not be realised until 1929 when the last of the large timber concessions expired. Concession holders paid a nominal rent for exclusive access to an area of forest, rather than a royalty on volume taken and were subject to less regulation than the permit holders under the Forests Act, giving them a substantial economic advantage. Despite the undoubted achievement of having his legislation enacted, Lane-Poole found himself at odds with the Government and powerful interest groups that sought to weaken the intent of the Act. He resigned as Conservator in mid-1921, and the task of implementing systematic forest management fell to his capable successor Stephen Kessel (Meyer 1985). Dedication of State forest gathered momentum during the following decade and by 1929 covered more than 1.1 million ha, including the majority of the forest north of Collie and substantial areas of forest around Pemberton in the south (Havel 1989). Extensive ground surveys by teams of foresters and surveyors formed the basis of decisions on which land should be dedicated to forest and which to agriculture, one of the earliest examples of land use planning. The poor agricultural quality of soil underlying the best jarrah forest and the relatively late accessibility of the karri forest contributed to the fact that that most of the best quality jarrah and karri stands were dedicated as State forest (equivalent to an A class reserve). This process was finally completed by 1980. Almost all of the land estate was initially dedicated as State forest with progressive transfer of much of it to national park and other conservation reserves after the mid-1980s. As the native forest estate was secured, attention turned to pressing matters of forest restoration, silviculture and fire protection in cut-over forests. A priority concern was the need to protect regrowth forests from wildfire. Eventually, foresters were able to develop an effective bushfire management system. This system comprised early detection (initially from lookout towers, later from aircraft); good access and communications; the location throughout the forest of trained and equipped district staff; systematic fuel reduction by prescribed burning; and scientific research into fire behaviour, technology and operations. Contemporary forest managers face additional challenges including a rapidly expanding rural-urban interface, a more urbanised population intolerant of smoke and large tracts of jarrah forest where the complexity and cost of prescribed burning has increased due to fragmentation of the landscape by bauxite mining. From the outset, management of forested water supply catchments featured as a significant issue in Western Australia. The need for integrated management of forested water catchments is exemplified by the case of the Goldfields Water Supply scheme. This scheme was established to pump water from the Mundaring Weir to the eastern goldfields along a 560 km pipeline (Underwood 2016). Managed initially as a water reserve by the Public Works

中文翻译：

---

西澳大利亚森林管理的永恒主题——纪念 1918 年森林法一百周年

1918 年森林法一百周年标志着西澳大利亚乃至整个澳大利亚系统森林管理历史上的一个重要里程碑。被广泛认为是英联邦最好的森林立法之一，西澳大利亚森林法影响深远，为森林行政和管理奠定了坚实的基础，该法持续了 66 年，直到 1985 年被废除。 尽管已经做出了不成功的尝试在 1890 年代建立森林服务，并任命了一名森林保护员（约翰·埃德尼·布朗），这已经失效，西澳大利亚州是最后一个颁布林业立法的州，1920 年塔斯马尼亚州紧随其后。1873 年，南澳大利亚殖民政府通过了承认森林重要性和系统管理必要性的立法，随后是维多利亚（1876）、昆士兰（1906）和新南威尔士（1909、1916）。与所有州的情况一样，这代表了专业林务员为说服政府需要保护森林免受农业异化、规范锯木业活动、恢复和再生因木材砍伐而受到广泛干扰的地区的长期斗争的结果。 、勘探和采矿，并认识到森林在集水区保护、娱乐和自然保护方面的内在价值。西澳大利亚经济对农业、金矿开采和以出口为重点的木材工业的严重依赖使这项任务特别具有挑战性，在 1899 年 Ednie Brown 过早去世和 1916 年任命 Charles Edward Lane Poole 之间的中断期间，该州森林的管理和管理陷入停滞（Mills 1989）。在被任命为保护员后，Lane-Poole 制定了专业森林管理的基本原则：首先，确保森林财产不被转让；第二，在受干扰后再生森林，特别是木材采伐；第三，保护森林免受伤害机构的侵害，尤其是火灾。Lane-Poole 被广泛认为是一位强有力和有远见的林业管理者，他着手起草立法，该立法于 1918 年 9 月提交给西澳大利亚议会，并于 1919 年 1 月获得批准（Meyer 1985）。该法案规定设立一个森林部门，由一名受过专业培训的森林保护员作为其永久负责人，并有权就与执行该法案目标有关的所有事项制定法规。重要的规定包括林地分类、将国有森林作为永久森林财产以及通过锯木许可证制度控制木材采伐（Havel 1989）。特许权使用费按采伐量支付，所得收入的五分之三用于重新造林和森林改良工程。然而，直到 1929 年最后一次大型木材特许权到期时，该法案才得以全面实施。特许权持有人支付象征性租金以独家进入森林区域，而不是对采伐量收取特许权使用费，并且比森林法下的许可证持有者受到的监管更少，给他们带来了巨大的经济优势。尽管他的立法获得通过无疑取得了成功，但莱恩普尔发现自己与政府和试图削弱该法案意图的强大利益集团存在分歧。他于 1921 年年中辞去了保护员的职务，实施系统森林管理的任务落到了他能干的继任者斯蒂芬·凯塞尔 (Stephen Kessel) 身上 (Meyer 1985)。在接下来的十年中，国家森林的奉献势头强劲，到 1929 年，覆盖面积超过 110 万公顷，包括柯利北部的大部分森林和南部彭伯顿周围的大量森林（Havel 1989）。林务员和测量员团队进行的广泛地面调查构成了决定哪些土地应该用于森林以及哪些土地用于农业的基础，这是土地利用规划的最早例子之一。最好的 jarrah 森林下土壤的农业质量差以及 karri 森林的可及性相对较晚，导致大多数质量最好的 jarrah 和 karri 林分都被用作国家森林（相当于 A 级保护区）。这一过程最终在 1980 年完成。几乎所有的土地最初都被用作国家森林，并在 1980 年代中期之后逐渐转移到国家公园和其他保护区。随着原生林地的获得，注意力转向了森林恢复的紧迫问题，采伐林的造林和防火。一个优先关注的问题是需要保护再生森林免受野火的影响。最终，林务员能够开发出有效的丛林火灾管理系统。该系统包括早期检测（最初来自瞭望塔，后来来自飞机）；良好的访问和沟通；整个森林中训练有素和装备精良的地区工作人员的位置 通过规定的燃烧系统地减少燃料；以及对火灾行为、技术和操作的科学研究。当代森林管理者面临更多挑战，包括快速扩大的城乡界面、更城市化的人口不能容忍烟雾以及大片的贾拉森林，由于铝土矿开采导致景观破碎，规定燃烧的复杂性和成本增加。从一开始，森林供水集水区的管理就是西澳大利亚的一个重要问题。Goldfields 供水计划的案例说明了对森林集水区进行综合管理的必要性。该计划旨在沿 560 公里长的管道将水从 Mundaring Weir 泵送到东部金矿区 (Underwood 2016)。最初由公共工程作为水源管理