THE last of an estimated 5.5 million trees were hand-planted by OneFortyOne (OFO) staff last week as the replanting season wrapped up across its Green Triangle forests.
For OFO area forester Terry Higgins, this season marked an important milestone as it was the second time he had replanted trees on this land – the first time was following the devastating 1983 Ash Wednesday fire.
“Like most people who were part of our industry and community in the 1980s, my colleagues and I will never forget Ash Wednesday,” Mr Higgins said.
“35 years later, we’re proud to still have people working for OFO who fought the fires, supervised the log salvage operations or worked in the local mills in the fire’s aftermath,” he said.
The impact on the Green Triangle forests was significant with 18,094ha of the state’s pine forests destroyed in the fire.
Putting that in perspective, OFO’s forests today span approximately 93,000ha (81,000ha of pine trees), meaning 22pc of OFO’s forest was replanted out of its usual cycle during the 1980s.
“I think sometimes people forget the impact Ash Wednesday had on this region’s harvesting programs,” Mr Higgins said.
“The trees we replanted in 1983 started reaching their optimal age over the past few years, we harvested them, and now we are replanting the forests again.
“Forestry is the same as any other farming crop – each year we have a cycle of harvest, sow, nurture and regrow.”
A timber industry worker since 1971, Mr Higgins has undertaken a broad range of tasks across multiple locations over the past four decades and is now responsible for managing OFO’s replanting program.
This year he estimates planting crews walked a total of 13,372km replanting the trees in the ground.
