Trying every job in the forest
From the Summer 2006 edition of Bush Telegraph Magazine.
Paul Williams says he knows the harvesting side of forestry inside out, and he probably does.
He has not long graduated with a Bachelor of Applied Science from Southern Cross University with a major in natural resource management to add to his Diploma of Forestry from the University of Melbourne’s School of Forestry, Creswick.
The part-time diploma correspondence course usually takes four years.
“I don’t like to let the grass grow under my feet. I did it in two years,” Paul says.
The courses came courtesy of scholarships from Forests NSW. But it is not just academic study alone that makes up his knowledge.
Paul is 45, and after a crack at mathematics at Wollongong University just after school, he returned to Baradine where he was born and bred, and became a timber feller.
“I started felling timber in 1985, kept at it for 15 years and had casual work in local sawmills,” Paul says.
“I worked for most of the hardwood and cypress operators.”
“I now have tickets as a chainsaw instructor, dozer driver, snigger, and a log grader to name a few.”
“During the big wet of 1998 I made up my mind that I would go for the next permanent job that came up with Forests NSW.”
That was a job as a field worker, and he started his association with Forests NSW.
When the opportunity arose he took on a supervising forestry officer’s job in the Watagan Mountains area on the Central Coast.
Now, he is testing the waters as a forester with a relieving stint back home at Baradine.
Public Affairs & Media, Coffs Harbour
