Foresters and family members gathered near Narrogin in WA recently to honour the memory of George Brockway, WA’s famous pioneering forester and conservationist. A ribbon was cut to officially open The George Brockway Tree; a magnificent salmon gum located within the Yilliminning Reserve. Source: Timberbiz
Mr Brockway was the first WA-born professional forester to be appointed in WA, starting work with the Forests Department in 1923.
He was initially the District Forester at Mundaring, where he pioneered the system of bushfire management that became standard throughout WA forests in later years and establishing the State’s first commercial Radiata plantation.
In the 1930s he moved to Kalgoorlie and became the forester-in-charge for the mammoth Goldfields and wheatbelt regions.
There he established a nursery designed to propagate the native dryland eucalypts. He was responsible for the creation of many reserves and was a powerful advocate for retention of bushland on farms, and for farm tree planting.
Today, Mr Brockway is regarded as the “father” of agroforestry and the trees-on-farms business in Western Australia.
He also worked as a consultant on reforestation and plantation establishment in Pakistan, India and the Middle East.
Speaking at the cutting of the ribbon on the George Brockway Tree, retired forester Roger Underwood said that Brockway was a hero to the forestry profession and also was a “forgotten conservationist” in the sense that conservation means sustainable use of resources, rather than as an environmental activist.
His hope, he said, is that he will no longer be forgotten, but remembered as a great forestry pioneer.
