
I am not, however, leaving AFG. As an executive member of the Ballarat branch, I look forward to taking part with other AFG members in broadening our base and reinventing the purpose of AFG to match the spirit of the times.
Farm foresters need to reinvent themselves as custodians of the land, dedicating their silvicultural skills towards renewing land/water/biota. That would aid landholders long term resilience, as well as that of the landscape they inhabit.
Ballarat Region Treegrowers continues with our multi-diverse, multi-layered 15ha biorich plantation in a mining buffer zone at Lal Lal, based on the principles outlined in the emPRESS book Recreating the Country. Aimed at replicating the the structure of the original natural forest to optimise biodiversity, a biorich plantation also incorporates commercial elements offering landowners resources and income – for more, check out the biorich website.