Dr Gregory Barton
Centre for Environmental History, ANU
Time: 4.15-5.30pm, Wednesday 10 March 2010
Venue: McDonald Room, Menzies Library, Australian National University
Some foresters began to question the dominance of agriculture during the early to mid twentieth century. They did so by advocating massive global afforestation programs that would redefine state land management policies. E.H.F. Swain is one such example. A forester who served as chair of the forestry board in Queensland from 1920- 1931 and chief commissioner of the New South Wales forestry commission from 1935-1948, he voiced the most extreme perspective of any forester throughout the British Empire. He used his position as a chief commissioner in New South Wales during and after World War II to advocate an entirely new vision of society and its economy: instead of supporting the advance of the wheat belt across the world, he sought to create a society more heavily based on forestry. A prophet and bureaucrat that wrote in the style of Thomas Carlyle, he advanced a radically green vision of wholeness that died with the British Empire.
Dr Gregory Barton is a Research Fellow with the Centre for Environmental History at the Australian National University.
All welcome. Please contact Shino Konishi (shino.konishi@anu.edu.au) if you have any queries.
Tags: forestry, greg barton, seminar
