MUHLEISEN_Will_Recouped Losses

WILL MUHLEISEN

DESIGNING FOR MEDIATION IN VICTORIA’S CONFLICTED FORESTS

Will Muhleisen 2020-2021 RMIT University College of Design and Social Context School of Architecture and Urban Design Co-ordinators and tutors: Dr. Alice Lewis Dr. Charles Anderson Jen Lynch Jessica Stewart Qidi Li Dr. Yazid Ninsalam With special thanks to: Lauren Barina Matt Caldar Steve Meacher As well as: Kyle Bush Sacha Coles Steve Mintern All images by the author, unless otherwise credited For your enjoyment, please read using a PDF viewer and enable 2-page-view, ensuring that the cover page displays in single-pageview.

This research is conducted on the custodial lands of the Wurundjeri and Taungurung people of the Kulin Nations whose protection of Country is an inspiration to me and whose returned sovereignty will be a wonderful gift for the continent and all who live upon it.

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WILL MUHLEISEN

DESIGNING FOR MEDIATION IN VICTORIA’S CONFLICTED FORESTS

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER 01:

INTRODUCTIONS 06 Abstract 08 Approaches 10 The State of the Forests 12 Guiding Philosophies 14

CHAPTER 02:

CONFLICTED HISTORIES Tall trees Hard wood Logging histories Media and misunderstanding Conflict timeline

16 18 20 22 24 26

CHAPTER 03:

THREATENED SYSTEMS Soil Carbon Clearfelling in catchments Standard regrowth practice Forest profile Threatened ecosystem

28 30 34 36 38 40

CHAPTER 04:

MEDIATION IN DESIGN Mediation approaches

42 44

CHAPTER 05:

PLAYER PROFILES Spatial needs matrix Player profiles

54 56 60

CHAPTER 06:

MEDIATION INTERVENTIONS Intervention map

70 72

Civic Approach: Toolangi Site Toolangi Civic Square Forest Parliament Round Table

74 76 82 114

Citizen Science Approach: Kalatha Haulage Roads Listening Post Citizen Science Platforms Harvest Gallery / Soil Oculus

126 130 156 162

Silviculture Approach: Kalatha Coupe Site 178 Test plots 182 Nursery 190 CHAPTER 07:

CONCLUSIONS 196 Reflection 198

CHAPTER 08:

APPENDIX 200 References 214

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6

CHAPTER 01 INTRODUCTIONS

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“If the gap between our ambitions and impact is ever to be narrowed, it won’t be through declarations of our principles. We must rethink how landscape architecture engages with social and political movements.”

- Billy Flemingx

“Conflict in democratic societies cannot and should not be eradicated since the specificity of modern democracy is precisely the recognition and the legitimation of conflict. What democratic politics requires is that the others are not seen as enemies to be destroyed, but as adversaries whose ideas would be fought, even fiercely, but whose right to defend those ideas will never be put into question. To put it in another way, what is important is that conflict does not take the form of an ‘antagonism’ (struggle between enemies), but the form of an ‘agonism’ (struggle between adversaries). We could say that the aim of democratic politics is to transform potential antagonism into an agonism.”

- Chantal Mouffex

Agonism: a controlled, productive conflict

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ABSTRACT Environmental justice is a cause championed widely throughout the discipline of Landscape Architecture, though the ability of practitioners to effectively combat current ecological collapse is significantly constrained within the late capitalist context.

Recouped Losses finds that the ongoing narratives of intractible conflict between activists and industry operating in extraction landscapes are obfuscating the severity of the ecological crises in the public sphere. A significant hurdle in protecting large-scale threatened landscapes is communicating the threats posed by current extraction practices, as well as the imminent risk of biodiversity loss and the possibility of devising new land-use typologies to protect them.

To this end, Recouped Losses proposes three landscape architectural approaches to activating public support for the conservation of threatened ecosystems. This research focuses on native forest logging sites in the Toolangi State Forest in the Central Highlands region of Victoria, Australia. Each of these approaches is directed at a different group of stakeholders and each proposes a suite of interventions on the ground, as well as procurement systems to see them from inception through to construction.

The first, deemed the Civic approach, examines Mouffe’s theory of agonistic pluralism and analyses opportunities for productive discourse around contested land-use. It proposes new civic landscapes in the town of Toolangi at the edge of the montane ash ecologies in Toolangi State Forest, a significant old-growth forest ecosystem threatened by clearfell timber harvesting and changing fire regimes. This proposes a council-led initiative to invest in the democratic infrastructure of the town to facilitate visible public participation in Victoria’s timber economy.

DEFINITIONS Primary forest A forest undisturbed by land clearing, harvesting and other destructive human behaviours.

Old-growth forests are one example. Exhibits unique ecological function.

The second, the Citizen Science approach, proposes legal avenues for landscape architects to engage with the specific needs of activist and research groups, and support their inclusion in the communities already at work protecting environments.

This position leverages a scientific grant scheme to arm citizen scientists with the tools needed to delay habitat destruction and seek legal avenues for institutional change.

The third approach is a Silviculture approach, which proposes avenues to publicise new growing and harvesting techniques that take a greater consideration of threatened ecosystems.

Coupe An area of forest designated for harvest by forestry bodies or the responsible government authority.

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APPROACHES This body of research asks three questions through three different approaches:

CIVIC APPROACH

Asks: How can Landscape Architects find a mediating role in Victoria’s forest wars?

CITIZEN SCIENCE APPROACH

Asks: How can Landscape Architects work within the law to support the aims of environmental activists?

SILVICULTURE APPROACH

Asks: What can Landscape Architects do to exert more influence in the ongoing extractive economy, not only in post-industrial spaces?

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Each approach is tested in a site in Victoria’s Central Highlands region.

TOOLANGI

Testing civic spaces

LOGGING TRACKS

Testing adjacent occupation of activist and research groups

‘BIG KAHUNA’ COUPE

Testing new regenerative silviculture practices behind the coupe line

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THE STATE OF THE FORESTS Eastern Australia is one of 11 global fronts identified as hotspots for deforestation, and Australia is the only advaced economy on that dubious shortlist (Cox 2021).

The timber industry, and land clearing generally, is one of the leading contributors to CO2 emissions in the country. Intact, primary forests are important stores for vast wells of carbon, “breathing” it in and storing it in both their woody biomass and in the humus layers surrounding their root systems. When disturbed, as in the case of intensive timber harvesting practices, this soil carbon is released into the atmosphere. In Victoria, over 16,000ha of primary forest was harvested between 2010-18, however not without great conflict (Australian Government 2020).

Protests occur at nearly all timber harvest coupes throughout the state, halting work and resulting in arrests, fines and even prison sentences. For the protestors, the conflict aims to air the grievances of a population who has few avenues to change the logging practices that destroy carbon sinks (Mackey et al 2008), destroy habitat of critically endangered wildlife, disturb the state’s water security (Taylor et al 2018) and often do so to create nothing more than cartridge paper.

This resistance is directed at the $23bn timber and woodproducts industry, which in Australia employs 99,400 people, 5,200 of whom work directly in forestry and logging. This industry includes the pulp mills reducing montane ash forest to paper, but also includes the new generation sawmillers and regenerative foresters attempting to find a viable future for the industry (Australian Industry and Skills Commission, 2020).

But there is slower, quieter resistance too. Researchers are mobilised throughout Victoria’s forests, working for universities, NGOs, activist networks and as independent citizen scientists. These experts play a crucial role in communicating to the public the consequence of its relationship with native forest ecologies.

Research-based activism produces a resilient rhizome of resistance to the extractive economy. Through grants and funding that is secured over numerous years, forest research projects can conduct longitudinal studies to assess the decline of biodiversity from a far greater range of scales than can be protected with in-person protests. Some researchers, like David Lindenmayer, have been studying patches of forest for over 30 years. The quantities of data begin to tell stories that can catalyse enormous changes. The mapping on the facing page was widely distributed throughout Australian media in 2021 after scientists collated years of research to urge protection of 19 ecosystems facing collapse. But here lies a difficult link - with 86% of Australia’s popuation dwelling in urban centres, engagement with these ecosystems, let alone engagement with the troubling findings of environmental research, is decreasing. How do those protecting the forest navigate the attention economy to secure enough momentum that they mobilise the public to demand protection of endangered ecosystems?

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DEFINITIONS Citizen Science Voluntary public collaboration with scientific research, aiming to develop knowledge and engage communities in the scientific process.

Landscape Architecture has a strong theoretical foundation in addressing the extractive history of capitalist societies; however as an industry, it has found few meaningful footholds in tackling the ongoing extraction industries from which it benefits. Billy Fleming takes claims that the industry has become self-important, writing:

“It’s never been obvious to me that landscape architecture belongs at the center of today’s social movements, and it troubles me that so many colleagues make that claim, effectively erasing the work of community organizers and activists, not to mention the tangible support from allies in fields like sociology, law, and science who work for systemic change. Like the other design professions, landscape architecture as practiced today is a largely apolitical affair, organized around relationships with clients and projects, mainly serving the interests of an economic elite.”

(Fleming, 2019).

But that is a bold oversimplification. The participation in public space projects is inherently political. The milieu of stakeholders, zoning and power dynamics is what has brought landscape architecture so far from its gardening origins.

The current state of the forests is in flux. Its future narrative is anthropogenic and for designers to engage in this fraught landscape, we need to be engaged in its politics.

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L O C A T E DESIGN AGENCY

S T R O N G TACTICS OF THE WEAK

U N S O L I C I T E D A R C H I T E C T U R E

MICHEL

Don’t wait for clients to call Pose a problem Become the expert Write your own brief Design the answer, it may not be a building

Certeau (1988)

Run the numbers Get yourself together / pool talent Find the loophole Assemble your argument. Biased evidence is best.

COMMONING

Solicit the future client

As defined by STAVROS STAVRIDES

Return to step two if brave

The activist act of doing things together.

Common goods are cultural and natural assemblages held publicly, not privately.

Commoning is a dynamic process, so the resulting ‘commons’ will evolve to reflect the co-existance of the public that willed it into existence.

(‘I am an Unsolicited Architect’, 2008)

Stavrides (2015)

A G O N I S M N O T A N TA G O N I S M CHANTAL

MOUFFE

Vibrant democracies and the spaces they rely upon will always experience some degree of conflict.

Mouffe’s thesis is that the healthiest way for this conflict to be expressed is in an ongoing pattern that is productive for both sides, ensuring robust debate and more objective decisionmaking.

(Mouffe 2016)

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CERTAU

Certau is certain that the rich, powerful, large, structured agents will always have most of the cards already. To create an effective resistance against these odds, designers must deploy tactics. The strongest tactics are often quick, deft, unseen, unfair and unsolicited.

12 steps of unsolicited architecture:

Build public support & demonstrate the urgency

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GUIDING PHILOSOPHIES D I Y OPPORTUNITY MATTHEW POWER

KNEALE TOOLS

If our profession sides against the action of the powerful, we must create possibilities to act quickly, decisively and outside of our usual structures.

Kneale champions the expansion of Landscape Architecture’s role in coalition building, decision making and direct action.

(Kneale 2018)

GET IN THE WAY OF EXTRACTION THE

LITTLE

RED

T O O L A N G I T R E E H O U S E

Largely ignored in design education but extremely effective, direct action protest puts human bodies and creations in the path of machinery. Direct action is necessarily designed at the human scale

ITCHINESS OF PUBLIC S P A C E MARK

JACQUES

O P E N W O R K

One of Openwork’s practice aims is to make public spaces with ambiguous edges, throwing up questions of human agency in the space. These spaces should be “itchy” enough to prevent being brought back into the rigid uniformity of the city’s status quo.

(Jacques 2020)

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CHAPTER 02 CONFLICTED HISTORIES

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-3 1 .5 7 3 3 3 149.62777

TOOLANGI MELBOURNE

50km

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100km

50km 100km

300km

1:20,000 at A0 N 300km TEST PLOT NA

Victoria’s tall forests

-4 0. 98 97 2 150.68305

GEELONG

TALL TREES Victoria’s Central Highlands are among the most biodiverse regions on the continent.

The steep topographies and cool climate have allowed a deep rich humus to develop up to 6m below what we see as the forest floor. In elegant contrast, the mighty Eucalyptus regnans, or Mountain Ash, stretches 100m toward the sky (though few, if any specimens remain at that height today) and some sentinels have stood for over 400 years.

Tanya Patrick writes: “Renowned for its smooth, straight trunk, Eucalyptus regnans is the largest flowering plant on Earth. From January to March, white flowers like pompoms dot the upper part of its canopy. In towering elders of more than 100 years, hollows form and pools of water collect in the branches as the wood decays.

These high-rise ponds provide homes to reptiles, insects and frogs, and water for mammals and birds. At dusk, the critically endangered Leadbeater’s possum leaps from tree to tree” (Patrick 2020, p.120).

In the languages of the people of the Kulin Nation, Toolangi means tall trees. In the Toolangi State Forest at the southern edge of Taungurung Country, we find some of the last remaining intact stands of old-growth Mountain Ash forests in the mainland of Australia. Once, these forests would have comprised 30-60% old-growth. Today that figure is just 1.16% (Lindenmayer, 2016)

-3 1 .5 733 3 149.62777

Is there a role for landscape architects to play in the protection of these special plants?

STATEWIDE SITE A: State Area: 227,444km2 or 22.7mil ha Map Extent NW: -32.02250, 140.82555 Map Extent NE: -31.57333, 149.62777 Map Extent SE: -40.98972, 150.68305 Map Extent SW: -41.24472, 130.71361

LEGEND LEGEND

A stand of Eucalyptus regnans retained in a coupe for biodiversity purposes

Average canopy height: AVERAGE CANOPY HEIGHT: <5M 40M

<5m

40m

TOTAL FORESTED AREA: Total forested area: >7Mha

>7,000,000 ha

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-3 1 . 5 7 3 3 3 149.62777

TOOLANGI MELBOURNE

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Victoria’s Timber Allocation Order

HARD WOOD Victoria’s Central Highlands are also enormously productive for the nation’s timber industry.

An actor we will meet, VicForests, is a government backed business that is responsible for the harvest and management of harvest zones within Victoria’s seven million hectares of forest. VicForests is expected (by the State Government of Victoria) to harvest over 400,000m3 of native timber each year until at least 2025. That is their committment.

As of 2019, the timber committment is to be supplied from the regions highlighted on this map. They need not all be harvested, but in order to reach their committment volume to the State Government, they may be. Within the timber release areas highlighted, lies a complex web of regulatory overlays determining just which tracts of land are actually suitable to be harvested. The majority of these harvestable tracts are found within state forest and crown land, both of which are able to be managed by public under the right conditions.

The result we see below. Straight grained, bright timber with pinkish undertones, used for interiors, furniture and structural showpieces. When sold, it takes the name Vic Ash or Tassie Oak .

LEGEND TIMBER ALLOCATION ORDER 2020 committment >700,000m3 hardwood timber from native forests Eucalyptus regnans / VicAsh timber post

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LOGGING HISTORY Native timber has been used by Taungurung and Wurundjeri people of the Eastern Kulin Nations for thousands of years for the construction of tools, homes and for farming methods (Gunyah Goondie and Wurley 1997) As a state, Victoria has been harvesting native timber since settlement and with increased urgency since demand spiked during the Gold Rush. The bushfires of 1939 that destroyed mountain ash forests to the North-East and East of Melbourne led to the regeneration of a large crop of Eucalyptus regnans, or Mountain Ash, which is what is primarily being harvested today.

The remaining 35% of Victoria’s forest cover has been thrown a lifeline in the form of a native timber logging ban enacted by the state government in 2019. In theory, the government will cancel all native forest logging contracts due to operate beyond 2030.

This opens a window of opportunity. The period from 2019 - 2040 is a rare transitional moment for the State Forests of Victoria. The timber industry will move towards plantation and the regulatory frameworks governing the state forests will be rewritten.

1850

1900

195 1939 bushfires and regeneration planting

Toolangi founded Kalatha Giant Eucalyptus regnans growing since 1600s

Clearfell logging, ongoing 88% 0km

200km

Victorian canopy cover at 88% in 1869

22

0km

200km

0km

200km

0km

200km

1939 fires

TRENDS: Forestry Industry Jobs Vic Logging Jobs Vic

25K 1K

2006 2011 2016

(Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability, 2018)

2030

950

Window of action

2000

0km

Native Timber Logging Ban Effected

35%

200km

Native Timber Logging Ban Announced

Gunns Limited forestry enterprise liquidates

Black Saturday fires

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999

1961 Leadbeaters Possum rediscovered

0km

2050

200km

Victorian canopy cover down to 35% in 2018

0km

200km

0km

200km

2009 fires

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1992

2500

2018 Toilet paper / Other

Gymnobelideus leadbeateri Critically endangered endemic marsupial

Newsprint / Books / Office

(Woinarski & Burbidge 2016)

Packaging

Habitat

Timber supply

Paper demand

Eucalyptus regnans

(Berg & Lingqvist 2019)

Su sta ina ble Fo re str yA (Tim ct be r) 20 04

Protest Legislation

Section 77b of the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act 2004

Zoning

Policy

Forestry coupe Labour

IN

$23bn

Reportin

Australia’s Forest and Woodproducts Industry

51,000 43,200 5,200

(Australian Government Department of Agriculture, 2020)

Issue

Forestry + Logging

= 1000 Forestry and Logging Jobs

Timber + Hardware Goods Wholesaling

(Australian Industry and Skills Commission, 2020)

Wood Product Manufacturing

= 10 Forestry and Logging Jobs

(Australian Industry and Skills Commission, 2020)

Australia’s Forest and Woodproducts Industry

Investment

60kms Central Highlands Primary production

INTERPRETING 24

Harvesting of natural resources is beset by the same curious distance experienced by t procurement of material is poorly understood by the public that consumes its products.

Logging is an enormous industry in Australia, employing nearly 100,000 workers in its allied se financial year and despite the turn away from native timber harvesting, growth continues via th

MEDIA AND MISUNDERSTANDING The fraught relationship between the timber industry and conservationists in Australia plays out with regular skirmishes that are portrayed very simplisitcally in our nation’s media. This diagram unpacks the forces pulling on the forests, then the narrative presented in media and received by the consumers of wood-products.

Und ers t

an

din g

(Reception Theory)

You (or me)

(Reference: see “newspaper clippings” in references)

Medi

a

ng

Melbourne Primary consumption

the field of Landscape Architecture. The

ervices. This industry generated $23bn last he paper packaging manufacturing industry.

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RELATIONSHIPS

CONFLICT TIMELINE The end of native forest logging in the state of Victoria is proposed to take place in 2030, but with thousands of jobs, international contracts, infrastructure and investment, the timber industry will remain. While hardwood timber plantations grow to harvestable age, there will almost certainly be compromises that allow harvesting to continue in forests.

The conflict between activists and industry has been sporadic and reactive to date. All victories on both side have been hard fought and often countered. Therefore, this research doesn’t anticipate 2030 as the final year of the forest wars. It anticipates a renegotiation by industry.

The period up to, during, and in the ten years beyond 2030, will be one of experimental transition. This is not post-industrial or post-capitalist, but it certainly does propose a closer-knit vision for the governance of the forests in the Central Highlands.

This timeline charts a course from the asymmetrical conflicts of the forest wars, into a rhythm of productive, adversarial conflict over the substantive issues around forestry. It resolves very idealistically, with shared spaces for the repair of damaged ecosystems.

Conflicted

Antagonistic

Reactive

Controlled

FORESTRY ACTIVISM

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n ro

vi

En

EVENTS

99

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Agonistic

Mediating

Silviculture Approach Citizen Science Approach Civic Approach

RELATIONSHIPS

Perspective

Transgress

Productive

Commune

Embedding

Repair Recurring

(Mouffe 2016)

FORESTRY

ACTIVISM

EVENTS

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CHAPTER 03 THREATENED SYSTEM

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Tropical forest such as Queensland’s Daintree rainforest may store only 200 tonnes per hectare

+

An estimated 25 Gt of organic Carbon is stored in Australia’s soils

Victoria’s Central Highlands forests store up to 1900 tonnes of carbon per hectare.

+

100km

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250km

500km

1000km

1000km

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1:xxxxx at A0 N Australia’s Soil Carbon TEST PLOT A

SOIL CARBON Victoria’s logging industry is an urban problem felt at a continental scale. The soils of the forests in Victoria’s east are some of the most carbon dense soils across the continent. This mapping shows the carbon content of the top five centimetres of soil.

Why is it important to know about the soil beneath the forest?

The 2700 gigatonnes of carbon in the world’s soils is approximately three times the amount of current carbon in our atmosphere, and 240 times higher than humanity’s current annual fossil fuel emission.

The forestry industry in Victoria is responsible for clearing over 170,000ha of forest forest between 2010-18. Between its clearfelling and reforestation programs, this has led to reduced groudcover, increased soil erosion, topsoil runoff, damage to waterways and significant habitat loss for critically endangered species.

If this was visualised as a 1km wide band of clearfell coupes, it would stretch from Hobart to Brisbane.

Australia is one of the worst perpetrators of deforestation and land clearing in the developed world. To keep carbon in the ground we need to find ways to change this.

LEGEND LEGEND

Organic carbon soil: ORGANIC CARBON IN in SOIL: 0% 10%

0%

10%

Mass fraction of carbon by weight in the > in 2mm Mass fraction of carbon by weight thesoil material as determined by dry combustion at 900°C

< 2mm soil material as determined by dry combustion at 900 Celsius

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CASTELLA QUARRIES

WIRAWILLA RAINFOREST WALK

CASTELLA

TOOLANGI

MAROONDAH RESERVOIR

HEALESVILLE

1km

1km

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2km

2km

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5km

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at A0 N1:20,000 TEST PLOT A

Central Highlands Soil Carbon

-37.489054 145.576703

REGIONAL SITE A: Area: 208km2 or 20,800ha Extent NW: -37.487929, 145.429595 Extent NE: -37.489054, 145.576703 Extent SE: -37.631568, 145.577068 Extent SW: -37.631670, 145.429608

LEGEND

SOIL CARBON

Organic carbon in soil:

Looking specifically at the Central Highlands, we see that carbon rich soils are 10% strongly concentrated in our focus area beneath the Mountain Ash forests in Toolangi Mass fraction of carbon by weight in the State Forest.

0%

< 2mm soil material as determined by Red scars indicate where, in the past two decades, native forests have been lost dry combustion at 900 Celsius either to fire or to harvest.

Each 100ha square may store Each grid square that burns or is harvested has the potential to release 190,000 up to 190,000 tonnes tonnes of of soil carbon into the atmosphere. This poses an enormous risk to the “carbon budget” which is the existing system of carbon accounting we rely on to organic Carbon justify our extractive economy during the climate emergency.

Forest lost between 2000-2019

TECHNIQUE: SLGA: Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia (Soil Attributes) Band: SOC_000_005_EV % The soil attribute’s estimated value at depth 0-5cm LEGEND LEGEND

Organic carbon soil: ORGANIC CARBON IN in SOIL: 0% 10%

0%

10%

-37.631568 145.577068

Mass fraction of carbon by weight in the > in 2mm Mass fraction of carbon by weight thesoil material as determined by dry combustion at 900°C

< 2mm soil material as determined by at 900 Celsius dry combustion - FOREST DESTROYED BETWEEN 2010-18

B08 SOIL at

CARBON risk

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TOOLANGI MELBOURNE GEELONG

N

0

100km

Catchments + forest loss

1km

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2km

5km

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1:20,000 at A TEST PLOT

CLEARFELLING IN CATCHMENTS Although most of Victoria’s water catchments are protected against disturbance, the mountain ash forests are exempt and continue to be harvested each 60-120 years, on average (Parliament of Victoria 2017).

LEGEND WATER CATCHMENT FOREST LOST BETWEEN 2000-2019 FORESTED AREA

In a study by Australian National University’s Femmer School of Environment and Society, researchers accounted for the economic value of the catchments and the forests that continue to keep them viable. A sum of $310m was concluded for the catchment’s water production value, while the timber was only $12m (Keith et al.

2017).

Ascribing a monetary value to an ecosystem service is a framing technique that allows us an opportunity to propose change. It communicates to the public that an easy comparison can be made between $310m vs. $12m, and that since the land is publicly owned, it is the public’s right to negotiate the best outcome.

Clearfell harvesting is having prolonged effects on Mountain Ash forests’ ability to regenerate and to be resilient to climate stressors. The section diagrams on the following pages indicate the severity of clearfell harvests and the problems with the state’s current regeneration practices. In particular, the intense competition produced by disturbed forest ecosystems regenerating after clearfell harvests is producing dry monocultures with dense fuel loads at ground level. These young forests also consume more water than diverse-aged forests, placing the water security of the catchment at risk.

DEFINITIONS Clearfell harvesting The most common timber harvesting technique involving the removal of almost all trees in a harvest coupe. Usually followed by regeneration burning and sowing.

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STANDARD REGROWTH PRACTICE

37

38

FOREST PROFILE 39

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THREATENED ECOSYSTEM 41

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CHAPTER 04 MEDIATION IN DESIGN

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A B O R I G I N A L TORRES

STRAIT

I S L A N D E R WAR

MEMORIAL EDITION OFFICE & DANIEL

BOYD

A recognition of Aboriginal and Torrest Strait Islander sovereignty through an invitation to deposit soils from Country into an urn beneath a fire-pit.

Edition

P

L

A

N

N

Office

E

(2020)

A screen perforated with a constellation of holes and mirrored discs mediates the viewer’s perspective to being in and of Country.

D

P R O A C T I V E

M A R I N E

A C R O P O L I S

DISCOVERY

P A T H W A Y S

C E N T R E LYONS

ARCHITECTURE

Queenscliff’s Marine Discovery Centre is a place for education. It straddles a thin spit of land leading into the town. It is peeled from the surface of the estuarine mudflats, encouraging enquiring minds to begin to interface with the environment.

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DIMITRIS PIKIONIS

Undertaken for Athens without design documentation, Pikionis’ stonework at the Acropolis is the product of his accumulation of experts with useful skills, all inscribed into the historical materials of the citystate.

(Piera 2017)

LILTTLE

RED

T O O L A N G I T R E E H O U S E ACTIVISTS An activist outpost, strapped 40m above the forest floor, suspended across several Eucalyptus regnans in Toolangi State Forest. It is the built outcome of the regular skiffs between VicForests and activists.

Perhaps the simplest form of design activism: get in the way of extraction.

Bauer (2014)

R O DJAB

M

R

A

C G

T A

I

V

E

N

I

C

WURRUNG

HERITAGE E

E

B

PROTECTION A

S

S

Y

A C T I V I S T S (Woods

2019)

A congregation to protect sacred birthing trees on Djab Wurrung Country. Each passing week saw more campers, makeshift boardwalks, fences, shacks, libraries, kitchens and bathrooms. The embassy’s increasing physical permanence and proximity to the highway instilled it with legitimacy. The use of the word “embassy” denotes authority and the right to speak on behalf of Country.

MEDIATION APPROACHES 45

GER I N N OVATI O N HUB RURAL URBAN FRAMEWORK This timber community hub in Ulaanbaatar is designed around cultural practices rarely built by architects, while feeding in new low-impact technologies to keep warm in the -40 degree winters.

(Rural

P

L

A

N

N

E

Urban

Framework

2019)

D

P R O A C T I V E BUDJ

BIM

MASTERPLAN COOPER

SCAIFE

ARCH.

LOOKEAR, MONO DESIGN &

GIB

WETTENHALL

This masterplan document deliberately leaves gaps in the design to allow leadership by Gunditjmara elders when deciding key elements of the cultural heritage landscape design.

(Budj Bim Masterplan 2015)

46

ELYSIAN

PARK

TEST

PLOTS Terremoto, &

Citizens

to

save

Saturate

LA

Committee Elysian

Park

Co-ordinated revegetation of a Los Angeles city park, performed without plans, intended to test a healthier planting pallette.

(Citizens Committee to Save Elysian Park 2020)

R O G R A S S L A N D S LINDA

SPRING

R

A

C G

T A

I

V

E

N

I

C

BAY

TRIABUNNA

TEGG

Land installation on the steps of the State Library of Victoria, to remind visitors of the rich grasslands once found across Melbourne.

All from historical information found within the

(Tegg

E

2014)

GRAEME WOODS ET AL The purchase of a woodchip mill by environmentalists, who halted operations, gutted the machinery and then slowly transformed into an eco-tourism venture.

(ABC

News

2014)

MEDIATION APPROACHES 47

A B O R I G I N A L TORRES I

S

L

WAR

STRAIT A

N

D

E

R

MEMORIAL EDITION DANIEL

OFFICE BOYD

DESIGN: Kudjla and Gangalu artist Daniel Boyd partnered with Edition Office to design a pavilion honouring the sacrifice of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people in Australia’s various conflicts.

An intimate room with a black earthen wall and seating block looks to, and through, a two-way mirror glass facade. Riddled with irregular sized holes and circle mirrors, it reflect the viewer and mixes their reflection with views to the landscape around.

It serves as a reminder of the intangible link between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their Country; it is impossible and painful to separate the two.

ACTIVISM APPROACH: Mediation: This is a powerful use of a few select materials (mirror-glass, black rammed earth) that invites people to experience a meaning without the contrived use of symbology.

It borrows views from the landscape around to remind of the powerful connection between human and land.

Invitation: It situates the viewer as a part of the architecture. Reflecting on self is necessary to understand the intent of the artwork. This is an invitational form of activism.

48

landscape’s own message

mediator

self image landscape impression

49

DJAB

WURRUNG

H E R I T A G E P R O T E C T I O N E M B A S S Y

DESIGN: Erected to fight for the protection of trees sacred to the Djab Wurrung people living in Western Victoria, the heritage protection embassy is filled out with campers, makeshift boardwalks, fences, shacks, libraries, kitchens, bathrooms. The embassy’s increasing physical permanence and proximity to the highway instil it with legitimacy.

ACTIVISM

APPROACH:

THICKENING PROTEST SITES: Building outward ensures constant presence by traditional custodians and allows them to bear witness to destruction of sacred trees and land by VicRoads and contractors.

CONSTANT PRESENCE: Ability to remain on site to witness destruction and collect evidence.

INFRASTRUCTURE: With drop toilets, libraries, kitchens, fences and pathways, protesters are able to effectively maintain presence on site.

CULTURE / LORE: Maintaining cultural principles (like Women’s Business) helps to prioritise the protest’s aims.

50

Birthing Tree Entry gate

WC

Me HQ

et

ing s

Grandfather Tree

Kit che

n

Opportunistically reinforcing the protest site with infrastructure

51

ELYSIAN TEST

PARK PLOTS TERREMOTO, SATURATE LA & CITIZENS COMMITTEE TO SAVE ELYSIAN PARK

DESIGN: The co-ordinated revegetation of a Los Angeles city park, performed without plans, intended to test a healthier, local planting pallette. By advocating their position through testing within the park itself, the coalition of designers, consultants and locals will be able to critically evaluate the project’s success.

If (as anticipated) the plants grow, use less water, add amenity for locals and attract wildlife, then the experiment will provide the municipal parks department and local governent with a mandate to pursue widescale rehabilitation of Elysian Park.

ACTIVISM

APPROACH: LANDSCAPE-LED: Partnership between Terremoto Landscape Architects, Saturate LA and the Citizens Committee to Save Elysian Park, the project is a professional landscape work, done in collaboration with an activist lobbying group.

fig. A

52

EVIDENCE PRODUCING The act of testing will produce evidence to support further park rehabilitation

unplanned boundary within public land

interpretation

community-led

L E G E N D

Test

experimental

signage

planting

Elysian Park plots

Public park

Private residences

k

r Pa

ive r D

53

54

CHAPTER 05 PLAYER PROFILES

55

Often need Sometimes need Rarely need Never need

Engagement Approachable

Community

Landholders

Industry

Researchers

Activists

Knitting Nannas

56

Wilderness Society Goongerah Environment Centre Fauna+Flora Research Collective

Zoos Victoria TERN Ecosystem Research CSIRO

VicForests Australian Paper

Parks Victoria

DELWP

Taungurung

Tourists

Obstruct work

Visibility Visible to workers Visible to public Sightline to coupe

At coupe threshold

SPATIAL NEEDS MATRIX: EXISTING STAKEHOLDERS Access Night access

Height access

Equipment Long-term access

Shelter

Vehicle access

Wildlife sensors

Climbing gear

Harvest equipment

57

Often need Sometimes need Rarely need Never need

Engagement Approachable

Forest Parliament Committee RMIT Landscape Architecture forest democracy studio Silviculture Test Plot Team AILA Special Forest Envoy VicForests Future Forests Working Group

58

Obstruct work

Visibility Visible to workers Visible to public Sightline to coupe

At coupe threshold

SPATIAL NEEDS MATRIX: NEW ORGANISATIONS Access Night access

Height access

Equipment Long-term access

Shelter

Vehicle access

Wildlife sensors

Climbing gear

Harvest equipment

59

Actor profile 01 KNITTING NANNAS OF TOOLANGI Activist group Group of senior activists who bear witness to destruction of habitat, and other environmental causes. Their nonviolent direct action, coupled with their status in society as senior citizens, distinguishes their activism from the perception of rash youth.

A

Knitting >> Disarming, approachable activity

DRIVERS Anti extraction

Tea >> The engine of activism and forestry alike

Renewable energy, sustainable resource management Non-violent direct action E

ACTIONS Bear witness to destruction Change perception of usual protester from radical to reasonable Start conversations with locals, extractors, protesters

Banner painting >> Clear intentions + visible to public

SPATIAL REQUIREMENTS

A

Approachable

B C

Allow workers to pass without conflict Shelter

D

Visible to workers

E

Visible to passers-by

F

Sit at threshold

G

Sightlines to coup A B

60

G F

Zinger coupe

State Forest

Coupe I.D. 298-515-0001, 18.25ha 10m

50m

Knitting Nannas spatial use section

C

D

E

1m

2m

Knitting Nannas spatial use detail section

61

Actor profile 02 TERN Reserchers Actively researching new silviculture methods than can replace the destructive clearfelling techniques currently used. Also building nation-wide data resources on ecosystem health and climate change.

D

Weather station >> Assess changes in climate DRIVERS Modelling terrestrial data Understanding change in vulnerable ecosystems Enact evidence-based change

Bio-accoustic monitor >> Monitor wildlife habitation

ACTIONS Monitor local, regional and continental changes in ecosystems Remote sensing Silviculture test sites Tool sharing SPATIAL REQUIREMENTS

62

A

Access to obseration points

B

Access at night

C

Height access

D

Long-term monitoring

E

Test sites left undisturbed

F

Land allocation for silviculture test plots

Soil content monitor >> Track health of soil and microbiota

State Forest

Test Plot

Coupe I.D. 298-515-0001 Current 2019 TRP, 18.25ha

Coupe I.D. 298-515-0001, 18.25ha

Zinger coupe F

State Forest

10M

10m

50M

50m

1:500 at A1

TERN spatial use section ZINGER COUPE

C

A

1M

1m

2m5M

TERN spatial use section1:20 detail at A1

ZINGER COUPE

63

Actor profile 03 FAUNA AND FLORA RESEARCH COLLECTIVE Reserchers / Activists FFRC raise awareness of the value of public forests in Victoria through citizen led science. This includes mapping expeditions, spotlighting trips and open letters calling for forestry works to stop if endangered wildlife is found in a coupe.

D

Binoculars >> Spot endangered animals

DRIVERS Private investigation of activity in logging coupes Citizen science based activism Counter-narrative

Hand-held megaphone >> Playback calls to animals

ACTIONS Counter mapping Tracking of animals Public letters to government authorities Evidence gathering for legal disputes SPATIAL REQUIREMENTS

Thermal imaging camera >> Find animal traces at night A

Access to coupes

B

Avoidance of forestry workers

C

Overnight research stations

D

Nocturnal access

A

64

State Forest State Forest

Coupe I.D. 298-515-0001, 18.25ha

Zinger coupe

Coupe I.D. 298-515-0001 Current 2019 TRP, 18.25ha

Zinger Coupe

10m

50m

10M 50M FFRC spatial use section 1:500 at A1 ZINGER COUPE

D

1M

1m

5M 2m

1:20detail at A1 FFRC spatial use section ZINGER COUPE

65

Actor profile 04 THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY Direct Activists Work at various degrees of direct-action, from illegal action such as locking onto forestry machinery and treesits, to the regular framing of issues through letter drops, demonstrations and petitions.

D

DRIVERS Ecosystem defence Anti-extraction

Lock-on tools >>Heavy tools to lock activist onto machinery, tree or other obstruction

ACTIONS Public protest Lock-on Tree-sit Petitioning Public letters to Government SPATIAL REQUIREMENTS

66

A

Access to coupes

B

Nocturnal access

C

Visible

D

Obstruct work

D

Tree-sit >>Visible presence prevents logging work from proceeding

State Forest

State Forest

Zinger Coupe

Coupe I.D. 298-515-0001 Current 2019 TRP, 18.25ha

Coupe I.D. 298-515-0001, 18.25ha

Zinger coupe

10M

10m

50M

50m

1:500 at A1

ZINGER COUPE TWS spatial use section

C

D

1M

1m

5M 2m

1:20 at A1 TWS spatial use section detail ZINGER COUPE

67

Actor profile 05 VICFORESTS Industry Contracted to harvest timber from Victorian State Forests and private land holdings. Major regional employer.

Trialling more scientifically literate forest experts to ensure maximal conservation of ecologies.

D

Harvesterprocessor >> Cuts smaller trees on many terrains

DRIVERS Employment Efficiency Ongoing access to timber supply

ACTIONS Forwarder Harvesting Burnoff Habitat survey Lobbying

>> Loads small logs at stump site and moves to holding or loading location

Hauling SPATIAL REQUIREMENTS

68

A

Heights access

B

Safety exclusion zoning

C

Visible to public

D

Vehicle access

Long logtruck >> Takes sawlog from storage to mill for processing

B State Forest

State Forest

Zinger Coupe

Zinger coupe

Coupe I.D. 298-515-0001 Current 2019 TRP, 18.25ha

Coupe I.D. 298-515-0001, 18.25ha 10M

10m

50M

50m

1:500 at A1

VicForests spatial use section ZINGER COUPE

A

B C

1M

1m

5M

2m

1:20 at A1

VicForests spatial use ZINGER sectionCOUPE detail

69

70

CHAPTER 06 MEDIATION INTERVENTIONS

71

LEGEND: Focus area Timber Harvest Coupe (2019) State Forest Road 10m contours Waterway

TEST SITES:

Civic Approach Toolangi Citizen Science Approach - Kalatha Hauling Roads Silviculture Approach - Zinger Coupe

72

TOOLANGI

KEY PLAN - TOOLANGI STATE FOREST COUPES

HAULAGE ROADS

500M

1KM

2KM N

1:30,000 at A3 Central Highlands

74

CIVIC APPROACH TOOLANGI How can Landscape Architects find a mediating role in Victoria’s forest wars?

75

ll svi ale He d

eR lak

ing e-K Forest Discovery Centre

Sculptu

re Trail

76

TOOLANGI TOWN SQUARE A town of 350 with no official place to gather. Toolangi town’s public facilities include a tea house and gardens, a men’s shed, a library and the now-closed Toolangi Forest Discovery Centre Civic spaces are necessary for the truth-telling and transparent governance of public land. In order for the people living beside and indeed within the montane ash forests to know what decisions are made regarding changes to the forests, these discussions need to occur in full view of the public.

Following discussions I had with an educator in town, it was revealed that a long conflict had been playing out within the Toolangi Forest Discovery Centre. The Centre had been created to teach students about the positive work done by forestry workers but had since been occupied by environmental educators throughout the 2000s. In the 2010s its committee was sacked. The new committee closed the doors, and for the past several years has prevented its use or maintenance.

77

Toolangi Primary School Toolangi Recreation Reserve

CJ Dennis Community Hall Community House

Country Fire Authority

Discovery Tree Room

78

TOOLANGI’S CIVIC OFFERING

Toolangi Forest Discovery Centre (CLOSED)

N

0M

50M

200M

001/ The Pressure Point.

The ‘prow’ of the Toolangi Forest Discovery Centre is the spatial point that best captures the tensions of Toolangi and the State Forest. This tension is emblematic of Victoria’s strained relationship with its forests.

A 2ha site is setout from this pressure point, from which there are clear views to town and forest.

002/ The Human Scale The square, initially conceived at a cartographic scale, is divided into 200 ten metre squares. This reduction in scale allows experiences of threshold and transition to take place.

003/ The Edge Reducing and roughening the site’s edge to fit with existing site constraints, such as the edge of the forest, sculpture walk and CFA outbuildings. This reduces the total area by half a hectare.

80

FORMING THE CIVIC SQUARE

004/ Assembly Forest parliament at centroid of civic square.

005/ Access Pathways regraded to 1:14 slope to allow equitable access to civic square and forest parliament, batters introduced to give the sloping space the flatness required for gatherings.

81

Eucalyptus obliqua, Eucalyptus radiata, Eucalyptus dives and Eucalyptus rubida are planted and begin to set-out the extents of the town’s new civic deliberative space. By choosing Eucalypts found in the drier hills around town as well as the wet Eucalypt species found in the State Forest, the ring of trees stamps a chain-link between the town and the State Forest.

2022

2032

2042

82

A model study exploring the metaphorical space left behind by the closure of the Toolangi Forest Discovery Centre. Its ‘front lawn’ becomes a focal point for the town, asking politely for activation.

FOREST PARLIAMENT “Decisions are made by those who show up” Josiah Bartlett, The West Wing (1999) Within the newly growing square, a circular copse of tall Eucalypts is planted to form an outdoor room.

Toolangi’s civic debate spaces are in Murrindindi Shire Council offices in Alexandra and only very rarely are matters discussed in the Toolangi Community Centre. This forest parliament will be a new gathering point - a decision making space, open to all, looking over the main road into town and the forest.

The space is overseen by the existing balcony protruding from the Forest Discovery Centre. The deck performs as a visitor / press gallery to oversee formal meetings.

The space is designed to explore historical ways of dealing with conflict, taking lessons from a number of civic space typologies and distilling them into spatial form.

83

DECISIVE SPACES Here we see that Toolangi State Forest falls under a number of jurisdictions with different agendas. The Regional Forestry Agreement administering the Central Highlands oversees the forest’s commercial output and instructs harvesters on conservation values.

Council offices for the Murrundindi Shire Council are distributed around the hills, with the nearest around 20kms from Toolangi town. Demonstration and protest are difficult to operate at these distances and without town squares, these smaller towns lack the voice of larger regional centres.

Finally, an array of VicForests offices and sawmills administrate the outgoing timber from the harvested coupes. These are notably distant from the state forest itself.

DEFINITIONS Regional Forest Agreements RFAs are the primary framework for forest management in Australia. They outline areas where harvests may occur and the guidelines that balance biodiversity and commercial viability

84

85

Leadership: Elected committee of management.

Funding: 1. Murrindindi Shire Council 2. DELWP Community Volunteer Action Grants Biodiveristy onground action and stewardship 3. ANU research funding 4. Australian Research Council funding

Matters: The invitation of speakers on the topics of environment, forest management, fire risk, design, agriculture and planning

86

Membership: Open to voters, children and those working in the Central Highlands

TESTING A NEW FOREST GOVERNANCE Section 86 of the Local Government Act 1989 allows elected local governments to establish special committees of management. This is used to allow delegation of civic upkeep and management to groups (for example “Friends of the ...” waterway groups), so long as the group is elected by vote and follows protocols outlined in the Act. While trying to arrange for a site survey of Toolangi, the Murrundidi Shire Council officer let me know that the land around the Forest Discovery Centre is managed by Department of Land Water and Planning (DELWP).

Public Conservation and Resource Zones can be applied to be managed through DELWP’s Crown Land Kiosk app.

TFDC

PUBLIC CONSERVATION AND RESOURCE ZONE 87

Step 01: Apply through Victorian Govt for management of sites for forest parliament, citizen science platforms and silviculture test plots

88

Step 02: Appoint design team to develop civic, scientific and silvicultural spaces that work within allowances of planning overlays

MANAGING PUBLIC LAND FOR CIVIC GOOD

Step 03: Design team and Forest Parliament work to ensure representation of marginalised groups

Step 04: Design team pushes to challenge status quo within practice sphere

89

2000s

2010s

Conflicted Academic

Antagonistic

Ceremonial

Reactive

Public Controlled

d

eR lak

ing

e-K

ll svi

ale He Forest Discovery Centre

90

CASE STUDY: TESTING THE CIVIC LANDSCAPE: THE LOCKED-UP CENTRE Conversations with local environment educator Steve Meacher revealed that the Toolangi Forest Discovery Centre had played a central role in the town for meetings, gatherings and entertainment from the 1990s until the mid 2010s, when it was closed by its committee and facility managers at DELWP. The recent history of TFDC represents the worst aspects of an antagonistic conflict.

The building, designed by architect Peter Pass, has an imposing presence as you arrive into Toolangi from the south via Healesville. It sits on a bend in the road, making it highly visible to passers-by. It is impressively tall, with a 4m high elevated deck oriented directly at the state forest, but with views north-west into town.

Can a new civic space provide an outlet for tensions and help solve this intractible stoush between environmental educators and forestry workers?

The poetics of the building are at once blunt and nuanced. Beauty can be found in the damp Eucalypt hardwood cladding taking on the lichen patina of the surrounding woodland. The forest is carried through the cavernous spaces, with upright Eucalypt poles framing the roof. The overall form in plan is reminiscent of a bird (no bird in particular, Meacher tells me), and a table saw. Sawblades, mammal faces and tree poles are found throughout. They all speak to the tortured position Pass saw himself and the building in. The Discovery Centre was commissioned by the Department of Primary Industry in the 1980s to house interpretive exhibitions that shone a positive light on the forestry industry. In the 2000s, the building was handed over to environmental educators whose activist tendencies led to pressure from forestry workers, eventuating in the Department retaining control in the 2010s, shutting the building indefinitely and letting it fall into the disrepair seen today.

Timber walls covered by treefern

quickly rough

Viewing platform (above)

Viewing platform (above), lichen growing on timber facade

Timber wall slopes gently like the hillside

91

ng -Ki

View over populate d area

lle svi ale He 65m

ba 1:2 tt er

En

try

St a

ir

d eR lak Audience d a i s

20

m

Speaker’s Podium

Forest Discovery Centre

N

92

0M

50M

TESTING THE CIVIC LANDSCAPE 01: THE PNYX GATHERING: Thousands SPATIAL QUALITIES: Semi-circular, open air, small speakers’ pulpit, on hillside above city The Pnyx was a speaker’s podium in Athens’ central hill. A broad staircase led up to a raised dais where several thousand citizens could gather and be a part of the polis or the politically engaged public.

The centre of the radius was raised to a pulpit so a speaker could be seen widely.

This may be one of the largest and most pronounced visions of a civic landscape.

EVALUATION: The Pnyx sees the speaker as the sole source of truth in the civic contract. They are raised and the centre of the semi-circular dais. The axis of the entrance stair reveals the speaker to the audience as they emerge onto the platform.

While this form of truth-seeking democratic landscape exhibits a power imbalance, its scale does afford a large gathering of citizens to oversee changes in legislation.

Relationship: Direct

93

lle svi ale He ng -Ki d eR lak Gallery above

y

tr En

Convenor/ Speaker

Forest Discovery Centre

N

94

0M

50M

TESTING THE CIVIC LANDSCAPE 02: RHINE-WESTPHALIA LANDTAG GATHERING: 199 SPATIAL QUALITIES: Circular with all members facing the centre. The speaker occupies one wedge of the circle. A viewing gallery is situated above and behind glass.

One of the few true circular meeting chambers for a parliament, the Landtag for the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia allows the Landtag to meet while all facing the central speaker.

EVALUATION: Spatially it implies no head-to-head opposition. Different parties may be positioned adjacent to one another in the chambers. This model intrigues me. Is it difficult for political adversaries to get into shouting matches with their opposition without being on their “home ground” at one end of the political arena?

Relationship: Radial

95

lle svi ale He ng -Ki d eR lak Canopy extends o v e r chamber

Assembly f l o o r Speaker’s platform Multiple entries

Palaver tree focal p o i n t

Forest Discovery Centre

N

96

0M

50M

TESTING THE CIVIC LANDSCAPE 03: BENIN NATIONAL ASSEMBLY GATHERING: 83 members, plus guests.

SPATIAL QUALITIES: Covered by “canopy” roof stemming from centre of building, speakers situated at base of trunk.

A tradition across many cultures in Africa is that community meetings take place beneath the “palaver tree”, which can be any large shade tree. Reconciliation, compromise, truth-telling, dispute-settling, celebration and more cultural events all may take place beneath the wide shade of the palaver tree.

Kere Architecture’s Benin National Assembly building takes the spreading form of the Palaver and creates a parliamentary space beneath its canopy, with the trunk spreading up and over to house administration facilities, as well as public gathering spaces in its courtyard volumes.

EVALUATION: The design is predominantly symbolic. It performs in a more-or-less traditional assembly building typology. There is value in the symbol and even more in the method of community decision making out in open spaces. In particular, the use of the tree for its spatial qualities: a landmark, a shade-giver and a living product of a functioning community. Valuing the tree’s own qualities in an assembly space goes beyond symbolism and begins to define the types of discussions able to be conducted beneath its canopy.

Relationship: Communal

97

lle svi ale He ng -Ki d eR lak Sand defines performer/ audience boundary

Multiple entries

S m o k i n g ceremony fire at centre Forest Discovery Centre

N

98

0M

50M

TESTING THE CIVIC LANDSCAPE 04: TANDERRUM GATHERING: Thousands SPATIAL QUALITIES: No walls. Uses the ground plane as a communication tool.

A Tanderrum is a meeting between representatives of a local Aboriginal nation and a visitor to their custodial lands. It is part ceremony, part meeting and part agreement to treat the land and its inhabitants properly.

Wurundjeri-wilam, Dja Dja Wurrung and Ngurai Illam Wurrung woman Mandy Nicholson speaks of Tanderrums that brought together the Kulin Nation at the banks of Birrarung Marr to celebrate the return of the eels to water Country.

The form expressed here is drawn from a Tanderrum that took place at the Melbourne International Arts Festival at Federation Square. The space was bound by log seats stacked in a sand stage. At its centre, a fire for smoking ceremonies.

EVALUATION: This method of meeting has particular local importance, as the southern edge of Toolangi marks the boundary between Taungurung and Wurundjeri custodial lands.

TAUNGURUNG TOOLANGI

WURUNDJERI 500M 1KM

2KM

N

TAUNGURUNG TOOLANGI

WURUNDJERI 100m

500m

N

Relationship: Ceremonial

99

lle svi ale He ng -Ki d eR lak

Observers Speaker’s platform

Family groupings

Forest Discovery Centre

N

100

0M

50M

TESTING THE CIVIC LANDSCAPE 05: FIRST NATIONS NATIONAL CONSTITUTIONAL CONFERENCE GATHERING: 200+ Members SPATIAL QUALITIES: Clans, families, tribes, nations grouped together. Tables set out to accommodate long engagement. Speaker’s podium spacious enough for large groups to speak at once.

This was the final confluence of many First Nations delegates from around this continent. They met in 2017 to decree the Uluru Statement From The Heart.

The final meeting was in a convention centre in Alice Springs. However the long process to that point had taken place in cities, towns, camps, bush and beyond to ensure a representational outcome.

EVALUATION: The spatial features of the final convention reflect the process that came to assemble the convention to begin with. Familial groupings. A speaker’s podium with room for groups to speak. Over 200 seats for mass gathering. All occurring out in the open to allow truth-telling. The reflection of these principles in the assembly space allows the convention to hold true to its mission.

Relationship: Familial

101

lle svi ale He ng -Ki d eR lak

s ing

on

up gro es ty sid Par osite opp

Gallery above

Table for documents to be discussed

Forest Discovery Centre

N

102

0M

S p ea ke r ’s c h a i r

50M

TESTING THE CIVIC LANDSCAPE 06: LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY, VICTORIA GATHERING: 88 members SPATIAL QUALITIES: Oppositional, symmetrical seating arrangement with gallery above. Very formal and rigid layout.

Traditionalist in the sense of our nation’s bicameral parliamentary political system, the Legislative Assembly is the lower house of the Parliament of Victoria.

EVALUATION: The rigidity of the space reflects the thoroughness of the legislative process. However, its oppositional layout comes to define the parliamentary scenes often shown in the media, with Members shouting across the chamber in order to indicate their allegiance or opposition in the marketplace of ideas.

The productive contest of ideas that defines Mouffe’s theory of agonistic pluralism requires reproducible conflicts. The rules-based traditions of parliamentary democracy allows this conflict to continue week after week, but such an oppositional layout cannot allow a flat heirarchy of participants.

Relationship: Oppositional

103

lle svi ale He ng -Ki d eR lak

Forest Discovery Centre

N

104

0M

50M

TESTING THE CIVIC LANDSCAPE 07: IONIC HALLS GATHERING: N/A SPATIAL QUALITIES: Open agora and collinaded breezeways produce informal ‘halls of power’ Hellenic architecture represents the ideals of the original demokratia, or direct democractic rule of law. By taking the open collinaded breezeway typology into the forest, can a forest parliament be a place of open, equitable discussion of the future of the forest?

EVALUATION: Opportunity for incidental interaction with people different degrees of power is an important component of an equitable democratic space.

Relationship: Approachable

105

Relationship:

Spatial expression:

Direct

Wide open gathering space

Speaker at eye level

106

Radial

Entry from multiple points

Communal

Central point joining all parties

Ceremonial

Connection to ground

Familial

informal gathering areas

Oppositional

Clear delineation / clustering

Approachable

Porous informal boundaries

COREOGRAPHING CIVIC RELATIONSHIPS

N

0M

50M

107

Deck as parliament gallery

108

Clear midstorey = line of sight to state forest

Original

groundli

ne

109

EUCALYPTUS REGNANS RING

RC SEATING STEPS

ROUNDTABLE RC RETAINING WALL

EUCALYPTUS REGNANS LOG DECK (ABOVE)

TOOLANGI FOREST DISCOVERY CENTRE

110

RC SEATING STEPS

A HE ILL SV

LE ENG KI LA KE RD

RAISED DECK PROJECTS OVER HILLSIDE

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ROUNDTABLE Having a seat at the table is the first step of making decisions. In the spirit of the town hall, this feature table provides a gathering point over which debates can rage.

At such a fine scale, the material is important in communicating the ideals of the research. In this case, the immediacy and urgency of the problems in Toolangi are expressed through the form of a rotting body of a felled Eucalyptus regnans (Mountain Ash). But this also exhibits the great wealth of biodiversity that these trees hold for the forest. The decaying stag yields life anew. As ferns sprout and lichens discolour the bark, antechinus hunt insect larvae in the hollows.

What if a tree fell in the forest and everyone was around to hear it?

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350 years ago: E. regnans begins growth on banks of Kalatha Creek 150 years ago: Logging begins in the Central Highlands

As long as their cheques clear, I don’t care.

Least it’s a nice site.

Woodchip from Maryvale Paper Mill retains soil moisture, suppresses weeds

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10 years ago: Coupe cleared, with legacy tree retained

Recently fallen E. regnans log half buried in trench

1 year ago: E. regnans fails due to topsoil erosion

‘Outdoor Parliament’ pfft.

I reckon these greenies need to get off the grass

450mm high log sections recovered from clearfell coupe

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Formalising the Toolangi Forest Parliament’s working committee and including new publics

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The growing collinade ensures the forest is never far from the topic at hand

If they can give legal personhood to a river, do you reckon the government could do it for the forest?

It’d have to be tested in the High Court - but I dare say we could be the first

Yeah righto... the forestry workers association wouldn’t be thrilled

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I’m telling you bro I saw a quoll here last night

Learning reciprocity: The log returns hundreds of years of nutrients to the soil, allowing the nearby ring of trees to transact and grow their biomass

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As the soil develops, forest species become established, rebalancing the space’s prescribed purpose

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Humans’ survival as a species depends upon adapting ourselves and our... settlements in new, life-sustaining ways, shaping contexts that acknowledge connections to air, earth, water, life and to each other, and that help us feel and understand these connections, landscapes that are functional, sustainable, meaningful, and artful” Spin, 1998

Toolangi Forest Parliament - Agonistic landscape architecture - a space for productive conflict

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CONCLUSIONS OF THE CIVIC APPROACH This approach to mediating the forest conflict promoted a civil dialogue between community groups, external activists and forestry industry workers and officials.

At three scales, it tested whether the toolkit of contemporary landscape architecture practice could be reframed to enable debates about forest policy to take place in the public eye, instead of in council chambers and industry offices.

The civil approach found that successful democratic assemblies have taken a variety of forms not preferred in the Australian colonial context. It tested viable components from each, analysed their effect on power dynamics and then proposed a design that activated these in a civic square.

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CITIZEN SCIENCE APPROACH LOGGING TRACKS

How can Landscape Architects work within the law to support the aims of environmental activists?

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LEGEND: Focus area Timber Harvest Coupe (2019) Remnant Mountain Ash forest Clear-felled regenerating coupe Road 10m contours Waterway

Citizen Science Platform

Walking track Proposed Citizen Science Track

Coupe ID: 298-509-0001 “South Col” Current TRP Dec 2020

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Test Plots Coupe ID: 298-874-0003 “Big Kahuna” Harvested.

Now regenerating

Silviculture Nursery

Coupe ID: 298-515-0001 “Whopper” Current TRP Dec 2020

Gallery + Co2 Oculus

Listening Post

Coupe ID: 298-515-0002 “Zinger” Current TRP Dec 2020

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Activism is a difficult project for landscape architecture practices to support.

It’s often illegal and takes place on land that is owned or managed by groups to whom it is more valuable as an asset for extraction. But the State Forest is publicly accessible land.

The Citizen Science Platform proposes that a simple armature used for recreation (eg. hiking shelter) can be carefully designed to allow use by researchers and citizen scientists in order to keep an ongoing record of the forest’s health and ongoing timber harvests.

Mark Jacques, of landscape architecture practice Openwork, delights in public spaces with ambiguous edges. Spaces that mix unexpected groups of users and

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CITIZEN SCIENCE PLATFORMS produce novel relationships. He referes to this as the “itchiness of public space”.

The stakeholder spatial needs matrix showed us that the actors in the forest use the public land in various ways that often overlap. The overlapping needs are the focus of this design, proposing itchy new adjacencies to promote the sharing of knowledge, process, data, wisdom, stories and perhaps even mediating the ongoing conflicts between activists and forestry workers.

The simplest geometric form with the least heirarchy is the circle. This form allows the different stakeholder groups to occupy the platform without having clear ownership over discrete zones. Design moves upon this circular deck can provide the dynamics that will prompt new uses of the space.

Each of the following iterations observes the choreographed itchiness of different groups brought together. Though iterations are all tested in one site, they are imagined as a necklace of stops along the hauling roads between Toolangi and the test coupes deep within the forest.

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GOONGERAH ENVIRONMENT CENTRE

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PUBLIC AMENITY: Hiking shelter Rest area Camping platform

SUBVERSIVE POTENTIAL: Activist site-office Workspaces

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SUBVERSIVE ACTIVIST POTENTIAL: Counter-mapping headquarters

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ACTORS: WILDERNESS SOCIETY CSIRO

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ACTORS: KNITTING NANNAS OF TOOLANGI VICFORESTS

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Kitchenette Lookout Fire pit Truck parking

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ACTORS: KNITTING NANNAS OF TOOLANGI VICFORESTS

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Lawn Fire pit Camp platform A SUBVERSIVE ACTIVIST POTENTIAL: Overnight survey campout

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LISTENING POST

“Country is always talking, and it’s telling us what it needs us to do,” Isobel Morphy-Walsh (2021) 157

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Animal call playback with spectrometer signature or “voice-print” displayed

A spot to rest weary feet on the edge of a hauling road. This seating area centres on a Vic Ash post. Set within it, a playback device into which travellers may upload the sounds of wildlife heard on their dip into the forest.

Recording the forest is a way of preserving its essential character. The richness that cannot always be seen in the scrub, can often be heard echoing around the valleys: “Especially in the early morning, a gully in a mountain ash forest might easily be mistaken for the nursery of the whole extended singing family... Their sweet friendly calls, their balletic nectar-sipping sensuality, their brilliance were hints of another dreamed-about dimension” (Watson, 2014)

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Wide-cut sleepers form a solid ring around the post. Each is engraved with the common names of wildlife found in the region.

Communicating vital landscape information like the names of the features one sees and hears around them is a key tool in forming landscape literacy. “The language of landscape is a powerful tool. It permits people to perceive pasts they cannot otherwise experience, to anticipate the possible, to envision, choose, and shape the future landscape” writes Spirn (2019).

Even by noting basic links between common animal names and the sounds heard in the forest, a design can begin to form new pathways in people’s minds.

These pathways can be thickened tremendously. In the report Connecting with Country, the authors write that “when we speak another language, we think differently. Therefore, by speaking and understanding the meaning of first languages and place names we are better able to connect with Country” (NSW Government 2020). These common animal names could easily be added to, or even replaced by names used

by Taungurung people. In order to do so, this citizen science walking trail must be stewarded by Taungurung people if they see fit to share their language with the public.

Language is one of many ways of perpetuating a deeper Connection to Country.

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HARVEST GALLERY + CO2 OCULUS Viewing platform that enables public monitoring of forestry proceedings. Proposed as a lookout oriented west towards the old-growth forest at Kalatha Creek, this elevated walkway structure subverts the expectation of visual amenity and thrusts an unsuspecting public over the barren hillside of a cleared coupe. For conservationist visitors, it uses the democratic convention of the ‘press gallery’ to ensure accountability during harvests.

At the eastern end, the walkway cuts 2m into disused logging road tailings. This close-quarters area sits in the shade of a senescent Eucalyptus regnans. Two carefully excavated, narrow trenches peer into Tree Protection Zone (TPZ), allowing a unique look at the microrhizal processes taking place in the root zone.

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Evolving gallery views

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Regenerative planting regime

Regrowth health and growth rate

Established forest ecology

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“KEEP THE B A S TA R D S HONEST”

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Recovered logs form decomposing barrier against landslip

Walkway remains at grade from sunken area, promoting equality of access

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ABOVE THE COUPE

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Elevated walkway extends over boundary and into coupe

Bridge deck steps down to seating step

Non-slip grating allows views directly down

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SITTING THE GALLERY

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Early design iterations of the soil oculus formed an enormous dugout ampitheatre, but the damage to the root system was considered untenable The theatrical experience of the root network pressing against perspex is iterated into an experience of walking into the soil layer.

Recovered log sections are fixed to walls of embanked logging coupe spoils

Seating steps formed from reinforced rammed earth

Soil oculus ‘room’ is reinforced with gabion cages filled with detritus from logging roads

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IN THE DIRT

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Eucalyptus regnans

Soil oculus ends at the recommended barrier of the structural root zone (SRZ). Some lateral roots naturally emerge from the wall over time.

Fungi capitalise on the moist microclimate created in the soil oculus ‘room’ Striations in the humus indicate the richness and age of the carbon-dense soils

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SOIL OCULUS

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This set of drawings produced mostly topographic and structural design responses that help activists and researchers achieve their day-to-day tasks, but this approach is limited. Landscape architects can support the modes of scientific enquiry in their specific methods too. This necessitates thinking more broadly about our output as designers than just manipulating the groundplane.

Researchers are busy gathering data on all the processes that make the forest continue to function. This data can span scales from planetary to molecular, and time from immediate to epochal. Some of this research is in the public consciousness (trees sharing nutrients through wood wide web), while some remains intangible (carbon accounting in oldgrowth eucalypt forests); we can support research from the established bodies (TERN or CSIRO) down to semi-legal outfits (like FFRC and GECO).

Making their stories legible is invaluable, but commoning their fieldwork

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CONCLUSIONS OF THE CITIZEN SCIENCE APPROACH is an imortant way landscape architecture can introduce discomfort into “working forests” and activate forest visitors as research agents.

The Citizen Science Trail becomes a uniquely active way for day trippers to engage with a critically ill ecosystem, proposing novel ways for the public to gather data, record wildlife encounters, witness deforestation and be amongst the community of researchers busy working at their field stations. By commoning the data collection, it transforms a logging track into a repository of forest-health knowledge, a different kind of ‘working landscape’.

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SILVICULTURE APPROACH ‘BIG KAHUNA’COUPE What can Landscape Architects do to exert more influence in the ongoing extractive economy, not only in post-industrial spaces?

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LEGEND: Focus area Timber Harvest Coupe (2019) Remnant Mountain Ash forest Clear-felled regenerating coupe Road 10m contours Waterway

Citizen Science Platform

Walking track Proposed Citizen Science Track

Coupe ID: 298-509-0001 “South Col” Current TRP Dec 2020

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Coupe ID: 298-874-0003 “Big Kahuna” Harvested.

Now regenerating

Test Plots Silviculture Nursery

Coupe ID: 298-515-0001 “Whopper” Current TRP Dec 2020

Gallery + Co2 Oculus

Coupe ID: 298-515-0002 “Zinger” Current TRP Dec 2020

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Remnant old-growth forest - the goal of the structural complexity enhancement method

Variable retention harvesting - retained ‘island’ of trees

Commercial blue gum plantation

Monoculture revegetation with legacy trees

Monoculture revegetation

Harvest / regeneration practices in Eucalyptus forests:

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COMMONING: The activist act of doing things together.

Common goods are cultural and natural assemblages held publicly, not privately.

Commoning is a dynamic process, so the resulting ‘commons’ will evolve to reflect the co-existance of the public that willed it into existence.

SILVICULTURE TEST PLOT “Repair is a process, not a destination” Baracco, M & Wright, L (2019) The future survival of the state forest typology may rely on its commercial value.

With ecosystem accounting, carbon credits, water catchments, new timber harvest methods and other income streams to consider, this value can be found in many places. Determining the appropriateness and success of these forest values is the job of the public. And again, without the transparency we expect in other parts of democratic society, the risk of these typologies being exploited for profit is high.

Therefore, a publicly accessible 30ha plot of land is provisioned to eight groups, each tasked with revegetating their patch of forest. The central node becomes a point of comparison and discussion of technique and motive.

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“the history of this discovery [of the forest as a unique ecological type] is a separate and as yet unwritten chapter in landscape studies. It starts with a legal definition, more than a millennium ago, of the forest as a political space, a space with its own special law.”

JB Jackson

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Silviculture test plots - borderland

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PUBLIC FOREST LOGGING: A CONFLICTED ARRANGEMENT In May 2020, the Federal Court found the state’s timber harvesting agency, VicForests, had failed to conduct proper accounting of habitat for critically endangered wildlife in 66 of its coupes throughout Victoria’s Central Highlands. Its method of survey preferenced “desktop accounting”, without ensuring evidence of endangered wildlife was collected on site before coupes were harvested.

VicForests contended its new generation forestry methods would be protective for species like the Leadbeaters Possum (Gymnobelideus leadbeateri). However in response to these claims, Justice Debra Mortimer wrote “The evidence suggests, and I find, that the purpose and intention of VicForests’ undertaking this new policy and these new methods is to secure FSC [Forest Stewardship Certification] accreditation so that it derives a commercial benefit – such as getting its products into places like ­ Bunnings. The modifications are not being undertaken for conservation purposes.”

VicForests, as a semi-private timber-harvesting agent of the state government, has a conflict of interest in being in charge of forest conservation as well as ensuring it meets Regional Forestry Agreement (RFA) quotas each year. Justice Mortimer wrote “VicForests regard species such as the greater glider as an inconvenience – an interruption to its timber harvesting programs”.

Clearly this conflict of interest prevents VicForests from carrying out an unbiased evaluation of its own forestry techniques, much less manage large tracts of primary forest for any purposes other than commercial harvest.

Landscape Architecture is often carried out on sites that are openly accessible to the public. In view of the conflicted relationship the State Government’s timber harvester has with its commercial imperatives, it is proposed that a new public space is designed, whereby interested landcare groups, forestry bodies, conservation workers, agroforestry farmers and most importantly, traditional owners, have opportunities to experiment and then demonstrate the values of their best practice.

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SILVICULTURE NURSERY

Silviculture Nursery - Raised Beds

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“Forests, construed from the beginning as a working landscape, rather than its antidote, offer an alternative.”

Davis & Vanucchi (2018)

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Silviculture Nursery - Grower overview

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Silviculture Nursery - Interior view

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CHAPTER 07 CONCLUSIONS

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REFLECTIONS This research was sparked by two memories. The first was of a trip to Toolangi in my teenage years to visit a friend in a tree. She had been hoisted 40 metres above the forest floor as the first occupant of The Little Red Toolangi Treehouse, a small timber platform upon which she lived for one month in protest of the imminent harvest of the forest. The second memory was of fantastic story I read, of an undercover plot by environmentalists to first purchase, then dismantle a woodchip mill in Tasmania (van Tiggelen 2014). These two acts of defiance, of the “strong tactics of the weak” (de Certau), are the kind of romantic swashbuckling I had hoped to encounter, if only occasionally, in the practice-world of landscape architecture. It seems like a naive expectation in hindsight, certainly!

If Recouped Losses began as a vehicle for exploring my personal feelings of dissatisfaction at the environmental credentials of landscape architecture as a discipline, it found more meaning in developing approaches to combat this frustration. The study of activist-oriented design precedents delivered no end of inspiration and certainly broadened my design vocabulary in activism. From the impromptu and rebellious protest camps and blockades, to the long-planned collaboration with Indigenous people and traditional owners, it proved that design can indeed find legal ways to support activism.

But through context mapping and background research, it became clear that there is already plenty of time spent fighting for Australia’s threatened forest ecologies. Some people spent entire lifetimes turning up to blockade coupes. The conflict between activists and the forestry industry was consuming more attention than the subject of the protests. So attention then turned to using design tools to mediate the conflict, or indeed stage the conflict in a way that was productive for forest ecologies.

The philosophies of “itchiness” (Jacques 2019) and “agonism” (Mouffe 2016) were two excellent theoretical frameworks that were able to be adapted to spatial testing. Delivering a public space with the objective of structuring productive conflict and provoking uncommon conversations became a key focus and a road-lesstravelled theoretically.

The civic approach revealed that human actions as simple as a conversation can be choreographed spatially to make them as inclusive and non-heirarchical as possible. From a town scale to furniture fixings, the simple instruments of the landscape architectural profession; pathways, ramps, decks, benches and flat open space, all contribute to developing healthy dialogue. By growing Eucalyptus collinades and allowing a log table to decompose and spark a richer humus, the ‘civic approach’ brought the forest itself from being the “subject” of these debates, to being the physical structure framing the debate.

Mediating the conflict was important, but it felt like difficult to free the project from the perpetual agonism of that relationship. In order to support activists to build a future for the forest, the Citizen Science approach found that the repository of forest knowledge was one of the great unsung products of years of fighting for the troubled landscape. Championing and publicising the process of generating this knowledge, and even provoking unexpected new endeavours through the arrangement of visitors’ amenities, was a great

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challenge and produced a robust methodology. Working with other qualities that are often read about but rarely designed with - like trees transacting beneath the forest floor - provoked less radical but more spatially realised works.

Finally, the Silviculture approach led with the most realist question of how do we best work to protect ecological value in an extractive capitalist system. But perhaps this approach resolved in the most fanciful way. A hillside nursery where different growers get the chance to compare and question each others’ techniques, even their rationales, is a radical departure from the forests of the landscape architecture canon (arboretums, urban forests).

Commoning and making public the practices that humans conduct at the edge of nature has been a thematic throughout my studies. The crossroads of commoning and mediating is an aspect of design that appears limitless and underexplored - I hope to spend much more time developing my practice around it.

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CHAPTER 08 APPENDIX

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Views of Peter Pass’ Toolangi Forest Discovery Centre

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View from Toolangi Forest Discovery Centre towards town

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The densely forested hauling roads

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“Trees even farther away join in: All the ways you imagine us - bewitched mangroves up on stilts, a nutmeg’s inverted spade, gnarled baja elephant trunks, the straight-up missile of a sal - are always assumptions. Your kind never sees us whole. You miss the half of it, and more. There’s always as much belowground as above.

That’s the trouble with people, their root problem. Life runs alongside them, unseen. Right here, right next. Creating the soil. Cycling water. Trading in nutrients. Making weather.

Building atmosphere. Feeding and curing and sheltering more kinds of creatures than people know how to count.

A chorus of living wood sings to the woman: If your mind were only a slightly greener thing, we’d drown you in meaning.

The pine she leans against says: Listen. There’s something you need to hear.”

Richard Powers, 2019 The Overstory, p.4

Newly regenerating logging coupe in Toolangi State Forest

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Weathered cladding of the Toolangi Forest Discovery Centre’s prominent prow

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Mixed Eucalypt hardwood boards on the Discovery Centre’s walls make it very much ‘of its place’.

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The sawblade and bird wing motifs express the tension of the Discovery Centre’s conflicted history

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R E F E R E N C E S ARTICLES, WEBSITES,

BOOKS

Agriculture Victoria, 2020, Timber Allocation Order, viewed 11 June 2020 http://agriculture.vic.gov.au/agriculture/forestry/timber-allocation-order Australian Government, 2020, Tracking and Reporting Greenhouse Gas Emissions, viewed 11 June 2021, https://www.industry.gov.au/policies-and-initiatives/australias-climate-change-strategies/tracking-and-reporting-greenhouse-gas-emissions Australian Government Department of Agriculture, 2020, Australian forest and wood products statistics, viewed 11 June 2020 https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/research-topics/forests/forest-economics/forest-wood-products-statistics Australian Industry and Skills Commission, 2020, ‘Forest and Wood Products’, viewed 11 June 2020, https://nationalindustryinsights.aisc.net.au/industries/forest-and-wood-products Berg, P & Lingqvist, O. 2019 ‘Paper & Forest Products Practice Pulp, paper, and packaging in the next decade: Transformational change’ Accessed from <https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/paper-forest-products-and-packaging/our-insights/ pulp-paper-and-packaging-in-the-next-decade-transformational-change> Certeau, M. D. (1988). The practice of everyday life. Berkeley, University of California Press.

Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability, 2018, ‘Victoria’s State of the Forests Report 2018’. Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability, Victoria, Australia. https://www.forestsandreserves.vic.gov.au/forest-management/state-of-the-forests-report Cox, L. 2021, “Australia the only developed nation on world list of deforestation hotspots”, The Guardian, Accessed 1 Feb 2021. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/13/australia-the-only-developed-nation-on-world-list-ofdeforestation-hotspots

Fleming, B 2019 ‘Design and the Green New Deal’ Places Journal, April 2019. Accessed 11 Jun 2020. https://doi. org/10.22269/190416 ‘I am an Unsolicited Architect’, 2008, Volume, issue 14, 08. Accessed <https://issuu.com/archis/docs/unsolicitedarchitecture> Jacques, M. (2020) ‘Lincoln Square, Carlton 04 April 2018’ in The Politics of Public Space, Volume One, OFFICE, Melbourne, Australia Keith, H, Vardon, M, Stein, J and Lindenmayer, D (2017) “Experimental Eecosystem Accounts for the Central Highlands of Victoria” Canberra: Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University.

Lindenmayer, David (2016) The Importance of Managing and Conserving Large Old Trees: A Case Study From Victorian Mountain Ash Forests” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria 128, no. 1: 64-70 Kneale, M. 2018, ‘Power Tools’, viewed 11 June 2020, retrieved from <https://tcl.net.au/matthew-kneale-winstcls-2018-student-award/> Mackey, B.G., Keith, H, Berry, S, Lindenmayer D, 2008, Green Carbon: the role of natural forests in carbon storage. ANU E Press, Canberra, Australia Monchaux, N. D. (2016). Local Code. Princeton Architectural Press, New York.

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Mouffe, C 2016, ‘Democratic Politics and Conflict: An Agonistic Approach’, Política común, vol. 9, 2016 Parliament of Victoria 2017, “Inquiry into Vicforests operations” Melbourne: Legislative Council Economy and Infrastructure Committee Patrick, Tanya (2020) Landscape as Protagonist, pp.120 Donse, S (ed.). Molonglo: Collingwood.

Spirn, A W, 2019, “Landscape Literacy and Design for Ecological Democracy: The Nature of Mill Creek”, In Grounding Urban Natures, Edited by Henrik Ernstson and Sverker Sörlin, MIT Press VicForests 2020, Harvest Levels in Victoria’s forests, viewed 12 June 2020, <https://www.vicforests.com.au/supplying-our-industry-1/harvest-levels-in-victorias-forests> Victorian Government Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) 2020, Leadbeater’s Possum Interactive Map, viewed 12 June 2020 <http://lbp.cerdi.edu.au/possum_map.php?_ga=2.107671042.1641400630.1591940446-

I M A G E S ABC News, 2014, Work begins on converting Triabunna mill into tourism venture, viewed 12 June 2020. <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-02/work-begins-on-converting-triabunna-mill-into-tourism-venture/5493716> Bauer, M. 2014, Little Red Toolangi Treehouse, viewed 12 June 2020. <https://treatemgreen.files.wordpress.co m/2014/03/1465206_348800891929930_1615195864_n.jpg?w=307&h=411> Budj Bim Masterplan: Stage One Design Works, viewed 12 June 2020. <http://online.anyflip.com/ogav/uorg/mobile/index.html#p=1> Citizens Committee to Save Elysian Park 2020, Test Plot Planting, viewed 12 June 2020. <https://elysianpark. org/2020/01/test-plot-planting/> Edition Office, 2020, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander War Memorial, viewed 12 June 2020. <http://edition-office.com/> Piera, M. 2017, On the slopes of the Acropolis, viewed 12 June 2020. <https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/ slopes-acropolis-mayte-piera> Rural Urban Framework, 2019, Ger Innovation Hub, viewed 12 June 2020. <http://www.rufwork.org/index. php?/project/ub-ger-innovation-hub/> Tegg, L. 2014, Grasslands, viewed 12 June 2020. <http://www.lindategg.com/grasslands.html> Victoria’s Giant Trees 2016, Black Spur Drive, photograph, <https://victoriasgianttrees.weebly.com/tall-trees. html> Woods, C. 2019, Djab Wurrung protesters prepare for the worst, hope for the best. viewed 12 June 2020. <https://www.crikey.com.au/2019/08/23/djab-wurrung-tree-protesters-hope/>

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FURTHER READING Blay, J 2020 Wild Nature: Walking Australia’s south east forests, New South Publishing, NSW, Australia Boyer, B., Cook, J. & Steinberg M. 2013 ‘Legible Practices: Six Stories about the craft of Stewardship’, Helsinki Design Lab http://www.helsinkidesignlab.org/peoplepods/themes/hdl/downloads/Legible_Practises.pdf Davis, B. & Vanucchi, J. 2014 ‘Urban Forests as Landscape Artifacts’, Scenario Journal, issue 04 https://scenariojournal.com/article/urban-forests-as-landscape-artifacts/ Jackson, J. B. 1984 ‘A Pair of Ideal Landscapes’ in Discovering the Vernacular Landscape. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 47-48 Powers, R 2018 The Overstory, WW Norton, New York, USA. Raumlabor Berlin, 2016, Building the City Together, ZK/U Press, Berlin, Germany

NEWS CLIPPINGS Hume, A 2019, ‘Anti-logging protesters hold up effort’, ABC News, 13 Mar 2019 Johnston, M 2019, ‘Tree Hugger Arrested as Police Move in on Forest Fight’, The West Australian, 05 Sep 2019 Mitchell, N. 2019 ‘Protesting Greenies bring logging to a halt in Toolangi State Forest’ 02 Sep 2019 Morton, A. 2011, ‘Loggers, activists clash over forest’, The Age, 17 Aug 2011 Slater, M 2018, ‘Logging Delayed by Protest’, The Age, 12 Nov 2018.

‘Timber Industry Pain Adds Up’, The West Australian, date unknown Willingham, R 2019, ‘Meet the Victorian timber workers who aren’t ready to leave the industry’, ABC News, 21 Nov 2019 Willingham, R. & Whittaker, J. 2020, ‘Labor’s bushfire relief caucus confronted by forestry workers demanding answers’ 27 Feb 2020

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Thanks for taking the time.

Will, 2021

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