trees

Kirrama Range Road, Lumholtz, 1937. During the Depression, the Queensland Department of Forestry built three major access roads: the Kirrama Range Road, Kuranda-McKenzie’s Pocket-Black Mountain Road and Robson’s Creek Road at Dunbulla. The Unemployment Relief Fund covered three fifths of the total cost, which was carried out by the full-time employed at award rates and conditions. These images show works conducted on the Kirrama Range Road which would provide access to approximately 100 million feet of timber. Works such as this were a vital source of employment during the Depression. They also resulted in the modification of vast tracts of land. Queensland parliamentary papers, vol 2, 1937

Collection of the University of Queensland Library

Reafforestation by relief work, Queensland, 1931. These images appeared in the first annual report of the Queensland Department of Labour and Industry on the ‘operations and proceedings’ under the Income (Unemployment Relief) Tax Acts 1930. They depict new forest roads and the raising of Bunya Pine seedlings at the ‘Brooloo’ State Forest Reserve. Queensland parliamentary papers, vol 2, 1931

Collection of the University of Queensland Library

Berajondo, 2008

Australia

See map: Google Maps

1 January 2008

2 December 2010

Location

Australia

See map: Google Maps

2 December 2010

Collection of Michael Williams, Sean Ulm, Susan O'Brien

Berajondo showing existing (black) and past (grey) structures and features in the immediate vicinity of the family homestead. Many of the named trees were planted to mark the births and 21st birthdays of children and grandchildren. The red line is a fire break constructed around the features held as most significant by the owners. The map shows a layering of histories over the century that the family has engaged with this landscape. Collection of Michael Williams, Sean Ulm, Susan O'Brien.

In search of Landsborough

Thomas Welsby, former president of the Queensland Historical Society, described his impression of the explorer William Landsborough in 1935,

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Brigalow suckered country near Tara, reclaimed by burning off and stocking with five sheep to the hectare in the late 1930s. Note the water-filled melonholes. Queensland Department of Primary Industries, Plate IXb

15-20 year old suckers being axed at Hannaford, 1939, Queensland Department of Primary Industries, Plate VIIIa, 1939

The Brigalow

In Burning off, Dorothea MacKellar, author of My country, celebrates the destruction of native bushland as a ‘great and old’ tree becomes ‘A red-hot column whence fly the sparks,

Cathedral Fig Tree, Boar Pocket Road, Lake Barrine. Postcard Murray Views Collection c1970-2000. Collection of the Centre for the Government of Queensland