Hidden Treasure
With the decline of the apple industry, Tasmania is fast becoming the Timber Isle instead of the Apple Isle.
Blackwood, Huon Pine and good old Tassie Oak have earned well-deserved reputations all around the world.
These are not the only fine timbers we have – in fact, Tasmania is home to over 120 native tree species, and 35 of these grow nowhere else in the world.
Out of this vast natural resource, only a tiny percentage is used by the commercial timber industry, the rest being considered not suitable for commercial exploitation.
On the face of, this sounds terrific – all those trees left growing in their natural environment.
Unfortunately, the truth is not so pleasant.
These trees cannot choose their neighbours, and when those neighbours are harvested by the commercial timber concerns, the non-commercial trees generally get destroyed in the process.
Not all of the native trees growing in Tasmania’s native forests would produce useful timber. Some are too small, even when fully grown, and others are so rare it would be vandalism to fell them.
But among the others classified as non-commercial, there is hidden treasure,
Species such as horizontal – known and cursed by generations of bushwalkers – now fast gaining a reputation as a beautiful and easily worked craft wood.
Dorrel – a fairly scarce tree related to the European olive – is a magnificent timber.
Satinwood – once prized for delicate inlay work by the cabinetmakers of Van Diemen’s Land – is these days more often used for fence posts!
And Goldey wood, only fully identified in 1980, and already becoming a fast favourite with wood turners.
Eighteen months ago, Fine Timbers was established to ‘rescue’ these timbers and return them to their real value.
The project spent 12 months researching the timbers and the uses for which they are suited.
Often this meant interviewing old ‘bushies’ or solitary craftsmen to glean information that had long been forgotten.
Now the project manager, Dennis Cartledge, feels that the research has paid off, and these fine timbers can be recognised once more.
As most of the native trees are small compared to the eucalypts and acacias, the most suitable use is fine craft work. Dorrel, Goldey wood, horizontal, musk and satinwood are highly decorative and a joy to work with.
The hidden treasure in Tasmania’s forests is at last coming to light, to be transformed into treasure of another kind by Tasmania’s skilled craft workers.
The project mananger of Fine Timbers, Dennis Cartledge, shows off a bowl crafted from a dorrel log, pictured in the foreground.