PNGAF MAG ISSUE # 10 - B - PNG FOREST EDUCATION Part 4 of 6 Parts. Dr John Davidson's Journey.

FROM FORESTRY CADET TO FORESTRY PROFESSOR

Memories of Youth and Living and Working in

Papua New Guinea

John Davidson

(Part 4)

PART 5

Continuing research on E deglupta

Ninth Commonwealth Forestry Conference

The Ninth Commonwealth Forestry Conference was held in New Delhi India 3 – 27 January 1968. Sixty delegates from 15 overseas countries and 97 delegates from India attended the Conference. There were representatives from FAO and Nepal and 20 other invitees. I did not attend in person. Of great significance at the time was my statement on page 7 of my paper (left) foreshadowing the use of vegetatively propagated clones of E. deglupta: “The selection and use of individual clones will greatly improve productivity and pulping qualities.” This paper on Kamarere was my first published work in my forestry career.

Alan Cameron had prepared a paper on Teak improvement and breeding1, to accompany my paper on Kamarere. Don McIntosh and Eric Hammermaster submitted a joint paper with the title “Forest Resource Assessment Using Helicopter Transport”. The Department submitted a 21-page “Progress Report 1960

1965”. One thousand copies of each paper were printed by the Government Printer in Port Moresby in December 1967 and a proportion sent on to the organisers in India prior to the Conference and the remainder distributed widely.

Duty travel to Canberra and ANU for initial wood properties examination on E. deglupta

The Public Service Commissioner earlier had approved duty travel to Canberra for me for three months to carry out the initial examination of the wood properties of E. deglupta

1 Cameron A L 1968 Forest Tree Improvement in New Guinea I. Teak. Prepared for the Ninth Commonwealth Forestry Conference, 1968. Department of Forests, Port Moresby.

Preparations for the extended trip south included disconnecting the battery and jacking the Volkswagen up on blocks. Also, arrangement had to be made for the care of our cat with a family at Vudal.

Gloria and I left Keravat for Canberra early on Thursday morning 4 January 1968, arriving in Canberra on Friday evening 6 January.

As a Public Servant I was accommodated in the then Acton Commonwealth Hostel with Gloria. Meals were taken in the dining room at small round tables seating up to four persons. At our assigned table for the duration was the most senior female police officer at the time in the Commonwealth Police Force.2I also briefly became an invited guest of a Member of the Commonwealth Club.3

My enrolment in the external Master of Forestry Degree course gave me immediate access to the facilities of the ANU.

Learning and using Fortran IV G

Fortran IV G was a compiled high-level programming language used by the ANU’s IBM System 360 Model 50 Computer that had just been installed in the University’s Computer Centre. This small mainframe computer released by IBM in August 1965 at the time had a core memory of only 256K! It was the standard being installed worldwide, particularly in universities, for mathematical and scientific computing. IBM peripherals were also installed at the ANU, including a chain line printer, a card reader/punch, tape drives and disk drives with removable disk packs (“platters”). Communication between the computer and the Operator was through an IBM Selectric Typewriter.

To speed up throughput of jobs with a smaller memory requirement, a large part of the time the computer was run in two partitions simultaneously, one of 80K and the other the remaining available memory.

2 The Commonwealth Police and Australian Capital Territory Police were separate until 1979 when they were merged to become the Australian Federal Police.

3 The Commonwealth Club still exists as a private members' club. It is on Forster Crescent, Yarralumla, and the clubhouse overlooks Lake Burley Griffin. Membership, while not limited to a particular profession or demographic, is now prohibitively expensive for most of the general public. Joining fees run at over A$3,000 and annual dues are in the order of A$1,500

I undertook an intense two-week course run frequently by the ANU Computer Centre to learn to write programs4 in Fortran IV and to use the standard 80 column Fortran Program Statement (below left) and Data (below right) punch cards.

Both programs and data were entered on Fortran Coding Forms (below). For a small number of cards, I was able to use an IBM keypunch machine in the Forestry Department. This was useful for a quick turnaround for small data sets or correction of programs but for large programs and data sets these had to be handwritten on Fortran Coding Forms and sent to a centralized section of the Computer Centre for keypunching. At the time this was a room with some thirty keypunch machines, each with a full-time operator (all female then!) where the information written on the coding forms was transferred to punch cards and “verified”. Verification entailed a second operator typing the same information from the coding form while the machine scanned each card to establish whether the punched information agreed with what was being typed in a second time, if not, the first card was rejected and a new card punched and verified.

The IBM machine compiler was unforgiving and caused much frustration. New programs were first submitted for a compilation run and a single omission of a comma or full stop out of place would cause

4 At the ANU, the then American style of spelling program(s) was used in referring to computing while the then Oxford Dictionary style of spelling programme(s) was required to be used everywhere else including for the general text in theses.

the compilation to fail. Thankfully the resulting printout indicated where most of the errors were, especially in syntax. Quantitative errors arising out of mathematical formulae in successfully compiled programs could only be checked laboriously by calculating examples manually to provide acceptable answers and submitting these same examples on the computer to see if the program arrived at the same numerical result. However, once working, thousands of computations could be accomplished in a few seconds.

At issue mainly was the turnaround time. Usually only one run was possible per day. A card deck according to ANU convention comprised a green card on top, which identified the user and Department and a charge code to bill the Department for the computer time. Following this were one or more pink cards, which informed the operators at the Computer Centre the memory required and what peripherals were needed. If any of the IBM supplied subroutines were required, the operators had to ensure the appropriate large disk platters were on one of the disk drives and accessible when the program called for them. The next set of cards in the stack was blue. These were the program cards. The remainder of the stack comprised white cards. These were the data cards. Decks were left at a particular location in the Forestry Department, which had a pickup and drop off point serviced by the Computer Centre twice a day (morning and afternoon).

Wood density studies were made on the wood samples of E. deglupta that had been sent from Keravat. X-ray densitometry was employed. The structure of the wood was also examined, including fibre length and the dimensions of other wood elements such as the prominent vessels. A statistical design was developed to guide the selection of superior trees in the Keravat plantations for breeding purposes. These aspects are discussed in detail in the companion article “Rainbow Eucalypt Man”.

Just before leaving Canberra, Gloria and I were invited by the Commonwealth policewoman, who was our dining companion at the Acton Commonwealth Hostel, to go for a trip with her and the crew on the ACT Police launch.5The trip started and ended at the Police Station and Jetty at Yarralumla. Out on the Lake a left turn was made to the west to pass Government House, then on to Scrivener Dam. Reversing direction, we travelled back under the Commonwealth Bridge, past the National Library, under Kings Avenue Bridge and as far as was possible along the Molonglo River at the eastern end of the Lake. Then the return journey was made back to the Jetty at Yarralumla.

A tour on Lake Burley Griffin on an ACT Police launch and return to PNG

5 This was about a year before the ACT Water Police were designated as a separate specialist unit in the ACT Police Force in 1969.

Gloria in the stern of the Police launch enjoys the trip up Molonglo Reach, that part of the Molonglo River in front of the entrance to Duntroon Royal Military College, and near the limit of navigation on the eastern end of Lake Burley Griffin.

Views from the ACT Police motor launch travelling on Lake Burley Griffin in early 1968. Left: Government House. Right: Scrivener Dam on the Molonglo River, holding back the water at the western end the Lake.

The then recently completed National Library viewed from the Police launch in 1968.

Gloria and I left Canberra at 5.20 PM on Wednesday 3 April 1968 and spent the night in Sydney. After an early start we left Sydney Airport at 7.00 AM and, via a brief stop in Brisbane, arrived in Port Moresby at 12.00 noon on Thursday 4 April 1968. This was on one of the first round-trip daytime flights to operate between Sydney and Port Moresby and serviced by a TAA Boeing 727 (right), replacing the former overnight Lockheed Electra Service.

We were accommodated overnight in the Hotel Papua, this time in an airconditioned room. From 8.00 AM to 11.30 AM the next day Friday 5 April I spent in a briefing session with Alan Cameron and Kevin White (left) at the Department of Forests Headquarters, still then in Konedobu. Later, Kevin invited Gloria and me to have an early lunch with him at the Hotel Papua, before a rush to the airport to depart at 1.30 PM via Lae for Rabaul, where we arrived at 5 PM. We were met and taken by road to Keravat, arriving about 6 PM. Thankfully, Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 April were free to enable our car to be put back into service and to obtain some supplies and have a rest before it was back to our respective offices for work at 7.45AM on Monday 8 April 1968.

Back in the ANU, Canberra, the new forestry building featuring numerous generous gifts of wood from national and international donors was opened by the Duke of Edinburgh on 16 May 1968

Continuation of research on E. deglupta and other research at Keravat

It took nearly two days to inspect the nursery, bring the cuttings equipment back into service, attend to a pile of correspondence and fill in the compulsory blue FD9s and green boot allowance6 forms. Research work on E. deglupta continued and was fitted in between the other research tasks undertaken at Keravat. The work on E. deglupta has been detailed in the companion article with the title “Rainbow Eucalypt Man”.

6 The FD9 was a monthly diary with two lines (AM and PM) for each day of the month where an officer filled in the one or two major activities that he had undertaken. The boot allowance form was a monthly sheet in which field officers (Forestry Officers, Patrol Officers, Agricultural Officers and the like) recorded the estimated number of miles walked each day. The miles earned money to be paid to the officer to buy boots. There was a big windfall for Forest Officers on the resource surveys who were walking 10 to 16 miles (16 to 26 km) or more each day out and back along assessment strip lines. (They also received a daily camping allowance, some of which was used collectively to fund the food in the camp mess.)

Plantation burns at Keravat in mid 1968

Half of Compartment 3 Vudal was burned in the morning on Thursday 13 June, the other half in the morning the following day. Compartment 2 Vunapaladig was burned in the morning on Monday 1 July.

The upper half of Compartment 3 Vudal above the access road was burned in the morning on Thursday 13 June 1968. The ignition team is shown here advancing along the mid-slope access road from right to left using fire sticks to light the fuel at intervals. The lower half of the Compartment was burned in the morning of the following day, starting from a line along the Vudal River located to the right.

Compartment 2 Vunapaladig was burned in the morning on Monday 1 July 1968. On the left the burn had been started along the edge of the felled area. On the right the ignition points were being extended deeper into the area on a moving front.

Natural and artificial regeneration of logged over rainforest areas at Keravat

Early in 1968, Kevin White was keen to start some trials on natural regeneration of the logged over rainforest areas near Keravat. An area near the top of the hill off the Vudal Road just after crossing the bridge at Keravat was chosen. This was a location where sufficient time had elapsed since logging for low forest and secondary species like Sarcocephalus sp, Hernandia papuana, H. peltata, Terminalia sp, Macaranga sp and Mallotus sp to have begun to be replaced by regeneration of primary forest species like Pometia pinnata (Taun)7 , Homalium foetidum (Malas), Dracontomelun mangiferum (New Guinea Walnut), Celtis sp, and Pterocarpus indicus (New Guinea Rosewood).

There was one drawback however. Occasional large-buttressed Homalium sp and scattered large crooked Vitex sp had been left behind after the logging operation because they were too difficult to fell at the time (wood too hard and/or buttresses too high). After the logging they were ringbarked and the dead stags were still standing years later, posing a possible danger to anyone working in the regenerating stand.

Elliot Tuckwell, then Regional Forest Officer in Rabaul, arrived at Keravat with what he believed was the solution, a very large hand-turned wood-boring auger capable of making a round hole a little larger than a stick of dynamite. Elliot, me and a small crew of labourers entered the regeneration area with some very sweaty sticks of dynamite, fuse cord and detonators taken from the “secure” corrugated iron store near the Keravat Forest Department Workshop.

One horizontal hole was bored near breast height in a dead stag to reach somewhere near the middle. A quarter of a stick of dynamite with a detonator crimped to a generous length of fuse was pushed into the hole as far as it would go, the fuse was lit and the party retired rapidly to a safe distance. A loud explosion ensued, but the blast merely shot out of the hole with very little damage to the trunk of the tree. The same result occurred with half a stick, then with a full stick of dynamite, the hole acting like a shotgun barrel. Boring two or three holes into the trunk at the same height from different directions with a stick of dynamite in each succeeded only in producing louder and louder explosions without the desired result of bringing down the stag! Tamping the holes with a mudpack didn’t work either. The party retired to the office temporarily defeated.

7 The name Pometia tomentosa, a synonym of Pometia pinnata, was also applied to trees in this area by some foresters.

A couple of weeks later Elliot was back with a new strategy. He had come across a returned soldier in Rabaul who had had experience in destroying power and telephone poles behind German lines in Europe during WW II. He explained the most effective method was to wrap several rounds of instant blasting fuse cord around the circumference of the pole and set that off with a piece of slow burning fuse to give time for personnel to retire to a safe distance. The poles were instantly cut completely through and fell to the ground.

Elliot, me and party returned to the forest with a large supply of newly-purchased instant fuse cord, igniters and some slow burning fuse. The first attempt with twenty turns of fuse tightly wrapped around a trunk was spectacularly successful with the stag cut through and felled in a shower of splinters! It was found even fewer turns of fuse cord would suffice and subsequently most of the more threatening stags were felled.

I was admitted to the Institute of Foresters of Australia as Corporate Member No. 1000 on 30 June 1968. (The membership category terminology later changed a number of times, including to “Voting Member” but the same start date and member number was kept.)

A number of parallel lines was cut through the regenerating forest about 30 feet (about 10 m) apart. The lines were opened to different widths by slashing the undergrowth, forming tunnels of different size. Some lines were opened up vertically to the sky. These lines were (enrichment) planted with seedlings of Pometia, Homalium, Dracontomelun and Pterocarpus that had been raised in the Keravat nursery.

Kevin White visited Keravat on Tuesday 9 July 1968 and he and I spent the morning in the regeneration area working out an assessment procedure. Kevin left for Rabaul in the afternoon. I was left to finish the assessment on Friday 12 July.

Kevin returned to Keravat on Monday 15 July. It was concluded the enrichment planting would only have some chance of success if the lines were completely opened up through to the sky above at considerable expense. The seedlings planted in the “tunnels” remained in deep shade and had not grown at all after planting.

Keravat Botanical Walk

A trail had been cut through some of the remnant rainforest that had not been logged, starting from near the Keravat River Bridge and coming out on the Vudal Road on the top of the first hill. On Monday 15 July Kevin and I spent almost the whole day identifying and labelling the larger trees that were near the trail with the scientific, common and local names. Visitors from Rabaul welcomed these labels.

Measuring growth plots

Thursday 18 to Wednesday 24 July 1968 was spent as a member of one of several teams measuring “yield plots” in the Keravat plantations other than E. deglupta. Technically, these were growth studies in which mean diameter at breast height and mean total height or predominant height were recorded after measuring all the trees on permanently marked plots (each plot was about 0.2 ha). As well as Tectona grandis (Teak), plots in Entandrofragma (African Mahogany), Tectona grandis (Teak) and Ochroma sp (Balsa) were measured.

Silvicultural Research Conference Bulolo 26 to 30 August 1968.

I attended the Silvicultural Research Conference that was held at the Forestry School in Bulolo from Monday 26 August to Friday 30 August 1968 inclusive. Most of the senior officers of the Department were in attendance. On the Programme, chaired by K J White, were:

Tree Improvement – Hoop and Klinkii Pines

Formal presentations8 were scheduled and interspersed with local field visits.

The Keravat Office Secretary, Mrs Heather Duggan had typed my original paper on foolscap stencils at Keravat (without diagrams, which were prepared separately as overhead transparencies (those unfortunately were not returned to Keravat after the Conference)). The paper was duplicated on the Forestry School Gestetner machine before the Conference. My presentation was important at the time because it included worked up results from my official Tour of Duty at the ANU in Canberra that had ended on 4 April 1968. The transcript of my presentation in Bulolo was much more detailed than the paper handed out and included a list of illustrations on overhead transparencies and exhibits such as xray films, density traces and wood samples that were passed around the audience, as flagged in the text provided in the companion article “Rainbow Eucalypt Man”.

During a break in the Conference in August 1968, Bob Bruce (left), John Smith and I (behind the camera), took time to visit the J B McAdam Memorial Park. James Bannister (Jim) McAdam died on 27 February 1959 while on leave in Queensland and while holding the post of Director of the Department of Forests, Papua and New Guinea.

8 Kevin White had the Department of Forests publish the Proceedings of this Conference eight years later (in 1976 and priced at K1.50!). He considering the information still had value for a wider circulation, as the original papers, which were made available only to attendees at the Conference, had become hard to source. The paper that was reproduced in 1976 as my contribution was written in advance of the Conference and was similar to one prepared also in 1968 for a Conference of the Institute of Foresters Australia. My actual presentation in Bulolo in August 1968 was in greater detail and more up to date on the day, as set out in the transcript given in “Rainbow Eucalypt Man, which was never separately published back then

On returning to Keravat from the Silvicultural Research Conference in Bulolo on Sunday 1 September 1968, I found a letter had been sent from the ANU offering me a Commonwealth Postgraduate Scholarship supplemented by the ANU to study for a PhD9 in the Department of Forestry and building on the work already completed on E. deglupta towards my external Masters degree. However, it was a requirement of study for a PhD under the Commonwealth Scholarship that the student attend ANU full time. This meant another prolonged absence from the Territory. Nevertheless, I accepted the offer and advised the Department of Forests accordingly by memo dated 2 September.

Kevin White, then Chief, Division of Silviculture, wrote back on 9 September on behalf of the Department, stating the Department had no objection, but raised issues on whether field work would be undertaken in Papua and New Guinea during the period and asking what supporting field work would

9 Under the rules then in place in the ANU Faculty of General Studies, a student with an Honours degree was not required to have a Masters Degree as a prerequisite to enrolment for a PhD.

Participants in the Silvicultural Research Conference in Bulolo in August 1968 made a number of field visits. This one was to a pine plantation near Bulolo. In the centre rear is Kevin White (in khaki with straw hat) and on his left Alan Cameron. To the right of them leaning against a tree and holding a brown manila file is John Smith leading the discussion on pines in PNG. Immediately to the right of that tree is Paul Ryan.

be needed from staff in the Territory. He also pointed out the necessity that work continued on the volume tables and productivity investigations for E. deglupta.

I advised the Registrar, ANU that I intended to transfer my enrolment from the external Masters Degree in Forestry to the PhD Degree when I arrive in Canberra in early 1969.

Maleic hydrazide (C4H4N2O2, 1,2-dihydro-3,6pyridazinedione) is a systemic plant growth regulator. Alan Cameron proposed to use it on Teak flowers to promote male sterility during artificial cross-pollination in the seed orchard. The issue was that mechanical emasculation of teak flowers was difficult and time

Trials with maleic hydrazide on teak flowers

consuming. Alan arrived in Rabaul, using it as a base for several daily visits to Keravat from Monday 7 October to Friday 18 October 1968. He carried with him a quantity of maleic hydrazide miscible powder. On Tuesday morning 8 October Alan travelled to Keravat and he and I inspected the teak progeny trial and the teak seed orchard. In the afternoon we went to the LAES to measure out batches of the maleic hydrazide powder into batches of different weights.

On 9 October in the Keravat Research Office Alan and I mixed the batches of powder with water to produce a number of solutions with different concentrations of the active ingredient. In the teak seed orchard panicles with flower buds to be treated were selected and marked with coloured tape. Teak has small, fragrant white flowers (right about X5) arranged in dense panicles at the end of the branches. These flowers contain both types of reproductive organs but emasculation was only feasible after the flower had opened and then the anthers had to be plucked off one at a time with tweezers, while at the same time avoiding getting pollen on the style which was usually receptive just after the flower opened.

The marked panicles had a majority of unopened buds, but all open or about-to-open flowers had to be removed before the unopened buds remaining in each panicle were sprayed with maleic hydrazide. Spraying was carried out on Thursday 10 October. Each concentration became a treatment with more than one panicle in each. After spraying, the panicles and their treated buds were isolated in non-woven terylene bags.

Alan and I returned to the teak seed orchard on the afternoon of 17 October for an assessment and onsite discussion, but there did not seem to be any effect of the spray on preventing the development and maturation of the anthers, at least in any of the concentrations we used. I checked the trial again on Monday 21 October but still there was no change.

After Alan had left Keravat it was decided to re-run the trial. A new selection of flower buds was chosen by me on Tuesday afternoon 22 October and treated the next day, but this trial eventually was also inconclusive.

Expansion of the Teak seed orchard at Keravat

Following the burn in 1967, stock plants had been established at each location ready to receive new scion material by field grafting in 1968.

Stock plants in place ready for grafting on two sides and in some gaps of the existing teak seed orchard at Keravat in 1968. At this time of this photograph there was variation among the older grafted individuals in the orchard in the rate and amount of seasonal dieback and loss of leaves.

Sequence for making a field graft on Teak using a local modification of the “Forkert” budding technique. 1. A tongue is cut on the field-grown stock near ground level, 2. and 3. A suitable bud is chosen on the scion donor, 4. The bud and surrounding tissue is removed from the scion wood.

Field graft on Teak continued: 5. The “saddle” of scion wood with included bud, 6. The “saddle” is inserted behind the tongue previously prepared on the stock, 7 – 9. The graft is bound with clear nonadhesive grafting tape, 10. The graft has a teak leaf bound around it to provide shade for the first few days.

A forestry cadet arrives for vacation employment

Graham McKenzie-Smith arrived in Keravat on Monday 9 December 1968 for 2½ months of vacation employment.

Visit by the Director of Forests

Don McIntosh, then Director of the Department of Forests, visited Keravat on Tuesday 10 December 1968. He continued to support the research effort in Teak and Kamarere at Keravat. He, Kevin White and Alan Cameron allowed me mostly free rein to design and implement the tree improvement programme for Kamarere going forwards.

Christmas 1968

We spent our second Christmas at Keravat in1968.

Kevin White sent out colourful Christmas Cards to staff.

At the beginning of 1969, Gloria and I had the opportunity to witness the Chinese New Year celebrations in Rabaul and to attend a Bainings fire dance before final preparations for the trip from Keravat to Canberra for me to take up full-time PhD studies on E. deglupta.

It was time to pack up our effects again and we were able to use our ex-Canberra lift van which we had kept on our verandah. We had also kept most of the Commonwealth Department of Stores packing materials and cardboard boxes in one of our spare rooms. The ANU, under the Commonwealth Postgraduate Scholarship, covered the cost of removal of our effects to Canberra. Our pet cat had to be left behind with a family at the Vudal Agricultural College.

We were able to send our Volkswagen car from Rabaul to Sydney by sea fairly cheaply. I picked it up duty free from a bonded warehouse close to the southwest pylon of the Harbour Bridge and drove it to Canberra.

Above: Chinese New Year celebrations in Rabaul in February1969, the Year of the Rooster. Below: Bainings Fire Dance.

Canberra, PhD research on E. deglupta

On arrival in Canberra Gloria and I were accommodated in the small Commonwealth Hostel called Narellan House in Coranderrk Street, Reid. Thus occurred another interesting intersection with my dad’s WW II army service, since Narellan House was originally part of Narellan Military Camp near Camden where the 6 MGB was at times billeted.10 Gloria and I occupied one of the only two double rooms. The other 46 rooms were singles and equally segregated with men in the south wing and women in the north wing. Narellan House was run with only eight management, cleaning and kitchen staff at the time.

We purchased a new four-bedroom house that had been built on Block 5 Section 3, 10 Ogilby Crescent, Page. The house plus land on a 99-year lease11 was purchased from Northside Homes Pty Ltd for $15,500. We only paid a deposit of $2,000. The ACT Commissioner for housing was eager to loan money on a mortgage to Commonwealth public servants because there was a shortage of housing for new residents of Canberra that were needed to staff a rapidly growing Government bureaucracy. I was also considered eligible as Commonwealth Post Graduate Scholar. The loan I obtained from the Commonwealth was at a fixed concessional rate of 6.5% for 20 years (5.5% for monthly payments made on time). Commercial loans at the time were around 15% fixed for the term of a loan! We moved into our new house on 24 April 1969.

The four-lane Ogilby Crescent ended abruptly five doors further on to the east at a fence with sheep grazing on the other side. At the time to our east there was no Coulter Drive, no Lake Ginninderra and no Belconnen town centre. Access was by Belconnen Way with the suburb of Macquarie on the south side and Page the first suburb built on the north side, soon followed by Scullin and later Higgins.

As was the usual convention of the time the house lot was sold without a garage or landscaping. The garden area was generous, but was completely bare of vegetation and had no topsoil. We had the lot was

10 Narellan House had stood since 1947 in a tranquil setting in Canberra, just across from Glebe Park near Civic Centre. It was originally part of a vast military camp near Camden during the days of the Second World War. Narellan Military Camp was built beside State Route No. 69, the Northern Road, running from Narellan to Richmond NSW. It was established near the turn-off to Cobbitty, although that tiny village would have been hardly noticed in the 1940s when the signposts were removed for security reasons. The only reminders of the camp at the site today are a few partly hidden slabs of concrete. At the end of WW II, the army huts of Narellan were occupying good dairy grazing land so, at a cost of £4,203.18.6 ($8,407.85), the Chifley Government brought the huts, asbestos and all, on five semi-trailers to Canberra for storage. Accommodation was urgently required in Canberra for a rapidly expanding public service so most of the building components were removed from storage and re-erected with a new brick veneer exterior in Coranderrk Street, Reid Narellan House thus became one of the Government Hostels in Canberra. It survived all of the other Commonwealth Hostels, before serving as a residence for tertiary students. It was demolished in May 1992 and the site re-developed as an apartment complex. Those apartments are today (2019) called the Monterey Apartments.

11 All household residential land was purchased on a leasehold basis (99 years) in the Australian Capital Territory.

rotary hoed and top dressed with soil before planting lawn seed. We availed ourselves of the free handout of trees and shrubs available to new Canberra households from the Government Nursery at Yarralumla.

We started a vegetable garden at the rear of our generous back yard. As was typical of most house sales in Canberra at the time, there were no garage or landscaping included in the sale.

Inside the house the floor was unpainted tongued-and-grooved Victorian Ash.12After fine sanding the floor with a hired belt sander, we covered the kitchen floor with vinyl sheet that we had retrieved from our house at Keravat and set about applying three coats of clear Estapol to the floors of the other rooms.

Having taken on a house mortgage, careful budgeting was required. We were unable to afford a refrigerator for our first winter, but I was able to go over to Civic in lunch hour every couple of days to purchase meat and other perishables. A couple of lamb chops could be bought for 20c! Friday night was late-night-shopping in the ACT. Each week we allowed ourselves about $15, which included putting a dollar’s worth of petrol in the Volkswagen for the week, and a visit to the lower ground floor David Jones’ supermarket in Civic for groceries which we could put on a monthly account. There were no

12 Either Eucalyptus regnans or E. delegatensis (Mountain Ash and Alpine Ash).

By Spring of 1969 our lawn had just had its first mowing. The heavy rocks in the front garden feature we had collected one at a time from a future suburban subdivision southwest of Page by removing the left front bucket seat from the VW and rolling the rock over the doorsill onto the floor then travelling home lopsided!

barcodes back then and the checkout operators had to key in the price that was marked by hand on each item. We sometimes indulged in a milk thickshake for 20c each!

From 4 September 1969, Gloria was employed as Departmental Secretary, Department of Neurobiology, Research School of Biological Sciences, Institute of Advanced Studies ANU, and Personal Assistant to the Professor of Neurobiology, G A Horridge.13The improved income allowed the purchase of a refrigerator before the arrival of hot weather. We were then able to purchase a side of lamb, cut it up ourselves, and freeze it. We also found a source of free day-old bread that was part of a daily consignment collected from shops and on its way to a pig farm! Despite the cost of purchasing and keeping them, we acquired a pair of seal-point Siamese cats.

With both of us out of the house at work during the day and too tired to do the washing up at night, by Friday evening we often found ourselves with every utensil, piece of cutlery, cup and plate dirty and piled up on the sink waiting to be washed first thing on a Saturday morning. One Saturday morning we just could not face it and went to a store to purchase a dishwasher on the proviso that it would be delivered immediately. In the absence of space in the kitchen, it was set up in the laundry next to the twin tub washing machine, which had been brought from Keravat. By the end of that first Saturday the dishwashing was all up to date having been done by the machine!

Gloria and I became part of a regular squash evening, including also other keen players Dave Lamb and Paula Reid, held at public courts hired in Dickson, usually on Tuesday nights for a couple of hours. We were joined intermittently by other postgraduate students and staff.

The first moon landing was a significant event in 1969. Roger Sands was the only one of us postgraduate students with a small black and white TV portable enough to be brought into our research laboratory at the Forestry Department. Many people gathered around the TV and not much work was done that day. The Apollo 11 lander had touched down on the moon at 6.17 AM Canberra time. From 9.00 AM we watched the blurry black and white picture of the lunar module on the moon’s surface with nothing happening until the hatch opened at 12.39 PM. From 12.54 PM the TV broadcast came through

13 University regulations prevented Gloria from being employed in the School of General Studies, the School in which I was enrolled for my PhD, but did allow employment elsewhere in the University. Interestingly, Professor Denis John Carr (1915 – 2008), from 1968 Foundation Professor of the Department of Developmental and Cell Biology in the Institute of Advanced Studies, and his wife Stella Grace Maisie Carr (widely known as “Maisie”) (1912 – 1988) in the same Department carried out comprehensive morphological and taxonomic research on Eucalyptus. Introduced to me by Gloria, Maisie provided considerable assistance and mentoring during my studies and reviewed parts of my PhD thesis draft and provided useful suggestions for improvement before it was submitted. In 1971 Maisie purchased and presented to me “The Complete Plain Words” by Sir Ernest Gowers (Pelican Books 1970) perhaps hinting that, in addition to grammar and punctuation, I needed to better address “the choice and arrangement of words in such a way as to get an idea as exactly as possible out of one mind into another”. We continued to correspond after I returned to the PNG, and I sent fresh leaf and bark material of E. deglupta to the Carrs for taxonomic study.

Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station just in time to see Neil Armstrong step on to the moon at 12.56 PM Canberra time. At 3.11 PM the broadcast came to an end.

In August my work was included in a joint paper to the 2nd World Consultation on Forest Tree Breeding held in Washington.14 In Second Semester 1969, I joined Mike Slee on staff as a Demonstrator for the fourhour weekly afternoon practical class in Wood Science and Technology attended by the Fourth Year Students. At the end of my recreation leave credits in August 1969 I was granted 12 months study leave by the PNG Department of the Public Services Commission, with any future extension to depend on my progress.

14 Rudman P, Higgs M, Davidson J, Malajczuk N 1969 Breeding Eucalypts for Wood Properties. Voluntary Paper presented to 2nd World Consultation on Forest Tree Breeding, Washington, DC, August 7 – 16, Section II Breeding for High Yielding Characters, Friday 8 August 1969, Document FO-FTB-69-4/7. 9pp.

Staff of the Department of Forestry, ANU in 1969. I gained a place in the photograph (fourth from left, back row) for joining Mike Slee (fourth from left, middle row) in demonstrating one afternoon a week to the Fourth Year practical class in Wood Science and Technology. Second from left, front row, was my then PhD supervisor Dr Peter Rudman. Third from the right, middle row was Dr Bill Heather, my PhD supervisor after Dr Rudman left the University. Professor Ovington is in the centre of the front row, Paula Reid on his left.

Another event in 1969 was the huge stock market bubble triggered by Poseidon Nickel. In early September 1969, its shares were less than $1. On 1 October, following news that drilling had struck a rich nickel deposit, the shares rose to over $12, during which time Dave Lamb purchased a number. Rampant speculation sent the shares to $280 by January 1970 before they crashed. Fortunately for him, Dave had sold his shares for a considerable sum, but not at the top price, before the value of the shares collapsed in February 1970.

Woodstock

Woodstock was a music festival held August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, 40 miles southwest of Woodstock. Billed as "an Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music" and alternatively referred to as the Woodstock Rock Festival, it attracted an audience of more than 400,000. Woodstock featured widely in news reports in Australia.

After growing unrest from September 1969, a sudden fresh outbreak of severe violence on the Gazelle Peninsula on 7 December 1969 seemed to take the Government by surprise. Leading Mataungans were John Kaputin and Oscar Tammur. Tammur was a member of the House of Assembly and Mataungan Association spokesman. The Association promoted “self-government” involving the violent takeover of non-Tolai assets, including Government land. A number of legally elected Tolai Councillors were beaten up in order to interfere with the operation of the Local Government Council. There was increasing encroachment into the forests surrounding the Keravat plantations. The Administration responded with the deployment of over 1,000 police in a large-scale security operation to restore the rule of law.

1970

Continuation of work in Canberra towards my PhD

From the beginning of 1970 in Canberra, attention was directed to growing young plants of E. deglupta under controlled environment conditions.15The Commonwealth Research Grant provided me with funds

Mataungan unrest and violence on the Gazelle Peninsula

and access to the CSIRO CERES Phytotron16 located off Clunies Ross Street in Acton and within easy walking distance from the Department of Forestry ANU.

During 1970 wood sampling in standing trees of E. deglupta at Keravat was undertaken, supervised by Alan Williams. Some 275 trees were sampled. Samples were airfreighted to the ANU periodically where their wood density was determined by x-ray densitometry. This work has been described in the companion article Rainbow Eucalypt Man.

Another enquiry into higher education in PNG

In April 1970 the Department of Education had agreed to support another “Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education in PNG” in an attempt to rationalise and coordinate post-secondary and tertiary education in the country. This Committee under the chairmanship of Sir Allen Brown became known as the “Brown Committee”17 and it worked from December 1970 through to September 1971, travelled widely and received more than 250 submissions from individuals before it delivered its report to the Minister. Its principal recommendation was for “… the establishment of permanent machinery to advise the government on the continuing development of higher education in Papua New Guinea.” The “machinery” was to be in the form of a Commission of Higher Education, with an Office of Higher Education and a Finance Committee to advise and service the Commission.18In addition, the Brown Committee proposed a series of federations or associations of colleges to link all tertiary institutions in clusters according to vocational interest. The Brown Committee was satisfied that a need existed for the establishment of a professional course in forestry in PNG and recommended that this be accomplished on a joint basis involving both UPNG and the Papua New Guinea Forestry College at Bulolo, but this recommendation fell into obscurity along with the rest of the Brown Committee proposals.

16 CERES = Controlled Environment RESearch. See Morse R N and Evans L T 1962 Design and development of CERES – an Australian Phytotron. Journal of Agricultural Engineering Research, 7:128 – 140. Dr L T Evans and the phytotron staff were thanked for the provision of the controlled environment facilities across two years during my PhD studies, and for the care of the E. deglupta plants including routine watering and fertilizing during my extended absences from the phytotron while working in the nearby Forestry Department, ANU.

17 Sir Allen Brown’s fellow committee members were Vincent Eri, an official from the PNG Department of Education; S W Cohen, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Macquarie University and a member of two similar inquiries into higher education in New South Wales; and

A H Nash, Dean of the School of Architecture and Engineering at the Western Australian Institute of Technology.

18 There was extensive debate throughout 1972 and the first half of 1973 over the recommendation to set up a Commission of Higher Education. By mid-1973 the Somare Government deferred consideration of the draft bill to set up the Commission and it fell into limbo. The new PNG Government pointed out that the Brown Committee was primarily an Australian body appointed by a colonial government and instead desired to appoint its own commission of enquiry into the development of higher education in PNG – a commission consisting primarily of Papua New Guinean members.

The Lawrence Report

In May 1970, a consultant’s report was prepared on forestry and forest industries in the Territory.

Collapse of the West Gate Bridge, Melbourne

19

Two years into its construction, on 15 October 1970 the 112m span between piers 10 and 11 collapsed and fell 50m to the ground and water below. Thirty-five construction workers were killed.

Field visit back to Keravat

The Faculty of Science ANU granted me leave of absence from Canberra for fieldwork on E. deglupta to be undertaken at Keravat. One of the official conditions was that Kevin White was appointed my interim PhD supervisor for the period spent in PNG. Since the Public Service Commissioner had granted me continuity of service while I was in Canberra, an automatic promotion to Forest Officer Class 2 had taken place on 6 August 197020, and my Scholarship was topped up to that level by the Department of Forests for the 74 days I spent at Keravat 21 October 1970

3 January 1971. I was billeted with Heather and Terry Duggan at Keravat. Terry was bulldozer operator at the time and Heather the office clerk/typiste. The violence of the previous year across the Gazelle Peninsula seemed to have died down.

One of the first local field visits I made in Keravat was to the E. deglupta cuttings plantation at Vudal. The remainder of my time was spent with the E. deglupta wood sampling crew, seed collection from selected trees using the rifle and supervision of felling operations for thinning trials and collection of data for volume and yield tables. An assessment was made of the fertilizer trial at age two years. There was a standout response to boron in E. deglupta Since Alan Cameron had left PNG, I also checked out what was happening with teak breeding programme at Keravat.

While in Keravat I received also an Australian Government Paper that for the first time set out information on an Employment Security Scheme (ESS) for overseas officers of the Public Service.21

19 Lawrence A O 1970 The Development of Forestry and Forest Industries in the Territory of Papua New Guinea. A Report by A O Lawrence OBE, BSc (Adelaide), Diploma of Forestry Oxford, Diploma of Forestry Australian Forestry School, Fellow of the Institute of Foresters Australia. May 1970.

20 See page 3, Papua New Guinea Gazette No. 44 of 6 August 1970. Because I was out of the country, the Forest Officer Class 2 post was held against a vacant Position No. R.76 in Goroka, which listed duties as: “Assist in direction of forestry extension work. Control timber permits and licences within the area. Carry out special investigations, surveys, etc. Prepare detailed reports. Train subordinate staff. ” (sic)!

According this same Gazette (on page 4) Rod Holesgrove was promoted at Bulolo on the same day.

21 Employment Security Scheme for Overseas Officers of the Public Service. Issued under the Authority of the Minister for External Territories, the Hon. C E Barnes, M P, Canberra ACT, 8 October 1970.

Towards the end of 1970, both my study leave, and Commonwealth Postgraduate Research Award, were renewed and extended for another year (letters below).

1971

After the field visit to Keravat, I returned to Canberra on 4 January 1971. By this time the Forestry Department at the ANU was hosting some 50 postgraduate students, several with a past, present or future connection with PNG, including me, G Archer, F Arenz, D Lamb, R Thistlethwaite and I Whyte.

ANU Department of Forestry students and staff 1971

Undergraduate students:

Abu Bakar R, Afzal bin M A M, Alder D, Ali S A, Ashcroft B C, Awang K B, Backen P L, Batty S N, Baynes J S, Blake M S, Bragg C T, Brown G D, Bryant P J, Bulman P A, Burns P W, Byron R N, Campbell A J, Carter R W, Cassells D S, Chadwick P M, Chalmers R W, Chan C W, Chandler R J, Chin T Y, Collet S H B, Copeland J C, Corbett R J, Craighead G

T, Crawford B A, Cromarty D J, Crowe M P, Curtis J J, Dean G H, Delana L R, Don A R, Drielsma J H, Dudzinski M J, Dundas I A, Elsley I J, Enchelmaier R L, Friederich R J, Fullerton I W, Fulton J A, Fussel K J, Gardner G J, Gay R W, Geddes D J, Haines R J, Hall M F, Harris M J, Harvey A M, Harvey B E, Hassan H A, Haswell D A, Hazelman E C, Henderson L E, Jeffcoat A, Johnson I G, Jones P M, Keys M G, Khiong D V K, Klintberg R C, Lavis J S, Lock P C, Lockett E J, Locos P H, Lush A, Luttrell S D, McCabe B B, McArthur I G, McCormack R J, Mackowski C M, Manderson R J, Meehan D P, Midgley S J, Millard I B, Montgomery P J, Moore J C, Munang M F, Nethery W J, Nicholson D W, Page B P, Pentony K I (Miss), Potter M, Qualischefski P, Quill D T, Rabbets R J, Ritson P, Roberts B A, Roberts C D, Ronan N M, Royal B J, Ryan P A, Sanders J R, Sanderson M E, Scott L A (Miss), Sepawie A H, Shepherd P C, Snelling T C, Stevenson P M, Stirling P D, Tambong M S, Taylor M G, Thomson G O, Thomson M T, Titmus I F, Underdown M G, Unwin G L, Van Saane L, Veal M A, Vear K R, Williams R J, Wilson R A, Wong L K, Woof C F, Yabaki K, Yusoff M Z A, Zed P G.

Postgraduate students:

Archer G R, Arentz F, Armstrong J S, Attakorah J Y, Awe J O, Ayling R D, Barker, P R, Booth T, Benson A D, Boden R

W, Chuong P H, Clunie N M U, Cother E J, Coyne P D, Cumberland B, Davidson J, Doran J C, Douglas J J, Farrow M H, Fearnside A, Furrer B J, Gough D K, Gyi Ko Ko M, Hamilton C D, Hamzah M B, Hicks J W, Khan S M, Lamb D, Leech J

W, Melville G E, Millar B D, Myers B J, Myint Thein, Phillis K J, Russell V S, Sands R, Sein Thet, Siemon G R, Snowden P, Spain A V, Stark B A, Taylor P A, Thistlethwaite R J, Wells C H, Way J W, Wilson J M (Miss), Whitely D, Whyte I N, Wong T W, Yule R A.

Academic staff:

Dr E P Bachelard, Mr J C G Banks, Mr T J Blake, Mr R G Buick, Dr L T Carron, Dr I S Ferguson, Dr R G Florence, Dr D

M Griffin, Mr K W Groves, Dr W A Heather, Prof. J D Ovington, Mr E D Parkes, Dr K R Shepherd, Mr M U Slee, Dr P R Stevens, Mr D M Stobart, Dr M T Tanton, Dr G B Wood.

Post-doctoral Fellow:

Dr B H Pratt.

Non-academic staff:

Mrs J N Barnes, Mr G Bellamy, Mrs J Bellchambers, Mr C W Clements, Mr F J Darlington, Mrs B Driver, Mrs J Fenton, Mrs M Ficken, Mr R K Grant, Mrs J M Haantjens, Mr B A Hamilton, Mrs M Harmey, Mrs T M Hill, Mr G Hogg, Mr D Jamieson, Mr T Johnson, Mrs L Jokisch, Mr E E Mangesius, Mr C Moore, Mr R Paton, Mrs M E Reid, Mr M S Ralph, Mrs D C Riddle, Mr J H Sedgley, Miss N Smith, Mr V Sulc, Mr H M G Thomas, Mr K C Watson.

Laos-Australia Reforestation Project: Mr A Wood.

Staff and postgraduate students Department of Forestry ANU in 1970-71. Standing on the far left is Dr Bill Heather my replacement PhD supervisor, I am standing 11th from the left and still working with Mike Slee, standing 8th from the left, as a demonstrator in the Fourth Year Wood Science and Technology weekly practical class. Standing 9th from the left is Dave Lamb who later took up a post in research in PNG from 1972 to1977. Both Dave Lamb and Paula Reid (seated third from the right) were regulars among our weekly squash participants.

Canberra flood disaster

A major flood in the Woden Valley on Australia Day 1971 killed five, injured 15 and affected another 500 people. Canberra’s population in 1971 was about 150,000.

Changes to the eligibility rules for the Assisted Study Scheme for Permanent Local and Overseas Officers

Towards the end of October 1970, the Minister for External Territories approved a change to the Assisted Study Scheme that removed the requirement for an officer to have completed a set period of service (two terms of 21 months) before becoming eligible for assistance. I did not find out about this development until early March 1971. On 5 March 1971 I wrote to the Department of Forests requesting that my original application for paid study leave be resubmitted.

At the same time the Department of Forests was reminded of the requirement that approval for leave without pay for study purposes had to be granted by the Public Service Board. In my case I already had approval until close of business 6 August 1971. After that date a new recommendation for continuation would be required.

Australian Broadcast Listener’s Licence

While we were in Canberra it was necessary back then to obtain a licence (below) for the use of broadcast receivers like radios and television sets used in the home. Apparently, the licence fee was used to fund the public broadcaster (the ABC) and presumably also to pay for the inspectors travelling door to door

to check on compliance. Despite the modest fee of $6.50 per year for the licence, the penalty for being found not licenced was severe ($200, or imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months)!

I continued my interest in flying and in making model aircraft as a hobby. March 1971 was the 50th Anniversary of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). An all-day airshow was conducted by the RAAF for the public at its Fairbairn Air Base at Canberra airport. I was invited to set up an exhibition of some of my RAAF models in a 9 Helicopter Squadron hanger (photograph below).

Fiftieth Anniversary of the Royal Australian Air Force

Exploration of E. deglupta in the Garaina area, Morobe Province

Meanwhile, in PNG, Neville Howcroft conducted an expedition to Garaina in the Morobe Province where he was able to carry out a comprehensive inspection of E. deglupta on the Waria and Mai-Ama Rivers, including near the location of the type specimen for E. schlechteri. This expedition provided additional morphological information that enabled me to prepare a revised description of E. deglupta 22

Volume tables for E. deglupta

In the letter from the Department of Forests dated 9 September 1968 over the signature of K J White, Chief Division of Silviculture, supporting my application for the PhD Scholarship (see “Rainbow Eucalypt Man”) it was pointed out that “it is essential that work continues on the volume tables and productivity investigations.” Therefore, I had monitored that work from Canberra from 1969 to 1971.

The computing services of the ANU were used on the data. While I was at ANU, data were also sent to Dr Howard Wright, Commonwealth Forestry Institute (CFI), Oxford, UK who provided without charge computer computation, interpretation and compilation of one of the sets of volume tables. Complicating this project was that the ANU worked with the metric system, while the data coming in from PNG were in imperial units from the growth plots and metric from the research section at Keravat. The imperial data had to be converted to metric in Canberra for use at the ANU. However, as the CFI was working in imperial units, Dr Wright was sent both original imperial data where it already existed plus data from Keravat that were converted from metric to imperial units before dispatch.23

In deriving tree volume tables, there are two approaches. One is to derive a single general volume table for a species for application to all situations of stand origin, age and size, site factors, and silvicultural and management regimes, while accepting any deviation that may occur from the true volume in any particular situation. A second method is to derive separate volume tables to be applied to the specific situations of site, stand origin and so on, in order to obtain volume regressions of better “fit”. Priority was given to the first approach, that was to derive a general volume table for E. deglupta.

22 See my companion article “Rainbow Eucalypt Man” pages 161 - 164

23 On 12 June 1970, the Australian Metric Conversion Act passed by the Australian Parliament was given assent. This Act created the Metric Conversion Board to facilitate the conversion of measurements from imperial to metric. PNG followed the same timeline as Australia over the protracted period of introduction of the metric system across various industries. However, the forest and timber industries in both countries took several years to be fully metricated.

Over a period of some three years (1969 to 1971 inclusive) about 500 E. deglupta trees were felled at Keravat, Dami (Hoskins) and Baku (Gogol), Forest Stations and the total height and over-bark and under-bark diameters at 10 cm and 50 cm above ground, breast height (1.3 m), 2 m above ground then at one metre intervals along the stem to the tip. Heights from 10 cm above ground to each of 5, 10 and 15 cm diameter small end under-bark were also measured. I, Alan Williams, Jeff Fairlamb and John Dalton collected these data. As well as plots felled specifically for the construction of the volume tables, many trees were felled primarily for other purposes such as for collection of wood sample discs (usually larger trees), setting up thinning trial plots in existing plantations, as well as later age thinning of various other trials.

Alan Williams working in the office at Keravat derived the total volume and volumes to each of the small end diameters of all the trees by a graphical method on large sheets of millimeter graph paper using the metric system.

The resulting volume tables were included in the companion article “Rainbow Eucalypt Man”.

The future security of permanent overseas officers of the Public Service and accelerated localization and training

By 1971 PNG was moving rapidly towards independence, though no date had been set.

On 30 August 1971, the Minister for External Territories, Canberra and the Papua New Guinea Public Service Board in Port Moresby simultaneously issued two complementary papers: The Future Security of Permanent Overseas Officers of the Public Service; and, Accelerated Localization and Training.

Felling in plantations of E. deglupta at Keravat in the early 1970s for setting up thinning regimes and for providing felled trees for preparation of volume tables. The stacks are of 1m long billets.

Both papers had roughly the same opening paragraph:

“In a statement in the Commonwealth Parliament on 27 April 1971 the Minister for External Territories, the Hon. C. E. Barnes, M. P., said amongst other things that the Government’s response to the recommendations by the Papua New Guinea House of Assembly Select Committee on Constitutional Development that the development of Papua New Guinea be geared to preparing for internal self-government in the period 1972 – 1976 would include giving continued priority to localisation of the Public Service through a stepped-up training effort. At the same time, positive action would be taken to maintain sufficient numbers of overseas officers in the Public Service. ” The two papers have been reproduced here and on the following page. These papers made it obvious that my return to the Territory after my PhD studies might be short-lived and also clouded with uncertainty, despite what was promised therein by both the PNG and Australian Governments.

Mistakes in administrative matters

At this time mistakes were beginning to be made in staff matters, possibly because of a loss of corporate history in the Department of Forests and Department of the Public Service Board following the departure of senior expatriate administrative staff. The example on the following page was one such occasion with potentially severe ramifications.

Correspondence on this page: Just one incident where mistakes were being made in administrative procedures that had a knock-on effect on an officer’s remuneration. At least in part on this occasion the cause was loss of corporate knowledge because of the rapid departure of long-serving expatriate staff from the Territory. I myself had to query why my pay had not increased though I had just completed a length of service milestone. The error was made because of failure to distinguish the different entitlement of former Cadets that were employed before 1 August 1968 (that included me) from those employed after that date.

On 21 December 1971, my Commonwealth Postgraduate Research Award was renewed for the final time to cover the period from 1 January 1972 to 3 March 1972, the day on which my PhD thesis was required to be submitted (left). (There was a minor error in that I do not have a second given name beginning with “A”!)

1972

Completion of my PhD studies

Following my query by letter on 17 January 1972 to the Department of Forests on where I would be posted after my return to PNG (above right), after a delay of over a month, a reply dated 21 February was received advising that I would be posted to the “Forest Research Centre at Bulolo” (right). I had learned from a letter from Dave Lamb dated 7 February 1972 that he also had just arrived in Bulolo and had been asked to concentrate on soils and nutrition issues with Kamarere at various sites. He requested information on a suitable nutrient solution, glasshouse temperature and provenances for possible glasshouse pot trials. I replied with information on the CERES phytotron work that I had done in Canberra.

Grant of six months study leave on full pay

I received news from the Chairman of the Public Service Board that I would receive six months backdated (4 September 1971 to 3 March 1972) study leave on full pay as a result of a change in the rules governing study assistance for PNG public servants.24 A Deed of Agreement was drawn up and signed by me on 6 March 1972 (see below) to enable me to “attend the Australian National University for the purpose of undertaking a course leading to the award of Doctor of Philosophy”.

24 I had applied at the beginning of my PhD studies in 1969 for paid study leave but this was declined then because I had not completed two full terms of 21 months service in PNG, which was then one of the requirements. This constraint was dropped in August 1971 at the time of the release of the paper The Future Security of Permanent Overseas Officers of the Public Service and I had reapplied in September 1971 for the maximum period of six months on full pay available under the revised rules “for the completion of a period of higher degree study” which I had already undertaken.

It took over five weeks for the Department to catch up with the salary due after I was granted study leave with pay!

Three bound copies of my PhD thesis were submitted to the Registrar’s office at the appointed hour on the appointed day (3 PM, 3 March 1972). The ANU advised that my two thesis examiners would be Dr Ted Hillis25 (upper right) as the Australian representative and Professor Bruce Zobel26 (lower right) as the overseas representative. However, unexpectedly, I was requested to remain in Canberra for a month while the thesis was examined, after which I would be required to answer in writing any queries raised and to make any alterations or additions to the thesis that might be suggested or required by the examiners. This unexpected development meant a further period in Canberra on leave without pay, but still supported by the ANU Scholarship, from 4 March to 4 May 1972. I answered in writing a number of written queries from Professor Zobel, and had a face-to-face session with Dr Hillis in Canberra. I was not required to make any changes or do any extra work on the thesis apart from providing some duplicate loose and enlarged complex tables that could be taken from a pocket placed inside the back cover of the thesis in order that these could be referred to conveniently while reading the text.

25 Dr William Edwin (Ted) Hillis (1921 – 2008) was then Chief Research Scientist, Division of Forest Products CSIRO Melbourne. His vision of tree biology, forestry and wood science and technology fields being strongly linked made him supportive of research on wood structure and he always recognized the pivotal role wood structure played in understanding other wood properties. He was awarded the Order of Australia in 2003.

26 Dr Bruce John Zobel (1920 – 2011) was Professor Emeritus in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University, USA until he “retired” in 1979. He was recognized as a world authority in his special discipline, the variation of wood properties and their genetic improvement. In his co-authored book Zobel B J and Talbert J T 1984 Applied Forest Tree Improvement published by John Wiley & Sons, reference was made to my PhD thesis about the encouraging heritability result for wood density in E. deglupta and to PNG Tropical Forestry Research Note SR2 (1973) on the tree improvement programme for the species in PNG.

Resumption of duty in PNG

The ANU paid for uplift of our effects to be returned to PNG. However, we decided to sell our VW in Canberra. We left it with our next-door neighbour in Page who owned an automotive business to sell it on commission. He sold the car for $895, $45 more than we paid for it in Rabaul over five years earlier, netting us about $730!

By this time the Forest Department Headquarters had moved from Konedobu to a new building in the Port Moresby suburb of Hohola.

After a night in Brisbane, I was able to resume duty in PNG from 5 May 1972, this time immediately accompanied by Gloria since she had already resigned from the Research School of Biological Sciences, Department of Neurobiology, ANU on 15 February 1972.

The Forest Research Centre at Bulolo grew out of the Forest Entomology Research Station that was headed by Barry Gray as Senior Entomologist27and administered under the Division of Silviculture with Kevin J White as Chief. Barry became Principal Research Officer in charge of the Centre as well as continuing his Entomology research. I was assigned to head up the Silvicultural Research Section. Dave Lamb was assigned to head Soils and Nutrition and Jack Simpson Pathology at the Centre.

27 The Forest Entomology Research Station was officially opened on 16 August 1968. Apart from Barry, Ross Wylie was on the staff as an Entomologist and Henry Ivagi as a Technical Assistant. Also, at that time a Silvicultural Research Station was started at Dami (Hoskins).

When transiting Brisbane in the early 1970s with an overnight stopover, we usually stayed at the Airway Motel, Lamington Avenue, Doomben, on the road between the city and Brisbane airport. In 1972, overnight bed and breakfast for two was $13!

There was no office or laboratory space available to the additional professionals in the original entomology building so a vacant single officers’ dormitory building was leased from Commonwealth New Guinea Timbers in downtown Bulolo.

The Chief Research Officer was Bob Thistlethwaite located in the Forest Department headquarters in Port Moresby.

A “Company Style” three-bedroom house was provided for us in Bulolo, next door to the house assigned to the OIC Bulolo Forest Station and less than 100 metres from the Research Centre.

One of my first tasks was to provide a Bridging Report to cover my work at Keravat and my PhD studies in the context of silvicultural research to the point of taking up the post of OIC Silvicultural Research at the Forest Research Centre. This Report was referred to two years later by Dun and Fenton (below).28

Dave Lamb, Gloria and I hitched a free ride on an Ansett-MAL cargo DC3 from Lae to the Highlands Show at Mt Hagen. The aircraft was configured for cargo as it would have been during WW II with no internal lining to the metal fuselage and a row of drop-down canvas seats along each side of the cargo hold (so-called “side-saddle” configuration). The floor was thick plywood sheeting and there were ring

28 Davidson J 1972 Bridging Report in Silvicultural Research, Forest Department File 106 – 7 – 7. There is little evidence that much notice was taken of this report until it was referred to by consultants Dun and Fenton over two years later. They spent 31 January to 16 February 1974 in PNG, and until 30 March 1974 report writing in FAO, Rome. (See Dun D and Fenton R T 1974 Some Aspects of Reforestation in Papua New Guinea – Report on Project Results, Conclusions and Recommendations. UNDP/FAO Project Report FO:PAP/73/007, April 1974, FAO, Rome.)

tiedown locations spread around the floor and on the fuselage ribs (to attach ropes and/or nets to secure cargo). Accompanying us in the centre of the cargo space was a huge cylindrical electric motor or generator which must have only just fitted through the port side rear cargo door. In front of this and strapped to the forward bulkhead behind the cockpit was a very fragile looking upright Yamaha electric organ with only about 15 cm clearance in front of the motor/generator. After a long take-off run towards the seawards end of the (old) Lae airstrip we were airborne and turning inland for a run up the Markham Valley. The motor/generator was not quite at the centre of the gravity and the aircraft trimmed out in an unusual and noticeable tail-down attitude. The motor was so heavy that as the flight progressed it seemed to sink further into a large dent in the plywood floor. During the deceleration under brakes on landing at Mt Hagen the motor moved forward to within about a centimetre of the organ!

Typical colourful display at a show. In the background are blocks of wood for a woodchopping competition.

Much in evidence at the show was the long-running promotion of growing Casuarina in the Highlands for fuelwood and shelter. There were bilingual pamphlets

“Planim Diwai Yar” [Plant Casuarina Trees] and 36 x 48 cm posters “Planim Yar” (right) being handed out by the Department of Information and Extension Services.

We were in need of purchasing a car for private use. While visiting the Toba Motors Pty Ltd display of new cars at the show, we were impressed by the Colt Galant models that were similar to the winners of successive Dakar Rallies, possibly indicating that they would be durable enough to handle frequent road trips from Bulolo to Lae and return. We chose an orange Mitsubishi Colt Galant A53 GGS 5-speed manual from the vehicles on display which Toba took back to Lae for us to pick up in exchange for only $2,975, plus Registration of $77.88!

I was the holder of a PNG Driver’s Licence, but up until this time in PNG I had always used a driver for travelling in Administration vehicles. This would be inefficient for my role in Bulolo so I had to pass a test in Lae to gain a driving permit so that I could drive myself in an Administration vehicle. This I achieved in Lae in May 1972 for vehicles in Class Three (above left).

The impressive (back then!) Mitsubishi Colt Galant cockpit with its five-speed manual gearshift.

Belatedly, in May 1972, I also received information in writing on how the bond for my paid study leave was calculated (right). This was based on gross salary received over the six months of study 4 September 1971 to 4 March 1971. Over the three years of the bond, this amount would be reduced by one-thirty-sixth for each month of continuing service in the PNG Public Service (excluding any period of leave without pay).

The end of an era in university education in PNG

Dr J A Sandover succeeded Dr W E Duncanson as Director of the PNGIOT in January 1972. Sir John Gunther retired and Professor K S Inglis became Vice-Chancellor of the UPNG in May 1972. There was an instant change in management style for both institutions. While Gunther and Duncanson hardly ever crossed paths, their successors frequently met, corresponded and consulted and were seen often on each other’s campuses. For the first time since the PNGIOT arrived in Lae, concerted attempts were made at cooperation between the two institutions. Nevertheless, rivalry between the two institutions increased as Dr Sandover actively lobbied on various fronts, such as requests for finance, public exposure in the news media and dealing with national politicians and civil servants, in order to increase PNGIOT’s status visà-vis the UPNG. Nowhere was this rivalry more acute than in planning for new courses, since only one institution would become the dominant host and award the degree. The introduction of new courses in agriculture29, forestry30, fisheries and land administration were standout examples of this rivalry.

29 See pages 162 – 166 In Howie-Willis I 1980 A thousand graduates. Conflict in university development in Papua New Guinea, 1961 –1976. Pacific Research Monograph Number 3. The Australian National University, Canberra.

30 See pages 166 – 176 In Howie-Willis I 1980 loc. cit.

The Oldfield Committee

In early 1972, the representatives of the Department of Forests and the UPNG met again informally to consider what courses UPNG might run that would satisfy the Department’s need for botanists, ecologists, and forest and timber industry managers with training in the physical, biological and social sciences. This collaboration morphed into a more formal arrangement of a “UPNG-Department of Forests Joint Committee on Forestry Training”. Unhelpfully, a collision arose between forest conservation policy and industrial forest policy governed by two government agencies with different mandates – the Department of Environment and Conservation and the Department of Forests – and their various allies. About the same time Dr Sandover was becoming interested in offering courses with an applied biology component, particularly forestry. He suggested to Professor Inglis that the PNGIOT and the UPNG form a joint committee to discuss collaboration on forestry. Instead, the UPNG invited Dr Sandover to join the existing UPNG - Department of Forests Joint Committee.31 Dr Sandover made it clear that he expected the PNGIOT to have the lion’s share of the forestry training and wanted it to award the degree on a quid pro quo basis, since the UPNG would be awarding the degree in agriculture.32In July 1972, the initial meeting of the joint (tripartite) committee now styled the “Joint Committee on Forestry Education” at first proposed a four-year degree course with the first two years spent at the UPNG, the last two in the PNGIOT, the practical work at Bulolo and the degree awarded by PNGIOT.33

The then Principal of the PNG Forestry College, Bulolo, Robin Angus, was concerned that the College was not sufficiently involved in the proposal put forward and went so far as to suggest to Dr Sandover that the PNGIOT and the College share the forestry degree course without the participation of the UPNG. Dr Sandover (right, photograph: PNGUT Audiovisual Department) informed Professor Inglis of the discussions with Mr Angus, but stated that he would not follow up the matter of the UPNG’s exclusion from forestry if the UPNG still wanted to be involved.34In an internal communication with Professor Ken Lamb (UPNG Professor of Biology and Dean Faculty of Science), Professor Inglis expressed the opinion that Dr Sandover was attempting to extend PNGIOT’s mandate to include at first applied biology, and later, a full range of science subjects that were already taught at the UPNG.35Despite these misgivings, the UPNG persevered with its participation in the Joint

31 Communication Inglis to Sandover, 6 July 1972. See page 167 In Howie-Willis I 1980 loc.cit.

32 Communication Sandover to Inglis, 12 July 1972. See page 167 In Howie-Willis I 1980 loc. cit.

33 Joint Committee on Forestry Education, Minutes, 28 July 1972. Despite all of the subsequent wrangling over the forestry course, this initial proposal was the arrangement that was finally returned to!

34 Communication Sandover to Inglis, 21 September 1972. See page 168 In Howie-Willis I 1980 loc. cit.

35 Communication Inglis to Lamb, 20 November 1972. See page 168 In Howie-Willis I 1980 loc. cit.

Committee. In late 1972 the Joint Committee formalised in writing the proposal for the degree course to be shared among the UPNG Waigani, the PNGIOT Lae and the Forestry College Bulolo. In an Appendix, the Submission noted the importance to PNG of its forests in soil conservation, water yield and quality, protection of flora and fauna and in close ties with village life and peoples’ livelihoods, but the main emphasis was put on utilising and merchandising the forest rather than on the conservation and sociological benefits.36The submission increased the rift between the UPNG and the PNGIOT, driven not only by competition between the two universities, but also but also by divergent ecological ideologies of the two main Government Department participants.

Creation of an Office of Higher Education

With discussion occurring about the incorporation of the Goroka Teachers’ College into the UPNG, and the push for the PNGIOT to be upgraded to a university, the university system in PNG was rapidly becoming more complex and ever more in need of coordination, especially after the aborted recommendation of the Brown Committee for forming a Higher Education Commission left a coordination vacuum. This vacuum was filled by the creation of an Office of Higher Education (OHE), styled after that one part of the Brown Committee recommendations that had lingered on. The work of the OHE began in the Special Projects Branch of the Department of Education in October 1972. In early 1973 the OHE started working out of the Department of the Chief Minister, among other tasks, providing for executive, administrative and secretarial assistance to the two Gris Committees (see later).

The potential of the OHE to adopt a more influential policy-forming role was becoming more obvious by the day. Cabinet required the OHE to write position papers to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of various proposals, some of which were significant, like those recommending the change in name from Institute to University of Technology, and the placement of the foreshadowed Department of Forestry at the proposed PNGUT rather than at the UPNG. The Forestry case became a source of bitter dispute between the universities and between the government Department of Forests and the universities. Much more than a simple location of a new teaching department was at stake. There were intertwined issues of environmental conservation versus commercial exploitation of PNG’s forests, the level of foreign investment required, appropriate technologies to be applied for harvesting and forest resource use, all under the umbrella of increasing nationalism as Independence approached.

The UPNG submission for degree training in forestry, Appendix 2, no date, 1972.

Reconnaissance on New Britain

Jack Simpson, Dave Lamb and I together undertook an extensive excursion to New Britain in June 1972.37 First was a visit to the provenance trial of E. deglupta at Keravat established in 1970/71. Jack Simpson was interested in the soil and root fungi of E. deglupta, particularly any of those that might form mycorrhizas. A brief visit was made by me to the trial seed orchard for E. deglupta in Fryar LA

This trial revealed the patch grafts were superior to the top cleft grafts for long-term survival. The wide 15m spacing had allowed open crowns to develop which would be ideal for seed collection. Next was a trip along a newly formed track from Keravat through Vudal and Vunapaliding and on to Open Bay to look areas of E. deglupta natural forest where harvesting was underway.

A mishap on the way back from Open Bay when the driver parked the vehicle on a steep hill without the handbrake applied! Here I am about to climb into the vehicle to retrieve our personal effects. We were fortunate to hitch a ride back to Rabaul soon after on the then rarely used track.

Above: Trial grafted seed orchard, 4½ years old, Fryar LA, Keravat in1972. Right Top: New logging track through near-pure E. deglupta, Open Bay 1972. Bottom right: Prolific coppice on a recently harvested E. deglupta. This was a very rare occurrence in this species. Even here this coppice was short lived, being too loosely attached to the cambium and eventually all the shoots fell off.

Later we boarded a government workboat (they were usually called “government trawlers”) in Rabaul to travel along the coast in a south-westerly direction to Cape Hoskins.38Observations were made in rivers and on Lolobau Island on the way. The E. deglupta provenance trial at Dami and natural forests of the species were visited on the banks of the Ko River, before flying back to Bulolo via Lae.

Continuing work on the vegetative propagation of E. deglupta at Bulolo

Collection of scion material from the breeding population trees commenced at Keravat in early 1972 and continued for most of the year. A rifle was used and scions were periodically airfreighted to Bulolo in an “Esky” and grafted by me in the high shade nursery at Bulolo.

In 1972 scions of E. deglupta were being collected at Keravat from the 1948 plantation behind where we used to live (top photograph) and the series of Fryar LA compartments along the west side of the meandering Keravat River (to the right of the white arrows that point to the River), and both sides of the Kalabus Road (bottom photograph, this view faces south from Keravat).

At first these scions were top-cleft-grafted in the field at the seed orchard site at Geshes Road 53 on previously planted stock plants, but this was proving less than satisfactory because of the often-poor condition of the material after its journey from Keravat. So, grafting moved to the high shade area in the Bulolo nursery where patch grafting was carried out on potted rootstocks about one metre tall. The small amount of tissue required for the patch enabled the part of the scion that was still in the best condition to be chosen for grafting. After the grafts had “taken” and the stock decapitated above the graft they were planted out in the seed orchard at predetermined spots in the randomised design.

Research was restarted on propagation of cuttings with the view to extend the age of the ortet from which cuttings could be taken and still achieve success. Material used was both from Keravat collected by shooting and sent by air to Bulolo and fresh ramets collected from street trees and “rock pile” trees of various ages at Bulolo.

A propagation chamber was built in Bulolo from local and imported components. This was a more modest operation than was employed in Keravat in 1967 – 1968, with the base comprising an 8 x 4 ft sheet of plywood covered with a plastic sheet for waterproofing. Different media, hormones and environmental conditions were tested. With freshly collected material treated with hormones, trees up to six years of age could be propagated from single-node cuttings with better than 80% success.

Layout of the misting equipment used at Bulolo for the propagation of cuttings of E. deglupta in 1972 - 1973. The wooden bench covered with plastic and the upper framework were constructed locally but the hardware components and the HumexÔ control equipment and mist nozzles were imported. The water pressure pump was a household item purchased from Steamships, Lae. 1, water supply; 2, pressure pump; 3, solenoid-controlled valve; 4, mist control unit; 5, electric mains 240V power supply; 6, ventilation intake; 7, remote moisturesensing switch; 8, adjustable mist nozzle; 9, thermostat and exhaust fan speed control; 10, ventilation exhaust fan; 11, clear plastic cover. The equipment was generally operated under high shade cover of 30 % sarlon cloth.

My increasing interest in the glaucous form of E. deglupta

The glaucous form of E. deglupta from Mindanao was proving to be resistant to pests like Agrilus spp that were increasingly being found afflicting the normal green form of the tree in New Britain. This raised the potential that the glaucous form, when hybridised with the green form, would impart an improved degree of pest resistance in the progeny which could be captured by cloning.

A 2m tall glaucous sapling of E. deglupta.

Second provenance trial of E. deglupta at Baku

A second provenance trial of E. deglupta was established in Compartment 3, Baku.39

Hybrid eucalypts

Neville Howcroft had come across some outstanding trees in a two-year-old mixed eucalypt plantation at Heads Hump, Bulolo. I examined and photographed them in July 1972.40

E. torelliana♀ x E. citriodora♂ hybrid trees stand out above the surrounding E. citriodora planted at the same time at Heads Hump LA Bulolo and photographed in July 1972.

Change of name for the Territory

On 1 July 1972 the Territory name changed from Territory of Papua and New Guinea (TP&NG) to Papua New Guinea (PNG). Elections were held. Michael Thomas Somare was elected as Chief Minister.

39 See pages 168 and 169 in the companion article “Rainbow Eucalypt Man”.

40 See pages 145 to 147 in the companion article “Rainbow Eucalypt Man”. Eucalyptus torelliana and E. citriodora were later reclassified in the new eucalypt genus Corymbia as Corymbia torelliana and C. citriodora

Piecework typing

There was a need especially in the Entomology Section for high quality typing of manuscripts and camera-ready copy of tables to be submitted to journals for publication. Gloria and I believed we could provide that service and in July 1972 invested in the purchase of an IBM Selectric 2 “Golf Ball” electric typewriter with extra typing elements to type italics and symbols (sourced from PNG Printing Co., right).

Payment for piecework typing work by Gloria was at rates prescribed by the Public Service Board.

Typical rates paid for Piece Work Typing in PNG in the mid-1970s. These low rates were still favourable to us at the time, though the IBM typewriter with its single-use carbon ribbon (for 580,000 characters) was more expensive to operate than a manual typewriter with its longer lasting recirculating ink-impregnated cloth ribbon. This was compensated by enabling a faster typing speed on the electric typewriter.

Over the period August 1972 through to the end of December 1975, Gloria also typed the offset printing masters for the majority of the Forest Research Note series originating out of Bulolo.

Crash of a Caribou transport aircraft near Wau

On 28 August 1972 a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Caribou transport aircraft A4-233 of 38 Squadron crashed at the Kudjeru Gap near Wau on a flight from Lae to Port Moresby in poor weather.

On board were 25 army cadets. All but one were students of De La Salle Secondary School Bomana returning from an Australian Army School Cadet Camp in Lae, and five RAAF crew. Twenty one of the 25 cadets and all the crew were killed. The crash site (shown left in a RAAF photograph) took several days to locate in thick jungle. Bodies were lifted out and carried by helicopter to the Forestry College oval and initially held in a temporary morgue set up in the cold store used for storage of araucaria seed at the Forest Station, Bulolo.

Acting Principal Research Officer August – September 1972

While Barry Gray was on recreation leave, I was Acting Principal Research Officer and Officer-inCharge of the Forest Research Centre, Bulolo.

Catastrophic fires in Bulolo plantations September 1972

A severe drought occurred throughout the highlands and inland areas of Papua New Guinea from June to September 1972.41The Bulolo Valley experienced very low rainfall during this period. A fire broke out in grassland near the Heads Hump Logging Area plantations across the Bulolo River and east of the town in September 1972. It quickly spread into adjacent plantations, secondary forest and grasslands.

41 See for example: Bureau of Meteorology 1972 Drought in the Papua New Guinea Highlands during the period June to September 1972. Synoptic Research Branch, Working Paper 161, 40/169 of December 1972, Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, 31pp.

The Forest Department in Bulolo immediately committed all its available firefighting resources to tackle the rapidly spreading blaze which was being driven by extraordinarily low humidity, strong wind and the very heavy and dry fuel load beneath mainly immature plantations of pines, araucarias and eucalypts.

At the time the Forest Department in Bulolo had on hand and serviceable 2x850 gallon [3,864 l) Bedford

4x4 Fire Tankers, 2 x 160 ft [about 50 m] 3,4 line hose reels with 2 ½ inch [63.5 mm] hose outlets, 4 petrol-engine driven water pumps, 5 x 500 gallon [2,275 l] slip on steel tanks, 2 x 200 gallon [909 l] slip on fibre glass tanks and 2 x 60 gallon [273 l] canvas dams. Also available were 92 Rega 10 gallon [45 l] galvanized iron and brass firefighting knapsacks, 104 fire rake hoes and 27 shovels.

After 24 hours of firefighting effort the blaze continued to spread at an increasingly rapid pace. Bulldozers were employed to carve fire lines but were hampered by steep country. Swirling windy conditions both day and night in the Valley enabled the fire to cross over forest roads and cleared fire lines and back burning was too risky under the prevailing conditions. The heavy fuel load including tall kunai grass and bamboo clumps shed burning embers which caused spot fires well ahead of the main blaze. On the second day Kevin White (Assistant Director, Silviculture) flew in from HQ Port Moresby to take charge of fire control operations. John Godlee was OIC Bulolo Station at the time.

Quantities of small firefighting equipment such as fire rakes, knapsacks, fire hoses and portable pumps were purchased in Brisbane and Townsville and flown directly into the Bulolo airstrip on cargo DC3s. Cooks were mustered to provide labourers on the fire lines with food and water around the clock. Expatriate women took to the task of providing sandwiches and one hot meal per day to the expatriates

Looking east over Bulolo town, where smoke and steam are coming from the plywood factory, across to the farside hills above the Bulolo River, showing the Heads Hump Logging Area plantations before the dry spell in 1972.

in the field. Betty Nissen and Gloria were among those wives and partners pitching in, though both were in the very late stages of pregnancy!

Strenuous firefighting effort had little effect for several days. The fire was stopped eventually by changing weather conditions characterized by a few showers and calmer wind conditions. Also, there were few new dry areas left to burn after nearly all of the plantation areas on the eastern side of the Bulolo River were consumed. Despite the dry conditions the fire did not burn very far into intact rainforest. John Gardiner flew in from Port Moresby to relieve Kevin White in charge of fire operations.

In all a total of 911 ha of plantations was burned, 12% of the then established plantations in the Bulolo – Wau area. Plantations destroyed comprised 833 ha of Araucaria spp, 74 ha of Pinus spp and 4 ha of Eucalyptus spp. The eucalypts were a mixture of Corymbia citriodora, 42 E. grandis, E. deglupta, C. torelliana and some natural eucalypt hybrids. Only 59 ha of Araucaria cunninghamii was sufficiently mature to salvage immediately for timber. Insect and fungus attack on the remaining fire-killed immature and damaged Araucaria spp trees was extensive within the three months after the fire.43

42 In 1972 this species was classified in the genus Eucalyptus Corymbia is a relatively new genus (from 1995) and now contains 113 species, 80 of which were formerly within Eucalyptus, including C. citriodora and C. torelliana 43 See Wylie F R and Shanahan P J 1973 Insect attack in fire-damaged plantation trees at Bulolo in Papua New Guinea. Journal of the Australian Entomological Society 14:371-382.

A mix of killed and severely damaged immature Hoop Pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) plantation trees two weeks after the Heads Hump fire.

The devastation at Heads Hump photographed two weeks after the fire. The fire also burnt through most the grasslands on the slopes in the distance that were outside the plantations. However, fire did not penetrate far into the relatively intact rainforest. In the foreground is part of the more than 800 ha of killed immature Hoop Pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) that was unsalvageable and immediately attacked by fungi and beetles.

My brother Robert surveys the damage two weeks after the Heads Hump Bulolo fire. Robert had just arrived in Bulolo to accompany Gloria to Australia for the birth our first baby in Armidale, NSW.

The fire kill in the mixed eucalypts was patchy. The C. torelliana on the left may have survived because its canopy had already shaded out most of the grass underneath reducing the dry fuel load. It also has a relatively thick bark. It is naturally fire resistant in its natural habitat in northern Australia. The C. citriodora on the right has been almost completely killed. The high oil content in the leaves of C. citriodora increases their relative flammability. All the small number of exceptionally tall fast-growing natural hybrids between C. torelliana♀ and C. citriodora♂ in the Heads Hump LA were killed, including the one shown in the middle of this photograph.

Living in Bulolo from 1972

There were no TVs, or pre-recorded video cassettes. The local picture theatre was popular for its once a week programme, often with relatively new-release movies. Babies and very young children were brought along in baskets which were placed on the floor in the aisles. Older children often brought a pillow along and went to sleep on the floor during the second half of the programme.

Radio broadcasts were mainly received by shortwave from Port Moresby, Lae and Australia through the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Reception was often poor. The ABC broadcast a number of language tuition programmes to help with learning Pidgin English (Tok Pisin), some of which were recorded and sold on flexible 331/3 rpm flexible vinyl recordings to the general public for 50c each. Well-known recordings included stories narrated by Superintendent Mike Thomas: such as “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Three Little Pigs” (below).

Telephone communications were problematic. To call Australian numbers, the call had to be booked at the Post Office for a certain time, but one often had to wait hours for an eventual connection.

To supplement what was available in the Company store, Burns Philp and Steamships stores in Bulolo, plus a Burns Philp and a number of general and speciality stores in Lae, we placed a number of orders overseas for clothing, household linen and toys to mail-order firms such as Sears-Roebuck and Montgomery-Ward in the US. I added to my model aircraft collection and modelling supplies by dealing with a mail order business in Portsmouth, UK.

Milk, eggs and chicken and beef meat were delivered to Bulolo from Zenag where Mick Leahy had a large, and successful, cattle, dairy and poultry farm located about halfway between Lae and Bulolo, near Mumeng.

Also, Awilunga Pty Ltd Haus Mit located at “Nine Mile” on the Lae – Nadzab highway near the Lae –Bulolo turnoff would deliver beef, pork, eggs and chickens (see price list on the right).44

The local beer of choice was still South Pacific Lager which was being promoted as part of a healthy lifestyle!

The Bulolo Small-Bore Rifle Club

I joined the Bulolo Small-Bore Rifle Club (BSBRC) soon after arrival in Bulolo in 1972. Shooting was conducted on Sunday mornings, after which I usually collected Gloria from home and we had Sunday lunch at the Club. At the end of 1972 I won the Patrons Trophy (below left).

44 Mix of cents currency and pounds weight! 2.2 pounds (lbs) = 1 kg; so multiply price by 2.2 to get $/kg. Examples: Fillet Steak $2.42/kg, Topside Steak $1.43/kg, Pork Chops $1.98/kg. When we moved to Lae it was still worthwhile to make the trip to Awilunga every couple of weeks for our fresh meat and eggs rather than buy in Lae supermarkets packets of frozen meat shipped in from Australia.

There were also some minor awards such a butter dishes, ash trays, key rings, bottle openers, etc. for individual weekly events (previous page on the right). The illustration below is an example of the result from one of my shoots on 18 March 1973. The target was at 50 m distance. In the target photograph shown the scale is much reduced. The actual size of the inner circle (“bullseye”) is 12 mm diameter (worth 10 points), next is 29 mm diameter (worth 9 points). A bullet only had to touch the circle to score the value within that circle. Five shots were fired at each of the adjacent targets with a potential score of 100 points. In this example my score was 97 out of 100.

I was voted in as Captain of the BSBRC for 1974 – 1975.

Collecting PNG stamps

Gloria was at one time a keen stamp collector and over a period of some 20 years collected every first day of issue cover of stamps issued by PNG. A selection of those covers is shown here. While some of the stamps were rather bland, most were spectacularly colourful and sought after by collectors around the world.

Transiting Brisbane on leave from late 1972

From late 1972, when travelling with Ansett Airlines from PNG to Armidale NSW via Brisbane we usually stayed at the then recently completed Ansett Gateway Inn, 16 Ann Street, Brisbane at Ansett’s expense.

Ansett Gateway Inn and Pioneer Bus Terminal, Brisbane, under final stage of construction and installation of signage in the early 1970s. Now (2019) it is the Mercure Hotel. (Photograph: Queensland State Archives)

Change in designation of the Forest Research Centre

With the Research Stations at Dami (near Hoskins, West New Britain) and Baku (Gogol River, near Madang) operational, the designation of the Bulolo Forest Research Centre was changed to Bulolo Forest Research Station in the Research Branch. This was reflected in the new letterhead stationery printed in Port Moresby and sent out to the three Research Station locations (Bulolo example below with PNG crest adopted after self-government).

Early stage in the construction of a second wing parallel to the first at the Forest Research Station, Bulolo, in mid 1972. The original wing, parallel and off to the left about 20m, had been completed in mid-August 1968. My future office would be in the position being marked out by the carpenters at the near end of the building. I moved in during July 1972.

Breeding Teak (Tectona grandis) at Brown River and Keravat

In November 1972, a review of the current status of the teak breeding program was made and Jeff Fairlamb was sent to Brown River to carry out some additional work.

Teak was first introduced from Burma to German New Guinea during the period 1880 to 1900, at Alexishafen in the vicinity of present-day Madang, near Namatanai on New Ireland and near Kokopo on New Britain. Most of the early planting in PNG originated from these areas.

In the early 1960s FAO had organised the exchange of seed among Burma (Myanmar), India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaya (Malaysia), Thailand and PNG for provenance trials.

Early tree breeding with teak in PNG was carried out by Kevin White and Alan Cameron.45Plus tree selection started in 1962. 20 selections were made from local plantations, 6 from Thailand and 6 from India.

Important developments with this species in the early 1970’s had been the importation of additional scions of superior trees from overseas. In PNG, teak from the south west coast of India on average produced trees with better form than imports from Burma.

A seed stand in Compartment 1 Fryar LA at Keravat and two clonal grafted seed orchards, one at Keravat, the other at Mt Lawes (Brown River), totalling about 16 ha, provided seed for the then maximum annual planting programme.

Progeny trials had been established at both Keravat (1967, 1968) and Mt Lawes (1966). These trials were under pressure from damage by squatters and illegal removals and attacks by mealy bugs. They were being repeated with new accessions.

In November 1972, the burn for the annual coupe in Edevu LA was completed, and the area readied for planting.

45 White K J 1962 Tree breeding with Teak (Tectona grandis). Australian Forestry 26:90-93; Cameron A L 1966 Genetic improvement of teak in New Guinea. Australian Forestry 30:76-87; Cameron A L 1968 Forest tree improvement in New Guinea. I. Teak. Ninth Commonwealth Forestry Conference, New Delhi, India, 1968. 8pp. Department of Forests, Port Moresby; Department of Forests 1968 Notes on the Mount Lawes Territorial Forest. Government Printer, Port Moresby.

This preparation was for one of the last relatively large annual plantations of teak established by the Government in the Brown River-Mt Lawes forest area.

After the burn, Mt Lawes, Edevu LA, in November 1972, the prelude for one of the last large-scale annual plantings of teak in the Brown River area (Photograph: J Fairlamb)

Even during the “dry” in November 1972, there were still soft spots on the access tracks in Edevu LA. Here teak thinnings are being laid as a corduroy. (Photograph: J Fairlamb).

46

During the 1980s the Hohora and Edevu LAs passed from the Government to the local landowners. Following the takeover, silvicultural management ceased and much of the older teak compartments were felled, including growth and basal area plots, progeny trials and “plus trees”.

When flying out of Port Moresby for Lae the usual flightpath passed over the Mt Lawes forests and teak plantations. The upper photograph taken in late 1972 early in the climb showed the new and young teak plantations, while a little later in the climb, the bottom photograph showed the established teak plantations that could be seen from the right hand side of the aircraft. The brown areas in the plantations were localities where leaf fall in this deciduous species was progressing during the dry season. Within the natural forest areas in the distance the paler green to brown areas were the eucalypt savannah forest patches embedded in lowland rainforest.

Teak clonal grafted seed orchard Mt Lawes, November 1972. Ramets were established from 1962 to 1965 at 12m triangular spacing on a random layout. First flowers were produced in 1964 on the largest individuals (earliest grafts). (Photograph: J Fairlamb)

Teak progeny trial No1, Mount Lawes, November 1972. This trial was established in 1966. The trial at this time during the dry season has lost most of its deciduous leaves. A low intensity ground fire has burnt through the trial consuming all the leaf litter. The trees are undamaged, but note there are many failed individuals indicated by the empty spaces near the pickets. (Photograph: J Fairlamb)

Teak progeny trial No 2, Mt Lawes, November 1972. New leaf shoots are beginning to appear after the annual seasonal deciduous phase. At the time this trial had not experienced a ground fire. The improvement in survival and straightness of the progeny was quite notable.

(Photograph: J Fairlamb)

I, assisted by Jeff Fairlamb, took over the teak breeding programme after Alan Cameron left the Territory in 1970. Importation of seed for provenance testing continued.

Difficulties were experienced with germination and insufficient stock was produced for well-planned trials. Jeff Fairlamb and I conducted a number of germination tests on teak fruits with cress seeds as a bioassay tool providing preliminary evidence that there was also a chemical germination inhibiter present as well as physical restrictions such as the hard seed coat.47

Cress seed bioassay indicating the presence of a chemical germination inhibiter. Left: Near 100% germination of cress seeds and rapid early growth on filter paper soaked with distilled water. Right: Poor germination and retarded growth of cress seeds on filter paper soaked with water in which teak fruits had been immersed for three days during the usual pre-germination treatment used in PNG.

evidence of a chemical germination inhibitor. Proceedings of IUFRO

47 Davidson J and Fairlamb J 1976 Germination of teak seed – preliminary

Meeting on Seed Problems, Japan, 1976. 10pp.

Left: Mealy Bug infestation on young Teak in Edevu LA, Compartment 10, Mt Lawes, November 1972.

Right: Though not a devastating pest in older trees and plantations, severe infestation on young plants as shown here could cause rapid death. (Photographs: J Fairlamb)

TG 27 (top left) and TG 29 (bottom left), two of 33 “plus tree” parents of half-sib clonal seedlings grown in the Brown River station nursery (top right and bottom right respectively), destined for a new half sib progeny trial. (Photographs in early November 1972: J Fairlamb)

“Early versus late flowering” in Teak

Teak, Balsa, Gmelina and Coffee are examples of the Koriba model of tree architecture where a tree forms several (in the order of three to five) branches that grow out at an angle from near the same origin (jorquette).

Basal Area Thinning Plot No 1 for teak at Mt Lawes in November 1972. (Photograph: J Fairlamb)

An unpruned Gmelina sp four years old, Mt Lawes (Brown River) in 1972, showing fan branches emerging from successive jorquettes up the stem. (Photograph: J Fairlamb)

In the case of Teak, the stem grows without branching with successive axillary flowering panicles produced at each node. When the terminal shoot is retarded for some reason, a near horizontal vegetative shoot rather than a flowering panicle occurs, usually setting the possible clear bole or log length. This behaviour which was usually accompanied by profuse flowering in the uppermost nodes was considered to be driven by both environmental (for example desiccation caused by extreme soil dryness) and genetic (tendency to enter a bout of profuse flowering) components. Therefore, one of the breeding objectives was to select for late terminal shoot decline. However, this had an unintended negative consequence when those selections were grafted into a clonal seed orchard in that one had to wait a longer time for the first abundant flower and fruit production to occur.

Two Teak saplings of the same age (and size). The one on the left has flowered profusely and has experienced of loss of apical shoot dominance accompanied by rapid decline of leaf and stem size at which level one or a whorl of more or less horizontal branches will develop setting the knot-free log length. The sapling on the right has not yet experienced a loss of apical dominance in the tip of the primary shoot and the branch free bole length continues to increase. (Photographs: J Fairlamb)

Trials of alternative species to Teak

As well as Gmelina arborea, Tectona hamiltonia (right) was tried at Brown River, but neither performed as well as the existing Teak species (Tectona grandis).

Review of Department of Forests, July 1972

A “Review of the Organisation and Classification of the Department of Forests” was conducted during July 1972 by A Edwards (Public Service Board) and M J Gardner (Department of Forests).

The Simpson Report, October 1972

The Simpson Report on employment security arrangements arose from an independent inquiry into the employment security of overseas officers and the provision of future staff to PNG by Australia. The inquiry was set up in August 1972 and was carried out by Mr A M Simpson CMG, a leading Adelaide businessman. The final report dated 23 October 1972 was presented to the Minister for External Territories and the Chief Minister of Papua New Guinea. The Simpson Report was accepted in principle by both the Australian and PNG Governments and was published in its entirety.

Teak plantations in flower at Brown River.