Suttie - 1959-1970

1959-1970

Bill Suttie Managing Director PNG Forest Service 1959-197088 .

After graduating from the Australian Forestry School, in 1932 Bill Suttie joined the Queensland Department of Forestry. He was a founding member of the Institute of Foresters of Australia in 1935.

During the second world war, he was in command of 1 Australian Forestry Survey Coy in Papua New Guinea, under 1 Command Royal Engineers (New Guinea Forests) as the Headquarters Unit, with J B McAdam (head of prewar New Guinea Forest Service) as commanding officer. After the war, he held several positions with the Department of Forestry in Queensland, the last being District Forester Atherton in North Queensland until he resigned in 1956 to join the Department of Forests in the Territory of Papua New Guinea.PNG. Here, he rose to be the second Director of Forests in PNG. After retiring from TPNG he lived at Caloundra until his death in 1982.

Bill Suttie’s forest management achievements as

Director of the Department of Forests PNG are outlined in his Presidential address to PNG Scientific Society 1962 89. He linked political directives of Spender in 1951 and Hasluck in 1957 with development of the functions of the Department of Forests in resource investigation, forestry education, biological and utilisation research, reforestation, afforestation, and acquisition of a permanent forest estate. Suttie noted that this marked a change from a period of exploitation to one of a consciousness of the need for a long-term forest conservation policy primarily in the interests of the native inhabitants of the Territory and the future need to train them in an awareness of the value of its forest resources.

Suttie outlined the extent of forests required for permanent or sustained supply of wood products and proposed measures in acquiring such a forest estate.

88 Photo credit Linda Cavanaugh Manning. (background is Dave Dun 1957 Bulolo). 89 PNG Scientific Society Presidential Address 1962 “A Transition Period” W R Suttie 115