Melbourne raised plantation Forester Gayle Joyce, now of Jingellic NSW, believes life in regional Australia is about as good as it gets with all the things she loves right outside her front gate. In times of uncertainty and change, the message from Foresters around Australia is that working in the established plantation industry offers job security and career opportunities for young women and men.
“There are a lot of young women working in the industry at the moment and it’s always great to come across them and share our many stories and experiences,” said Gayle.
“All in all, we women are pretty well respected for what we’ve done and how we’ve arrived at where we are. It’s just a really great environment to work in. It’s a lot of fun, really no problems at all.”
Gayle Joyce is appearing in a media campaign designed to highlight the benefits of plantation forestry jobs for an industry and government organisation, Plantations for Australia: The 2020 vision.
The overarching principle of the Plantations 2020 Vision strategy is to enhance regional wealth creation and international competitiveness through a sustainable increase in Australia’s plantation resources, based on a notional target of trebling the area of commercial tree crops by 2020.
Plantations 2020 will this year launch a new online digital video platform to underscore the economic and social importance of young people at work in plantation forest industries in regional Australia.
As part of this campaign, Plantations 2020 crews have conducted interviews with young people in forestry all around Australia promoting life and careers in plantations targeting members of generation X and Y.(25-35 year olds and 18-25 year olds).
Gayle Joyce, 29, is Willmott Forest Limited’s Operations Manager for the Murray Valley region. “We do a little bit of harvesting of mature plantations purchased but as our local estate is fairly young, it’s mostly establishing new plantations and maintaining the 10,000 odd hectares we have already planted over the last 4 years.” she said.
“Moving forward we’re planting sustainably about 1,000 hectares per year, from about 4,000 hectares we did in our first couple of years. This is an extremely positive move because although Willmott Forests sales continue to increase, Willmott Forests have been able to enter into an arrangement wherein sales can be directed to re-establishing plantations previously harvested by HVP (Hancock Victorian Plantations). This reduces the pressure to acquire suitable land in competition with other land users, resulting in a more long term sustainable establishment program” said Gayle.
Melbourne-based HVP is Australia’s largest private timber plantation company managing around 245,000ha of plantation land across Victoria, supplying some three million tones of softwood (pine) and 300,000 tones of hardwood (eucalypt) to sawmillers, panel producers, pulp and papermills in Australia and overseas annually.
Each year, like Willmott Forests, HVP plantations timber is replacing half a billion dollars of potential forest product imports into Australia, supporting local investment and employment.
Gayle has no hesitation in recommending a career in the industry in which she and her husband, Sean, 32, take pride in and from which they earn their living. “I’d recommend a career in plantation forestry to anyone. It’s one of those industries where it’s a fairly specialised field, particularly for Foresters, and fortunately we’re in quite high demand.”
“Forestry is an enjoyable university degree and you always end up with a job. If you’re willing to move, there are private and public sector jobs throughout Australia.”
With her love of the outdoors, one of the best things about working in plantations for Gayle is having the opportunity to work in the fresh open air. “As you move up through management you do find yourself in the office a bit more but certainly in your earlier years you spend a lot of time in the field and really enjoying the
sunshine,” she said.
Having spent four years as an undergraduate at The Australian National University, Canberra, Gayle obtained her Bachelor of Science (Forestry) before going on to do an honors degree in Wood Science and Forest Genetics.
As part of the four and a half years study, she gained industry experience by deferring to work as an analyst at a forestry consulting firm managing their library resource before moving on to project work.
“I continued to work as an analyst once I finished Uni and got to travel overseas on projects which was fantastic. A really good experience,” Gayle says.
After meeting her now boss, Gus McEachern, Willmott Forests Softwood Plantations Manager at an industry conference in 2005 they began to talk about Willmott Forest’s work in plantation forestry. Gayle realised her role as an analyst meant she was missing out on an outdoors lifestyle and the real forestry experience.
With thoughts of working in plantations firmly fixed in her mind, she left the consultancy business to get involved in what she describes as more active practical forestry. The Murray Valley offers Gayle and Sean a wide variety of leisure activities. The snow fields are an hour away from their home by the Murray River and they’re surrounded by fantastic mountain biking territory.
“A town like Tumbarumba is really good for outdoor adventure sports,” Gayle says. “There’s a large mountain biking community in the forest industry and it just creates fantastic opportunities. You walk out of your door and it’s all there on your doorstep. People living in the city have to make weekend trips to have the sort of things we’ve got right here waiting for us every day.”
Gayle and Sean are committed to their lifestyle in the Murray Valley region and are making plans for the future. “Once some kids come along, we’ll start getting involved in school groups and other community groups,” Gayle said.
Timber continues to be amongst the worlds most in-demand resources for uses ranging from construction and furniture through to paper and packaging products. Australians are world leaders in producing a wide range of sustainable high quality timber products from plantations, and Australia has abundant land capable of growing high quality forest plantations.
