permaculture

[Russ Grayson <pacedge@magna.com.au>]

THE NEW FOREST
Seeing really is believing.. rip lines contoured around hills, seedlings grown into young trees and new dams and service roads. Standing atop the Ralph Long Reserve, a hilltop named for the late- NSW Southern Highlands permaculture designer, I looked out over the undulations of EcoForest's Hunter region plantations of native hardwoods and rainforest trees. So this is what ethical investment can achieve, I thought.

I was doing some work with EcoForest Limited - we were on the property to mark out planting contours and a riparian strip along Mill Creek that will be planted to local rainforest species as a conservation reserve. My main work, though, was company communications - a new website, brochure, newsletter and media materials.

EcoForest is the creation of Australian ethical investment pioneer Damien Lynch, the man who started August Investments in 1981 and helped to start Australian Ethical Investments, the successful Canberra-based investment and superannuation company. 

EcoForest accepts investor's funds and turns them into marketable timbers in environmentally-designed plantations. The first trees - native Eucalypt hardwoods - were planted in 2001. Now, they are three meters tall and growing. Only one tree was lost to last year's drought.

After spending time with Damien and looking over the property, I wondered why there were not more examples of this type of development. Ecologically sustainable forestry, after all, reforests the land (cleared grazing land in the case of EcoForest's plantations), protects the waterways, reduces the incidence of erosion and soil salinity and  grows crop for which there exists a substantial and growing market. Where are the affluent, middle-class greens, the environmentalists, the better-off permaculture people? Such people certainly do exist. Where do they put their excess funds? How do they invest? What sort of activities do they support with their money?

I'll leave you with that thought. If you want to check out EcoForest's project: 
http://www.ecoforest.com.au/

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Russ Grayson
Media services:  journalism-print/ online/ photo
TerraCircle development aid team, Oceania
pacedge@magna.com.au  Phone/ fax: 02 9588 6931
PO Box 446 Kogarah NSW 2217 Australia
http://www.magna.com.au/~pacedge/
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