Olney State Forest is a regrowth forest that has been continually harvested and regrown for more than a century.  It forms part of the State forests of the Watagan Mountains, which have one of the longest histories of continual harvesting and regrowth in Australia. Today it is managed for environmental conservation, tourism and renewable timber production.

History

Harvesting of the district commenced in the 1820s with the cutting of red cedar in the fertile river valleys. From this time, the cutting of hardwoods progressed steadily into valley and foothill forests of the coastal areas including Strickland and Ourimbah State Forests and the Watagan Forests.

With the onset of the gold rushes in the 1850s, timber getting, boat building and agriculture flourished. Hardwood timber was used for shoring and mining props. By 1870 the majority of the readily available timber in the coastal areas had been harvested. Strickland State Forest was reported as being heavily logged prior to 1875 and Wyong and Ourimbah State Forests had been heavily cut over before 1916.

The depression of the 1930s reduced harvesting activity markedly, however the war years between 1940 to 1945 reversed this trend. The demand for products such as rifle butts and the proximity of the area to Sydney saw heavy exploration of the resource. Extensive operations for mining timber also occurred during these years. These days operations are more minimal and there is now a balance of national park for conservation and forests for multiple uses including timber and tourism

Current plans

Forestry Corporation is planning a selective operation to harvest a range of renewable timber products and then regrow for the future. A key product from this operation will be the specialist product turpentine piles, which are naturally resistant to marine borers. Piles grown in the forests of the Watagan Mountains have been used to build wharves in Sydney for over 150 years. Today it is recognised as a much more renewable and sustainable product than the more carbon intensive and non-renewable alternates such as concrete.

These operations have been carefully planned in line with the strict regulations in place for native forestry operations in NSW. In a selective harvesting operation, a proportion of the trees is selected and harvested for timber and large areas are set aside for a range of values.

Planning a selective harvesting operation takes several months and includes detailed environmental and wildlife surveys and  mapping to ensure wildlife habitat, old growth, rainforest, riparian zones and other environmental features and cultural heritage are protected. Read more about the conditions for native forest operations in NSW.

The turpentine piles will be harvested by the only specialist turpentine pile operators in NSW, a family business with a long history of harvesting this product in the region. Each tree is selected months in advance, is ringbarked so the bark stays on the tree and then selectively harvested.

See the video below to find out more about the process of planning a native forest operation and visit our Plan Portal to see the detailed plans for this operation.