Firstly, the importance of DESIGN TASMANIA’S TIMBERbank initiative [link MAY 2926] is acknowledged and its significance as a social cum cultural enterprise needs to be acknowledged as well.
This initiative may well lay a CORNERstone for a much-needed paradigm shift in cultural production and community social enterprises. Somehow 'congratulations’ does seem to be the right word but it will serve its purpose here and now. As Victor Hugo said, "Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”
This initiative may well lay a CORNERstone for a much-needed paradigm shift in cultural production and community social enterprises. Somehow 'congratulations’ does seem to be the right word but it will serve its purpose here and now. As Victor Hugo said, "Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”
Also, A truly strong ideas do not need the approval of others any more than a dog needs the approval of cats ... zingPROVERB
Australian makers are incrementally losing opportunities to 'make making matter' as governments and public institutions et al retreat into some form of corporatisation. Andy Warhol was insightful when he pointed out that when ‘they' always say time changes things, what in reality has to happen, is to be active in making the changes yourself! Resource recovery means making changes oneself rather imagining that its someone else’s gig … and there is no ‘away’ to consign things to anyway!
The concept of a WOODbank in Launceston/Tasmania has been speculated upon for quite some time as trees have been removed and lost from places where they were offering an amenity. Typically, when removed/lost the resources invested in them have been disregarded and ultimately trashed. While it might be argued that the wood not seen as ‘fuel’, in its chipping, mulching and composting that material, and the sequestered carbon, coincidently finds a niche in the landscape.
A network of people been engaged with networks of makers et al and elements of those ‘conversations’ are among other sites are posted here … https://oncycling2025.blogspot.com/ … and … https://notrubbish.blogspot.com/p/taswegianwoodbank7250.html … and … https://onetreeaustralia.blogspot.com/
In the networking it turns out it seems that the unutilised and undervalued resource ‘handled’ by arborists, as a by-product of their service , is much larger than many currently imagine.
One person inn the group grew up in Mullumbimby and in those days, there were many small mills producing a range of ’timer products’ primarily for domestic use – construction timber, fencing, packing cases for the banana industry etc. It does not seem to be an exaggeration to equate the unutilised and undervalued resource handle by arborist and local govt as being sufficient to sustain at least one, if not two, Mullumbimby mills of that era. This represents a more than significant resource that could and should be sustaining DESIGNERmakers and others in their enterprises – small to medium and possibly even larger endeavours. Moreover, the supply chain is short.
Sadly, in Australia/Tasmania for the most part the ‘resource’ within ‘lost trees’ is misunderstood and grossly undervalued. Moreover, the resource needs to be valued and used by local cultural producers as that will enhance the cultural landscape from which it originated rather than pander to globalism’s dystopia.
By-and-large within the Australian 'settler society’ a colonial mindset has seen 'the forests’ of the continent and its adjacent islands essentially as a mineable resource. The component put to domestic use was/is small. Ideally, the investment driven income generating export oriented ‘forestry industry’, was designed to enrich the "elsewhere corporate world". Investing industrialists have been enriched and environments and ecosystems have been impoverished.
Industrial ‘clearfell’ forestry has depleted Australia’s forestry resources and the 'carbon bank’ in forests to such an extent that many tree species are no longer available for purposes they once served. In the wake all this it is time to reimagine placemaking relative to the wood resource recovery in urban, peri-urban and sustainably managed rural cultural landscapes.
A WOODbank network would have the potential to market the wood resource that currently is undervalued. All too often it is mindlessly trashed. While the TOPdown corporate sector clearly does not see a ‘fiscal profit’ to be made in marketing this resource there are others who see a social cum environmental and cultural ‘dividend’ along with a financial reward to be gleaned from what might regarded as an incidental resource – it isn’t at all.
Importantly, a WOODbank should not be seen as a ‘business’ in the way that businesses have traditionally come to be understood but as ‘community social enterprise’ in much the same way as ‘cooperatives’ where and are with their ‘dividends’ by-and-large being social – albeit often delivering financial benefits as well.
The speculative draft for a WOODbank in Tasmania’ ‘purpose for being’ is … "To acknowledge, utilise and bank the resources invested in trees located in urban, peri-urban and managed rural landscapes given the part they play, and their resources play, in holistic cultural landscaping and environmental sustainability, and do so ONEtree at a time.”
When and if a WOODbank takes shape its ‘investors’ – those investing wood resources in the operation and not by necessity ‘cash’ – may well wish to see the operation's ‘purposefulness' in another way … in another light if you like.
Speculatively, it is submitted that such an operation has the best chance of delivering its dividends if it exists as a network of networks and is structured rhyzomatically rather than an inefficient TOPdown TOPheavy 'hierarchical managerial structure’ – for context see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuGh-jzupzc … see also https://placemakinghomeplaces.blogspot.com/p/rhizomatics.html … and … https://raynorman7250.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_14.html
Should you or people in your network have an interest in participating in some way with a TASWEGIAN WOODbank please:
- Share this email with people in your network; and/or
- eMail me and I’ll share your expression of interest with others who have done so.
If and when, it turns out that there is a ‘coalition of the willing’ the possibility of establishing a TASWEGIAN WOODbank can be explored in the cause of more sensibly, and sensitively, using a resource that is currently all too often being trashed – and at a considerable and ongoing expense to environmental sustainability.
The network looks forward any response and the possibility of there being at some time in the future a TASWEGIAN WOODbank.
SEE THESE LINKS ALSO
Strategic Plan ...https://tasmaniansustainablecommunities.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html
- Tas Sustainable Communities … https://tasmaniansustainablecommunities.blogspot.com/
LINK … https://notrubbish.blogspot.com/p/taswegianwoodbank7250.html
PLEASE TEXT 61 9488 011 376 WITH AN eMAIL ADDRESS IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN RECEIVING MORE INFORMATION
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