Australian Research Archive
A History of the involvement of CSIRO in Forest Products Research
CSIRO ends Forest Products research after almost 100 years
Under the guise of “portfolio restructuring”, in 2010 the CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering management sent letters of redundancies to the remaining 28 staff of what was then called the Forest Fibre Science Group, the remnants of staff having previously survived the last big cull of forest products research activities in 2008-9. That cull took place after a decade of struggling and shrinking activities following the merger shake-up of Forestry and Forest Products in 1999-2000.
It was in the aftermath of World War I that the Institute of Science and Industry, the forerunner of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, later called the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation or CSIRO, established a national Forest Products Laboratory jointly with the Western Australia government. The laboratory was located at the University of Western Australia. Prior to that time forest products research was being carried out in a number of states in Australia, including New South Wales in the Museum of Technology. The CSIRO Division of Forest Products (DFP) came into being as an independent government funded entity in May 1928, with its research activities being undertaken at different locations. Eventually all activities of the Division were relocated to a laboratory site on the banks of the Yarra River, where the once-familiar red brick building of the Division of Forest Products was erected.
The South Melbourne site was deemed to be an ideal location close to transport, government and, most importantly (even then) the forest products industry. Over the years the original 4-storey building acquired another floor and roof-top green houses and, much later, a modern cement block wing.
The early research activities at Yarra Bank Road included Preservation, Seasoning, Wood Chemistry, and Wood Structure, and developed over the years to also include Timber Physics and Timber Mechanics (later known as Engineering), Utilisation, and Glueing and Veneering (forerunner of the Timber Conversion section). The section names evolved along with the Division’s work, with research in the late 1960s being organised into sections such as Physiology and Microstructure, Physics, Preservation (a name that was retained until the late 1970s when it became Conservation and Biodegradation), Engineering, and Timber Conversion. Along the way pulp and paper research (in the guise of Paper Science) was added to the portfolio and Statistics and Photography completed the broad endeavours of what had become a world-renowned Forest Products Laboratory.
| circa 1970 | circa 2020 |
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The bulk of the work was funded by the government but there was also some support, particularly in the later years of its existence, from the forest products industry (it is tempting to remark, with the benefit of hindsight, that the industry’s support for forest products research was too little and too late).
During the 1970s DFP began its slow downward spiral as decision after decision by the hierarchy of CSIRO fragmented its work over the next three decades, re-aligning its activities on a discipline basis rather than an end-user orientation. The CSIRO hierarchy argued that if DFP research was worthwhile from the industry’s viewpoint (we had almost ceased to work on purely fundamental issues) then the industry should pay for it! In truth, the forest products industry did little to halt this slide, even as the mainstream efforts like Preservation, Seasoning, Sawmilling and Composite Products research were being touted as endeavours for and in collaboration with the industry.
Over the years the Division of Forest Products achieved a remarkable international reputation for excellence in research and industrial innovation; at the height of its activities there were some 300 personnel working on scientific and industrial research, as set down by CSIRO’s charter at the time. The Division’s contributions to the basic understanding of forest products and to the operations and processes of the current forest products industries will long remain a testimony to its achievements, even after its death!
Harry Greaves. March 2010
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