Sad old stumps

At Scottsdale we came across a much touted Forest Eco Centre, a building that has won awards for its architectural design, which incorporates many eco-elements: its outer skin separated from the inner offices, enhancing insulation, natural heating and cooling; its computerised louvres 'read' the temperature and open and close as required, and a thin central core of synthetic skin inhales and exhales air like a balloon, when it is either too hot or too cold, allowing the building to 'breathe'.

There are elements, though, where the architects might have been thrown soft rotten tomatoes. You can't walk into the loo without having to turn sideways: the passageway is so poorly designed and cramped you can barely negotiate the door. And, the loos, in the ladies, fill and flush so slowly they barely swirl the sitting water. It is annoying. 

A pretty building true, yet the office staff appear distant and removed from it all in their naturally air-conditioned louvred-office spaces while their information displays in the public spaces have curling corners and look more than a little limp and tawdry. 

Come on, Forestry Tasmania staff, strut your stuff a little better! 

There is a local man in this part of Tasmania who seems to be quite busy creating wood sculptures using skeletons of dead and dying tree trunks, carving them with his chain saw. After seeing examples of his work on remnant trees in Scottsdale parks, we drove to the village of Legerwood where there were more. 

Here, trees had been planted in memory of each of the young men from the district who died in the first World War. Decades later, when the trees started to die and were under threat of removal, a sleepy community was galvanised into action, organising memorials for each young soldier to be carved into the stump of one of the trees. 

The stories are poignant. Young men who thought they were invincible, died in the arms of their mates, who lived longer to tell their tales. One dying soldier asked his mate to look after his young wife if he made it home. His friend did. He even married her. So many sad stories. Such thoughtful carvings. 

Made even more tragic as our car radio seems tuned to one of the many Armageddon stations, all promising a bleak future for Tasmania's timber, pulp and wood chip industry. 

Tasmania's last woodchip mill was shut down in April. The big woodchip buyers, Japan and China, still need woodchip but seem able to access cheaper product in other parts of the world or in other states of Australia, undercutting Tasmania. Moreover they seem to prefer the soft stuff, not the native hardwoods that Tasmania apparently has on offer. Or so says the radio. 

Three thousand timber workers throughout Tasmania have lost their jobs in recent months and unemployment among young adult males is running at dire levels, 7.3% this January. But, it is not only timber that tells a tragic tale as we drive. 

Wood sculpture in Legerwood

All along the street in memory

Eco Centre, Scottsdale