Dr John Dargavel
Research interests
- Forest history
- History of forest science
- History of Australian wood collections (xylaria)
- History of forestry education
- Biographies of foresters
- Political economy of forest sector
- Labour history of forest sector
- Arboreal remembrance
Biography
John Dargavel is actively engaged in several aspects of environmental and forest history research.
He has forestry degrees from the Universities of Edinburgh and Melbourne. His doctorate from ANU presented a radical analysis of the development of the Tasmanian wood industries. He worked as a forester in government and industry for twenty years, and spent a year researching and teaching in the University of Georgia before moving to ANU in 1982. He has researched and taught in the areas of forest economics, planning, politics and history.
He is the author of over 70 papers and has editied 10 books covering forest science, management, industrial and labour history, trade, environmental politics, and cultural aspects of landscape and remembrance.
His book on Australian forest history, Fashioning Australia's Forests (Oxford University Prss) was published in 1995 and his biography, The Zealous Conservator: a Life of Charles Lane Poole (University of Western Australia Press) was published in 2008. His most recent book on the history of forest science over the last three centuries was written with Elisabeth Johann, Science and Hope: a Forest History (White Horse Press) was published in 2013, followed by a German edition Die Geschichte der Forstwissenschaft – eine Geschichte der Hoffnung in 2018.
Researcher's projects
Restoring Forests in Times of Contagion
I am working with others to collect papers that reflect on the history and policy of tree planting to restore Australian and New Zealand forests and landscapes. They will be published on-line in October 2020 to mark John Evelyn’s birth in 1620. The coincidences of Evelyn’s time and ours extend beyond the need for trees. Just as the Royal Society published John Evelyn’s Sylva or a Discourse on Forest Trees in 1664, England was hit by the Plague. Just as we were planning a conference forest restoration, we have been hit by COVID19. Just as Evelyn was appalled by waste and deforestation, so are we in many of our landscapes. Evelyn wrote Sylva as a textbook on restoring the English forests. We need to restore our Southern Hemisphere forests and landscapes in ways that consider our own history, environment, changing climate and ravaging bushfires.
Environment in everyday life
I am currently investigating the paradoxes of how the environment appears in a variety of aspects of everyday life. Canberra as 'the Bush Capital' provides many examples, of which the fences at Mulligans Flat nature reserve are one. Dust from which the universe and us was created, and which appears annoyingly in our houses each week is another example.
The lives of Australian foresters
I investigated the lives of Australian foresters in a collaborative project in National Centre for Biography with the Australian Forest History Society and the Insitute of Foresters of Australia. An initial inventorywas prepared with 186 obituaries and 20 entries in the National Dictionary of Biography. It covers the period from 1900 to 2015.
History of Australia's wood collections (xylaria)
In collaboration with Gordon Dadswell (University of Melbourne) and Phil Evans (University of British Columbia) I am investigated the history of Australia's wood collections.
These were created in the states from the 1880s and nationally from the 1920s and together constitute the scientific infrastructure for wood anatomy. Several of the collections are falling into disuse and their future conservation is problematic. A particular case is the collection held at ANU that was originally started in 1928 by the Commonwealth Forestry Bureau.
Publications
- Dargavel, John & and Johann, Elizabeth 2013, Science and hope: a forest history, White Horse Press, Cambridge.
- Dargavel, John 2012, ‘Contested forestries, contested educations: a centenary reflection’, Australian Forestry vol. 75, no. 1, pp. 16-21.
- Dargavel, John 2012, ‘On dispossession’, in Brett J. Stubbs, Jane Lennon, Alison Specht and John Taylor (eds.) Australia’s Ever-changing Forests VI: Proceedings of the Eighth National Conference on Australian Forest History, Australian Forest History Society, Lismore.
- Dargavel, John 2012, 'Lawrence, Alfred Oscar Platt (Alf) (1904–1986)'. Australian Dictionary of Biography. vol.18. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/lawrence-alfred-oscar-platt-alf-14849/text26034.
- Dargavel, John 2011, ‘Netting the global forest: attempts at influence’, Global Environment , no. 5, pp. 128-158.
- Dargavel, John 2009, ‘Contested visions and the Australian Forestry School’, Forest History Today, vol. 15, nos 1&2, pp. 15-21.
- Dargavel, John 2009, ‘History of forestry: institutions and culture’, Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), Eolss Publishers, Oxford, U.K, .
- Dargavel, John 2008 ‘Iron, steel and timber: a transient heritage’, Australian Journal of Transdisciplinary Engineering, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 67-76.
- Dargavel, John 2008, The Zealous Conservator, a Life of Charles Lane Poole, Crawley, WA, University of Western Australia Press.
- Roche, Michael M & Dargavel, John 2008, ‘Imperial ethos, dominions reality: forestry education in New Zealand and Australia, Environment and History, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 523-43.
- Dargavel, John 2006, ‘From exploration to science: Lane Poole’s forest surveys of Papua and New Guinea, 1922-1924’, Historical Records of Australian Science, vol. 17, pp. 71-90.
- Agnoletti, M, Dargavel, J & Johann, E. 2005, ‘History of forestry’, Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), Developed under the Auspices of the UNESCO, Eolss Publishers, Oxford ,UK, .
- Dargavel, John 2005, ‘Charles Lane Poole in the transition from Empire’, in Micheal Calver, Heidi Bigler-Cole, Geofrey Bolton, John Dargavel, Andrea Gaynor, Pierre Horwitz, Jenny Mills & Grant Wardell-Johnson (eds), A forest conscienceness: Proceedings of 6th National Conference of the Australian Forest History Society, Rotterdam: Millpress, pp. 65-74.
- Dargavel, John 2005, ‘Managing amidst conflict: the Huon District forests of Tasmania’, in Patrick B. Durst, Chris Brown, Henrylito D. Tacio and Miyuki Ishikawa (eds), In search of excellence: exemplary forest management in Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, Regional Community Forestry Training Centre for Asia and the Pacific, FAO, pp. 239-50.
- Dargavel, John 2004, ‘The Fight for the Forests in retrospect and prospect’, Australasian Journal of Environmental Management, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 237-44.
- Dargavel, John 2004. ‘Persistence and transition on the Wangites-Wagait Reserves, 1892-1976’, Journal of Northern Territory History, vol. 15, pp. 5-19.
- Dargavel, John 2003, ‘“Not easy work to starve their employees”: the 1921-22 Tasmanian timber dispute’. Labour History, vol. 24, pp. 47-67.
- Dargavel, John 2003. ‘Determining plantation prospects: parameters and purposes’, Australian Forestry, vol. 60, no. 1, pp. 9-11.
- Dargavel, John 2002, ‘Avenues’, ‘Forestry’, ‘Lane Poole, Charles Edward’, ‘State Forest Nurseries’ in Richard Aitken and Michael Looker (eds), The Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, pp. 62-4, 228-9, 358-9, 568.
- Dargavel, John 2002, ‘Hard work to starve: a Tasmanian play’, in John Dargavel, Denise Gaughwin & Brenda Libbis (eds), Australia’s ever-changing forests V: Proceedings of the Fifth National Conference on Australian Forest History, Canberra, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, The Australian National University, pp. 228-50.
- Dargavel, John 2002, ‘Sources and silences in Australian forest history’, in John Dargavel, Denise Gaughwin & Brenda Libbis (eds), Australia’s ever-changing forests V: Proceedings of the Fifth National Conference on Australian Forest History, Canberra, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, The Australian National University, pp. 39-48.
- Dargavel, John, Gaughwin, Denise & Libbis, Brenda (eds), Australia’s ever-changing forests V: Proceedings of the Fifth National Conference on Australian Forest History, Canberra, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, The Australian National University. Dargavel, John 2002, ‘Sources and silences in Australian forest history’, in John Dargavel, Denise Gaughwin & Brenda Libbis (eds), Australia’s ever-changing forests V: Proceedings of the Fifth National Conference on Australian Forest History, Canberra, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, The Australian National University, pp. 39-48. Dargavel, John 2002, ‘Hard work to starve: a Tasmanian play’, in John Dargavel, Denise Gaughwin & Brenda Libbis (eds),2002 Australia’s ever-changing forests V: Proceedings of the Fifth National Conference on Australian Forest History, Canberra, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, The Australian National University, pp. 228-50.
- Dargavel, John & Kowald, Margaret 2001, ‘Management plans for cypress pine forests’, in John Dargavel, Diane Hart & Brenda Libbis (eds) 2001, Perfumed pineries: environmental history of Australia’s Callitris forest, Canberra, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, The Australian National University, pp. 136-49.
- Dargavel, John, Hart, Diane & Libbis, Brenda (eds) 2001, Perfumed pineries: environmental history of Australia’s Callitris forest, Canberra, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, The Australian National University.
- Dargavel, John 2000, ‘In the wood of neglect’, in M. Agnoletti and S. Anderson (eds), Forest history: International studies on socio-economic and forest ecosystem change, Wallingford, CABI Publishing, pp. 264-77.
- Dargavel, John 2000, ‘More to grief than granite: arboreal remembrance in Australia’, Journal of Australian Studies, no. 64, pp. 187-95.
- Dargavel, John, Proctor, Wendy & Kanowski, Peter 2000, ‘Conflict and agreement in Australian forests’, in Luca Tacconi (ed.), Biodiversity and Ecological Economics: Participation, Values, and Resource Management, London, Earthscan Publications, pp. 101-15.
