VicForests’ Melbourne office was the venue for the latest Integrated Land Management Curriculum Victoria ‘Land Management Education and Training Workshop’.

The workshop with staff from the University of Melbourne brought together different parts of the forestry and land management industry to discuss the education/training needs of employees and graduates in the sector.

The workshop was great opportunity to talk about the needs of staff in the industry with other organisations such as Parks Victoria, HVP, VAFI and Melbourne Polytechnic.

One thing that stood out in the discussion was the fact that organisations across the land management sector are looking for very similar skills in their employees.

The expectations on staff are changing and organisations recognise the importance of skills like stakeholder engagement, business and people management, flexibility and problem solving.

These capabilities are becoming more and more vital to complement the science-based knowledge and love of the outdoors which are common to people across our industry.

The workshops are a terrific initiative from School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences at Melbourne Uni.

The discussion was particularly valuable and VicForests was very happy to be able to assist by providing a venue for the session.

The annual Forest Industry Safety Summit, sponsored by VicForests, this year hosted in Melbourne, delivered a moving and powerful reminder on the importance of keeping forest industry employees safe at work.

The event, held in March, brought together forestry organisations from around Australia for two days to showcase new practices, systems and tools for improving forest safety and to focus on practical safety outcomes. 

Key note speakers included Ivan Pupalidy, Director of the Office for Learning with the US Forest Service, and Reynold Hert, Chairman and CEO of British Columbia Forest Safety Council.

A particularly moving presentation with a powerful safety message was delivered by Wiremu Lee Edmonds, from New Zealand.

Mr Edmonds is a fifth generation forest worker who spoke about tragically losing his son in a harvesting incident in 2013.

It was a stark, confronting and very personal story that Mr Edmonds delivered to industry attendees on what can go wrong and the tragic impact it has on loved ones.

It is an incredible story of tragedy but also of strength and courage and the need for every one of us to 'stand in the gap' to tackle workplace safety.

This story had such a profound impact that VicForests plans to invite Mr Edmonds over from New Zealand to talk to our staff and contractors about his experience.

Robert Green, VicForests’ CEO, also made a presentation showing the substantial progress VicForests, its staff and contractors have made towards the organisation’s goal of Zero Harm to all workers.

The summit was a great success and included a line-up of world class speakers from North America, New Zealand and of course Australia. It was great to see participation, from harvesting contractors to CEOs, all in the same room and sharing the same messages.

We are incredibly proud to be able to sponsor what we see as a crucial event in the forestry industry’s calendar. We need to keep striving to improve safety practices and keep people aware that a job in forestry can be, and often is, dangerous.

In 2014 we achieved 10 out of 12 months of zero harm which is an improvement on last year and helps us strive towards our core aim to have every single worker return safely home each day.

We have had some proud safety achievements this year but we can never be complacent and always need to strive for better safety outcomes.