One of the major lessons we took away from the Master TreeGrower Program course was that, unless you had the skills and the time to do the plantation development work yourself, you should employ someone who has done it all before to help with the planning and establishment of the plantation. Since we were committed to working in our transport consultancy business (TUTI) for a few more years, it was obvious that we would need help in establishing the plantation.
One of the organisations recomended by John Woodley, and who spoke to the Master TreeGrower Program, was Woollybutt Pty Ltd. This forestry management company plans and grows trees, for clients, for high value timber products. We had been particularly impressed with Clinton Tepper when he spoke to the MTG Program, because of his considerable background knowledge and his ability to express new concepts (to us, at least!) in clear, simple language.
We therefore engaged Woollybutt in July 2005 to prepare a Timber Plantation Plan for the Blue Range Close Plantation. This Plan was submitted to us in November 2005, and covered the following items; Property Assessment, Planting Options, Plantation Establishment Plan, Management Guidelines, Economic Facts and Figures, Financal Analysis, Recommendations. Most of these items are the topics to be covered in this diary.
Woollybutt also provided a draft timetable for the establishment of the plantation, which we have incorporated into our overall timeline for the project.
