In fact Ron still uses his bullocks to snig timber on his Tomerong property, reviving an ancient art, now all-but-lost in the mists of time.

MAN and wood have been an item since the day dot.

Our forests provide a rich source of renewable timber products, while protecting water catchments and creating a home for a great range of biodiversity, crawling with all sorts of interesting critters.

Forests have traditionally supplied building material, paper, food, medicines, firewood and importantly, jobs for many rural communities, but these days the industry has to battle for survival, despite the bleeding obvious fact that there is absolutely no reason why all of these things cannot coexist sustainably.

HERE on the Southern Highlands we still have a forestry industry, with well managed plantations at Penrose, Meryla, Belanglo and some smaller operations, but timber-getting has gone down the path of so many other local industries, with most operators squeezed out of business for a variety of reasons.

World champion axeman George Quigg still knocks down a tree or two at Canyonleigh, while Phil Worner keeps us in firewood and fence-posts, but Blatch's Mittagong sawmill closed in the 1970s and Missingham's haven't sharpened a saw on Jamberoo Road in years.

Yet, out Robertson way, from the early 1870s, timber mills, good axemen and bullock teams were an important part of the local landscape, as huge trees were hauled out of the Yarrawa Brush, milled then taken down the mountain to the wharf at Kiama or to the railhead at Moss Vale or Mittagong, to help build our young country.

We had a booming timber industry then, but only a brave person would dare drag a tree out of the Robertson rainforest these days.

A SUSTAINABLE management strategy doesn't decimate forests, but generates more and more trees, ensuring a never ending cycle - the classic renewable resource if managed well.

It is ever so duplicitous, ever so hypocritical, to get all precious about forestry, when every one of us uses timber products each day, even the most rusted-on environmentalists, like me.

Let's face it, the Australian forestry industry plants around sixty million trees each year, as this amazing natural resource continually renews itself.

FORESTRY seems to be a rural industry that is often governed by emotive city politics.

City dwellers read their newspaper, live in a wooden framed house with beautiful timber flooring, have a timber dining table, churn through a mountain of photocopy paper every day and of course, use toilet paper, yet so many otherwise well-meaning people, hypocritically object to Australia having a forestry industry, irrespective of how sustainable it may be.

THE alternative, of course, is to import all our timber, over many sea miles, from countries with outdated, unsustainable and downright exploitative clear-felling philosophies.

Surely it is better to use our own locally grown trees to create jobs, while ensuring first class, highly regulated forestry practices that allow us to grow, process and manufacture our own timber products, without importing them.

It is a no-brainer really, isn't it?

WE should finish with Dudley's lovely daughter Georgina, who went through the student rebellion phase while at university and headed off with friends to protest about forestry activities at Robertson.

There was a very tall tree in the middle of the forest, so she began climbing up in a bear hug fashion to mount her protest.

As Georgina neared the top she was suddenly attacked by an angry possum. She let loose her grip and slid down the trunk at ever increasing speed.

Consequently she managed to get many splinters in her nether regions.

In considerable pain she hurried off to see the doctor in the logging camp. He calmly listened to Georgina's story and then told her to go into the examination room.

She went into the room and waited for three hours before the doctor returned.

"What took you so long, Doc?" asked Georgina.

"Well, I had to get permits from the Environmental Protection Authority, the Catchment Management Authority, Wingecarribee Shire Council, as well as the Department of Environment and Primary Industries, before I could remove old-growth timber from a recreational area."

ANYHOO, see you at the Robbo Show and do say "g'day" to Ron McKinnon.