About Us

Forestry Industry WA Welcome Mat is a cross-industry initiative to build a stronger industry in WA by forging links across our diverse professions and building a better understanding, across the industry, of who we are and what we do.
 
The idea for Welcome Mat was born when 12 industry professionals came together on an industry leadership program sponsored by the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation (ARLF). The 12 were tasked with developing a major project to solve an industry challenge. After visiting each other’s workplaces, they found that they didn’t know much about each other’s industries, even though they were all growing, processing and harvesting trees – so the biggest opportunity they had was in teaching industry about industry.
 
The Welcome Mat aims to develop a better understanding of each others’ challenges, and help to explain how the forest industry works to people outside of it. We see this as greater than our own companies, as it links everyone in the industry so that any person working in one corner of the industry can gain an understanding of all the other areas, all the other opportunities, and all of the job opportunities within the forest industry.
 
It is equally about understanding how the industry functions, who is out there that members can find information from, and where they fit – including building a greater understanding of organisations such as FIFWA and FWPA that support the industry.
 
Completing the Guided Tour and becoming a part of the Welcome Mat will give you an overview of the WA and Australian forest industry, help explain the different industry segments and how they relate to each other, and build your knowledge of how the forestry industry contributes to WA. The information on this website will help you to understand the context of your own job and talk to other people about the industry.
 
Welcome Mat is an initiative in partnership with Forest Industries Federation WA (FIFWA), our local WA forestry industry representative. FIFWA will help us to keep the information on this site current, and add value wherever we can to local industry.