 The war years saw activity again fall away sharply while afterwards there was a new focus on developing native forests in eastern Victoria owing to the conclusion of the 1939 bushfire salvage and to provide timber for post-war housing construction.The plantation program in the Otways got underway in the 1930s and got a boost in the late 1940s, and became an important part of Victoria’s plantation estate of some 25,000 hectares.But the big step came in 1961, when the Chairman of the Forest Commission, Alfred Oscar Lawrence, attended the World Forestry Conference in Sao Paulo Brazil and upon his return took a bold decision to commit Victoria to a massive Plantation Expansion (PX) program which initiated nearly four decades of rapid plantation establishment.