Federal government declared alpine ash forests on the Australian mainland endangered this year, even as the NSW Forestry Corporation continues to harvest the timber for processing at a mill in Eden. This ongoing extraction of a declared endangered resource highlights the state's role in managing, rather than halting, the depletion of natural commons, even for niche, handmade products like skis.
Jonathan and Steph Paige, operating Desert Skis in Jindabyne, utilize this alpine ash, alongside jarrah and paulownia, for their handmade skis. The couple began making skis in 2019, a process Jonathan Paige described as "learn as you go, refine, reiterate," noting early "catastrophic" failures. Steph Paige stated the alpine ash provides essential weight for ski performance, preventing "chattering away" on imperfect terrain.
Resource Extraction and State Management
The alpine ash, harvested by the NSW Forestry Corporation in the Riverina region, undergoes a lengthy drying process, including weeks in a pre-dryer and kiln, taking about six months in total. Damien Bunting, general manager of South Coast Timber, described the specific hardwood board requests as "meticulous," requiring a search for "right quality boards" without "any knots or any imperfections at all." Bunting also noted that mill work "can get a little bit monotonous sometimes," suggesting the alienating conditions of industrial timber processing.
Access to jarrah, a hardwood native to Western Australia, has become more challenging since the state government banned native forest logging in 2024. Despite this ban, the Paiges now source jarrah from trees that have already fallen or are being cut down for construction projects, working with a mill in Western Australia. This illustrates how state regulations, while appearing to protect forests, can redirect extraction rather than fundamentally reduce it, often shifting the burden or creating new supply challenges for smaller producers.
The Cost of Craft Labor
The ski-making process itself is labor-intensive, with Jonathan Paige stating, "Every step takes time and it all adds up, but everything takes the amount of time it needs. Nothing is fast here." After five years of "trial and error and testing product samples," Desert Skis opened to the public one year ago, in winter 2025. Steph Paige reflected on the significant investment, asking, "This is a lot of money. Is this going to be worth it?" and acknowledging moments of doubt, "There are times when you're kind of looking at each other like, 'What are we doing?'"
The Paiges face high freight costs and challenges due to Australia's small local ski industry and seasonal misalignment with northern hemisphere suppliers for imported components like the plastic base and steel edge. Jonathan Paige noted, "Most of your suppliers… we're just not on that same schedule," highlighting the structural disadvantages faced by small-scale producers within a globalized capitalist market.
Contradictions of Scarcity
The Paiges emphasize their commitment to local sourcing, respecting timbers, and controlling quality to avoid waste, stating, "If we scaled too quickly, too fast, we wouldn't be able to control the quality and there would be more waste." Jonathan Paige also stated their use of timber "increases the life cycle of the ski itself," encouraging "people to use the same ski for longer and not buy new pairs every year." This approach implicitly challenges the capitalist imperative for planned obsolescence and continuous consumption.
Local backcountry skier Rowan Kennedy noted the benefit of "giving a job to a local person," a small-scale attempt to create dignified labor within a system often characterized by precarious employment. Despite the federal government's declaration of alpine ash as endangered, its continued harvest by a state corporation for commercial use, alongside the redirection of jarrah from logging bans to construction, reveals the inherent contradictions of managing resource scarcity within an economic system driven by continuous extraction and profit. The meticulous labor of craftspeople like the Paiges, while offering a counter-narrative of quality and longevity, operates within and is constrained by these larger structural forces.