OneFortyOne celebrates global #BeBoldForChange campaign

As International Women’s Day approaches on March 8th, OneFortyOne Plantations is looking forward to marking the day by celebrating the achievements of its female staff.

This year’s International Women’s Day #BeBoldForChange campaign resonated with the Green Triangle region forestry company. It has enabled the company to reflect and celebrate how its female staff have been instrumental in redefining the status quo in forest firefighting in the region over the past decade.

Although female forest firefighters has been the norm for over 20 years, it has not always been the case for office based women who wanted to work on the fire ground too.

OneFortyOne’s Contracts Manager, Cara Pearson, is one of the company’s senior managers in the regional office. She is well used to combining a strategic corporate role with the demands of forest firefighting during the fire season.

When she joined the forest industry over a decade ago, there were many who doubted the contribution that office based women would be able to make on the fire front line. “Some people really didn’t think that office staff would be able to cope with the physical requirements of forest firefighting”, remembers Mrs Pearson.

She believes those attitudes began to change when corporate female fire fighters battled alongside their field based colleagues during the 2006 Bluff fire. Corporate staff worked throughout the night in the forest, after starting their working day in the office.

For OneFortyOne, female involvement on the front line of firefighting is well and truly the norm, and is an integral part of its world class firefighting team. During the fire season all staff participate in firefighting, either in frontline firefighting roles, or support roles in logistics and communication.

OneFortyOne is proud to be able to celebrate the many achievements its female staff have made for the company recently, and for the wider industry during their careers.