sustainable forest management - Forestry Tasmania

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iological diversity The protection and maintenance of a range of environmental values ensures that the dynamic nature of ecosystem functions and species and community diversity is managed at a whole of forest scale. Forestry Tasmania understands that not all values can be supplied from any one part of the estate at a particular time, and the management of these values must be balanced in time and space. Forestry Tasmania’s management of biological diversity includes its contribution to the statewide reserve system, mantaining a permanent native forest estate and special management of oldgrowth and threatened species. More detailed trend data for this section can be found in Appendix one at the end of this report. Permanent forest estate Within Tasmania there are three agreed mechanisms that support sustainable forest management (SFM). The first is sound forest management practice under the Forest Practices Code. The second is the development of a comprehensive, adequate and representative (CAR) reserve system to securely protect nature conservation values. The third is the maintenance of a permanent native forest estate to ensure a resource base for conservation, production and amenity values is maintained. The maintenance of a permanent forest estate means that 95 per cent of the area of native forest as mapped in 1996 is to be maintained as native forest on a statewide basis. This objective is achieved through the State’s Permanent Native Forest Estate (PNFE) policy. The PNFE Policy is given effect through the Forest Practices Authority’s consideration of applications for Forest Practices Plans under the Forest Practices Act 1985. On 1 June 2007, Forestry Tasmania announced the end to the practice of converting native forests to plantations. This statement was in the context of: • native forest production areas that were commenced (i.e. road work completed, harvesting commenced) before 31 December 2006 being completed and planted over the next two years • native forest production areas that had commenced after 1 January 2007 being returned to native forest. Table 1 shows that a total of 3200 hectares of plantation was established in 2007/08 on land that meets the above criteria. The PNFE Policy also requires that non-threatened forest communities must be maintained at a level no less than 50 per cent of their extent in each IBRA bioregion. To flag forest communities approaching this threshold, communities with 40 per cent or more cleared since 1996 (across all tenures) in each IBRA bioregion are identified annually. State forest acts as a buffer to protect communities when the statewide clearing threshold is approached. Areas approaching their clearing limit as a result of clearing on private land may require additional protection in state forests and to this effect E. viminalis / E. ovata / E. amygdalina / E. obliqua damp sclerophyll forest and Wet E. viminalis forest on basalt within the Ben Lomond bioregion are now fully protected in state forests. Forestry Tasmania will no longer impact the extent of native forest cover (or PFNE) through broad scale clearing. Table 1. Plantation established on previously cleared native forest (ie where harvesting was initiated prior to 31/12/2006). State native forest 2002/03 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 2007/08 Annual conversion (ha) 2,780 5,400 5,100 3,100 4,550 3,200 Cumulative NF converted since 1996 (ha) 24,980 30,380 35,500 38,600 43,150 46,350 Proportion of 1996 statewide baseline 1 0.8% 1.0% 1.1% 1.2% 1.3% 1.4% 1. All tenures, as mapped in 1996 (3.21 million ha baseline).
Case Study - Biodiversity responses to alternative silvicultural treatments Forestry Tasmania established the Warra Silvicultural Systems Trial (SST) in 1998 to compare clearfelling with alternative treatments in wet eucalypt forest (Figure 1). Following clearfelling on 80-100 year rotations, the forest may not provide suitable habitat for species that either prefer or rely on much older forest, e.g. rainforest trees or birds and mammals that nest in tree hollows. An important objective for an alternative harvesting system is to be able to maintain and/or more rapidly regain mature forest biodiversity elements compared to clearfelling. A series of long-term studies was established in the Warra SST to monitor the responses of important types of forest biodiversity to alternative silvicultural systems. Systems assessed were: unlogged control (CON), aggregated retention (ARN) where approximately 30 per cent of the coupe area was retained in 0.5 - 1 hectare aggregates; dispersed retention (DRN) where 10 per cent of overstorey eucalypt basal area was retained scattered throughout the coupe ; and clearfell, burn and sow with 20 x 40 metre understorey islands (CBS ± UI). Although a recent wildfire would be the ideal control for such research, no appropriate sites were available. The three-year post harvest sampling has recently been completed for vascular plants, mosses, lichens, birds, beetles and habitat trees. These biodiversity studies found that alternative silvicultural systems were advantageous for many mature forest biodiversity elements. Aggregated retention was more effective than dispersed retention or clearfelling with understorey islands at maintaining mature forest species and structures in the coupes for the first three years following harvesting. These findings support Forestry Tasmania’s choice of aggregated retention as a suitable harvesting system to replace clearfelling in many areas of wet oldgrowth forest. Scientists from Forestry Tasmania, The University of Tasmania, The Tasmanian Herbarium and Forest Practices Authority have participated in this collaborative project. Read more about Warra research at: www.warra.com Figure 1. Aerial overview of the Warra SST showing layout of treatment coupes in the trial area (ARN =aggregated retention, CBS-UI =clearfell, burn and sow with understorey islands, CON =unharvested control, DRN = dispersed retention, GS =group selection, SGS =single tree/small group selection, Strips =Stripfells) 11
Page 1 and 2: 2008 REPORT sustainable forest mana
Page 3 and 4: contents Forestry Tasmania GPO Box
Page 5 and 6: eporting scope & structure This is
Page 7 and 8: economy, employment and regional ar
Page 9: X As a result of 18 recorded fuel a
Page 13 and 14: In response to this, the Tasmanian
Page 15 and 16: Oldgrowth The Tasmanian Community F
Page 17 and 18: International science panel In addi
Page 19 and 20: forests now and into the future Pro
Page 21 and 22: Wood quality The Forestry Act conta
Page 23 and 24: Successful plantation establishment
Page 25 and 26: During 2007/08, 21,703 m 3 of high
Page 27 and 28: Seed and sowing Forestry Tasmania c
Page 29 and 30: Non-timber values Honey production
Page 31 and 32: The ongoing issue of defoliation ca
Page 33 and 34: Chemical pesticides Forestry Tasman
Page 35 and 36: Pesticide Impact Rating Index PIRI
Page 37 and 38: The Tasmanian position Tasmania’s
Page 39 and 40: working with our stakeholders Deliv
Page 41 and 42: Community Access Bus In order to en
Page 43 and 44: Provision of tourism and recreation
Page 45 and 46: Figure 33. Members of the naming ex
Page 47 and 48: Forest estate value Through sustain
Page 49 and 50: egulatory environmenT Continuous im
Page 51 and 52: Other legislation Auspine launched
Page 53 and 54: where to from here? With the Sustai
Page 55 and 56: Table 2.2. Merchantable residue ass
Page 57 and 58: 3. Ecosystem health and services Ta
Page 59 and 60: Table 3.6. Days on which the Tasman
Page 61 and 62:
Table 4.3. Visitor numbers to speci
Page 63 and 64:
Table 4.5. Forest estate value summ
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