Module 5 - VicForests

Conclusions
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5.1 Overall assessment of compliance
The audit included assessment of 27 coupes, including five fire salvage coupes and one thinnings
coupe, selected to be representative of harvesting undertaken in the 2008-09 financial year, with the
exception of domestic firewood coupes.
Overall, the audit identified a high level of compliance across most Compliance Element groups, with
moderate compliance in the Biodiversity Conservation group, mainly due to the absence of monitoring
and control of noxious weeds.
The Auditor noted a number of individual examples of good practice, including instances of:
Conservative delineation of rainforest boundaries for ease of management;
Particularly good examples of snig track rollover drains on a relatively steep slope;
Reuse of existing landings and road alignments and effective use of natural outslope drainage
where possible;
Minimisation of vegetation clearance widths for road construction; and
Minimisation of the area and impact of snig tracks.
No non-compliances with Severe EIA risk rating were identified. Two non-compliances with an EIA
risk rating of Major were identified, both being instances of machine entry into rainforest buffer and
associated rainforest.
The majority (59%) of non-compliances identified were determined as having EIA risk ratings of
Negligible or No impact, with 49 of the total of 150 non-compliances being assessed as Negligible and
40 assessed as No impact. Thirty-one Moderate and 28 Minor non-compliances were also identified,
mainly in the following areas:
One instance of soil stockpiling within a rainforest buffer for road rehabilitation without documented
and approved plans;
Insufficient topsoil and retention of excess bark at landings;
Lack of noxious weed assessments and control;
Inadequate or inappropriate drainage of sections of roads, snig tracks and boundary tracks;
Inadequate management of cut and fill on some sections of roads;
Instances of road construction on steeper slopes than prescribed for the soil type;
Crossing of drainage lines without approval;
Instances of debris pushed or rolled into exclusion zones;
Inadequate evidence that authorisation was given to remove trees felled into buffers; and
Instances of failure to classify streams adjacent to coupes.
This audit report includes four recommendations for improvement where current systems are not
considered adequate to meet the relevant audit criteria. They relate to weed control; fire salvage
machinery cleaning protocols; closure of roads no longer needed; and disposal of excess bark when
not undertaking regeneration burning. All recommendations apply to VicForests operations and two
also apply
to DSE.
5.2 Risks to beneficial uses
The audit did not identify any imminent environmental hazards or unacceptable risks to the beneficial
uses listed in Section 2.3 of this report. The assessment of imminent environmental hazards was
based on site observations and EIA risk rating assessments of identified non-compliances, using the
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