Forestry

The NSW Government is introducing new Farm Forestry Codes of Practice that will ensure long-term sustainability for the industry and provide robust environmental protections across the NSW private forestry estate. The new Codes, which come into effect on Monday, 2 May 2022, are the result of a rigorous review of Farm Forestry in NSW as well as advice from the Natural Resource Commission.

Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries Jonno Duniam said the Farm Forestry: Growing Together strategy recognises the opportunities presented by farm forestry for both farmers and Australia’s forest industries. "We're seeing an increasing demand for timber products, as well as the development of new carbon markets that reward farmers for planting trees,” Assistant Minister Duniam said.

Small native mammals including bandicoots, antechinus and Bush Rats are showing remarkable recovery two years on from the Black Summer fires, long-term camera monitoring in State forests south of Eden shows. Forestry Corporation of NSW Senior Field Ecologist Rohan Bilney said Forestry Corporation of NSW has been monitoring wildlife at 40 sites in State forests south of Eden since 2007 as part of the Southern Brown Bandicoot Species Management Plan, and every monitoring site was impacted by fires in 2019-20.  

A man as been fined $15,000 by the Cooktown Magistrates Court over the felling of 113 old-growth trees in the Rinyirru (Lakefield) National Park. In 2020, a timber export company entered into an agreement to log Cooktown Ironwood trees (erythrophleum chlorostachys) on two Cape York stations that border the national park.

... these disastrous wildfires have also given land managers and fire services a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get on top of the bushfire situation. By the end of this year, the fuels in the NSW and Victorian 2019/2020 fire areas will be three years old. The next few years will be a wonderful opportunity to break up these large areas of contiguous fuel by widespread prescribed burning, safely, with minimal chance of escapes. It is a chance that must not be missed.

On 15 March 2022, NSW Budget Estimates Portfolio Committee No 4 saw Justin Field MLC and David Shoebridge MLC once again argue the closure of selective harvesting of native forests in NSW.

International Day of Forests 2022 – “Forests and sustainable production and consumption” ... “Forests are one of Australia’s greatest natural assets, and Australia has the first-class forest management skills, experience and people needed to manage our forests. However, as a nation, we must do more. We need to manage this precious resource actively and adaptively across all land tenures including National Parks, State forests and private land to achieve best outcomes now, and into the future" : Bob Gordon Forestry Australia President.

The very large wildfire in the Perth hills catchments in January 2005 had the potential for severe consequences on water quality in domestic water supply reservoirs ... full recovery will take some decades. This large fire was eventually contained when it reached areas that had been prescribed burnt and carried low fuels.

Peter Rutherford. The article published in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald on 15 March once again highlights how activist networking paints native forest harvesting as THE threat to the sustainability of NSW native forests. Like many reports advocating for the closure of the native forest industry, the article contains a mix of academic opinion, anti-native forest harvesting rhetoric from a green politician, creative accounting, words to trigger outrage, such as "woodchip exports," and opinions from an activist non-government organisation, that monetise the outrage to generate more outrage and a reporter to join the dots.

The author has set himself an enormous task to survey in depth the history of the Surrey Hills district of north-west Tasmania. Fires, Farms and Forests represents the culmination of much detailed and careful research, combined with the author’s extensive personal experience as a forester, and, in particular, his role managing the native grasslands and buttongrass moorlands on Surrey Hills. All this enables the author to weave a story which encompasses both general history as well as specialist insights into the management of land and forests.

Forestry Australia considers that active management, including timber production, is vital to the sustainability of native forests and provides many benefits to Australian society. Forestry Australia advocates for ongoing research on timber harvesting in native forests to support this capability in Australia.

In summer 2007, I planned and supervised the establishment of a research thinning trial in regrowth jarrah (E.marginata) forest about 15 km east of the Western Australian town of Jarrahdale ... The trial consisted of eight plots, each one hectare in size, thinned to various densities of trees ... Some six months after thinning, in November 2007, the whole area was treated with a prescribed burn ...

WA Minister for Forestry Dave Kelly has announced that implementation of the packages for native forestry workers to assist them to transition to a new industry before native forest logging ends in Western Australia in 2024 has commenced.

Overgrown forests are one of the key contributing factors to the current wildfire crisis in the West. The new Forest Service strategy on Confronting the Wildfire Crisis outlines the agency’s plan for increasing fuels and forest health treatments to create healthier forests and reduce the risk to communities.

John O'Donnell identifies the multiple barriers to effective low intensity or ecological maintenance burning of forest areas across south east Australia and opportunities to address these.

There are approximately 7.5 million hectares of forest in Victoria, and 94 per cent of Victoria’s native forests are in protected areas that cannot be harvested or are unsuitable. Of this amount, VicForests has access to 417,000 hectares and we only harvest 2500-3000 hectares annually. This is nominally equivalent to 0.04% of all forested areas ... Thorough preparation is undertaken prior to harvesting, and VicForests puts special protections in place for priority habitat and species of concern if found in coupes.

“This is the largest direct investment of any Australian Government in plantation establishment for more than 30 years. We want to partner with NSW to grow this renewable, sustainable industry so that it can continue to create jobs in Cowper and deliver quality, Australian-made products to markets": Federal Member for Cowper Pat Conaghan

WA Forestry Minister Dave Kelly has launched the Farm Forestry Assist program for 2022, supporting farmers and other landowners wishing to plant pine trees on their land. Established in 2018, successful applicants receive free high-quality radiata pine seedlings from the Forest Products Commission's West Manjimup Nursery to establish 20 to 50 hectare pine plantations on their properties.

Friends of the Koala  welcomes  the federal government’s decision to up list koalas in Queensland, New South Wales  and the Australian Capital Territory from ‘vulnerable’  to ‘endangered’.  

East Gippsland in the far SE corner of Australia, has long been seen as the stronghold of many natural values including old growth and rainforests and remarkable wildlife species that evolved with and still depend on these healthy, intact habitats.

The adorable Greater Glider is in trouble. It is threatened by fire and logging and its population has crashed by over 80% this century ... VicForests – a logging company owned by the government – wants to clear much of what’s left of the Greater Glider’s habitat.

John O'Donnell analyses recent positive US policy developments and land management commitments aimed at confronting the US wildfire/ bushfire crisis and finds that there is much Australia might learn from the US strategy.