KEY ISSUE: SUSTAINABILITY AND ENVIRONMENT
Conversion of native forests
The broadscale conversion of native forests to plantations no longer occurs on mainland Australia. New plantations on the mainland are established on predominantly cleared agricultural land. Tasmania has a different history of agricultural development and current vegetation cover and in Tasmania it is still legal to convert native forests to other land uses including plantations.
This practice has been the subject of intense debate in the last decade. In 2005, the Australian Government and Tasmanian Government agreed to a range of initiatives related to the forest estate and the forest industry. This package included the following policies in relation to conversion of native forest to plantations:
- an overall cap on clearing and conversion of native forest on both public and private land will be established to retain 95 per cent of the 1996 area of native forest
- the clearing and conversion of native forests to plantations on public land will be phased out by 2010
- broadscale clearing and conversion of native forest on private land will be phased out over a period of 10 years
- Tasmania’s assessment criteria for regulating forest clearing and conversion will ensure the protection of regional biodiversity and water quality values and meet salinity objectives.
A3P’s initial Sustainability Action Plan called for a rapid decline in the annual area of native forests converted to plantations, to zero by 2010. This objective has been achieved ahead of schedule and A3P now (July 2008) commits to no further broadscale conversion of native forests to plantations.
The issue of conversion of native forests to plantations in Tasmania must be appropriately managed to maintain the reputation of the plantation industry more widely.
Timber Information
Free technical information on the source, selection, properties and other atributes of plantation timber based products available for use in building and construction applications.