Under section 6 of the Private Forests Act 1994, a function of Private Forests Tasmania (PFT) is to prepare a five-yearly review of the private forest estate in Tasmania. The regional review is now available to the public. Source: Timberbiz
Tasmania’s privately managed forest estate is currently comprised of some 858,000ha of native forest, 177,000ha of hardwood plantation and 74,000ha of softwood plantation, which in total makes up approximately 16% of the total land in Tasmania (6.8Mha).
Of the privately managed plantation resources in Tasmania, some 206,000ha (82%) are managed within industrial-scale estates owned by institutional investors across a mix of private and public lands.
The 46,000ha of plantation resources managed by the independent landowners are confined to private freehold land and are distributed across some 2,600 individual land holdings, about half of these possessing more than 2ha of plantation. 32,000ha (69%) of the private independent plantations were planted in the 2006-2010 period under managed investment schemes that were active at the time. Another 6,000ha (14%) were planted in the 2001-2005 period, the remainder spread intermittently across all periods back to the 1960’s and forward to current.
Conversely for private native forests, the vast majority, some 93% (785,000ha), is distributed across over 37,000 individual land holdings on private freehold land managed by independent landowners, though only 12,000 of these properties possess more than 5ha of forest.
This private independent native forest resource is generally available for harvest under the guidelines of the Forest Practices Code (Forest Practices Board, 2020), but the sheer number of land holdings across which it is distributed, and the myriad of landowner perspectives on their specific intentions for such forests make it a difficult resource to quantify in terms of likely harvest year on year. The remaining privately managed native forests on industrial-scale estates are typically excluded from harvest, contributing to ecosystem maintenance and related conservation values across their estate.
To meet its statutory obligation, and to best serve the interests of the forest industry, PFT sought stakeholder feedback on the scope of the proposed review.
A key recommendation was to compile and disseminate information and data on the private forest resource to assist industry in identifying opportunities for growth and developing long term marketing opportunities in line with PFT’s legislated and corporate goals.
The Report, titled ‘2020 Tasmanian Private Forest Resource Review’ is now available for public information.
Download a copy here:
2020_Tasmanian_Private_Forest_Resource_Review_-_Report_-_Esk_Mapping_and_GIS_-_FINAL_-_20210120
