Lessons From North American Forest Models

26 June 2007

Australia’s native forest management would benefit from greater adoption of North America’s forest modeling approaches, a study completed by World Forest Institute fellow John Turland has found.
Turland’s 2006-07 fellowship at the institute’s headquarters in Portland, Oregon, was administered by the Forest and Wood Products Research and Development Corporation (FWPRDC) and supported by the Gottstein Trust.
Since the mid-1990s, the program of Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) has significantly reduced the area of native forest available for timber production and the need for greater predictive capacity and scenario testing of impacts of different forest management regimes and practices.
Turland said Australia should consider purchasing the advanced forest modelling systems developed in North America and adapting them to local needs, rather than developing new products.
“Forests, if they ever were, are no longer managed solely for wood production, and likewise, forest
modelling is no longer solely for predicting wood supply,” Turland said.
“In Australia, ecosystem preservation and sensitive watersheds have typically been integrated into landscape modelling, but less emphasis has been given in commercial forest management to actively modelling the management of wildlife habitat.
“North American agencies have developed sophisticated approaches to modelling in both terrestrial and aquatic wildlife habitats as part of the forest management planning process.”
Turland said Australian forest managers should also consider modifying North American modelling so it accounted for the uneven-aged native forests common in Australia and gave more accurate wood supply forecasts and harvest schedules.

National Timber Stewardship Meeting

The first meeting of the National Timber Stewardship Group will be held in Brisbane on 4 July. The group was formed at an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) workshop in Melbourne and is part of a joint EPR industry strategy by the Australian Plantation Products and Paper Industry Council (A3P) and TDA NSW (Timber Development Association).
The group comprises members of the Treated Timber Product Stewardship Group and representatives of other industry sectors. An important consideration will be the longer term funding of the implementation of the EPR strategy post the current DAFF funded project.

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