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Conservation of Australia's Forests
The protection of a full range of forest ecosystems and environmental values is fundamental to sustainable forest management in Australia and throughout the world by:
- maintaining healthy and sustainable forest ecology
- conserving natural forest biodiversity especially endangered and vulnerable species and communities, and
- protecting forest water quality and aquatic habitats.
We will continue to have healthy forests for future generations.
Australia's forests and biodiversity
Biodiversity is the variety of all forms of life, the different plants, animals and microrganisms, the genes they contain and the ecosystems of which they are components. Australia has very diverse flora and fauna, and a high proportion of our species do not occur anywhere else in the world.
Biodiversity underpins the processes that make life possible, such as hydrological cycles and the supply of such human needs as food, many medicines and industrial products. Biodiversity provides a basis for adaptation to changing environments.
Australia's forest biodiversity faces a number of threats, many of which are interrelated. These include habitat modification, impact of exotic species, ecologically unsustainable resource use, altered fire regimes and climate change.
What is the Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative (CAR) system?
The three guiding principles for the protection of biological diversity in Australia's native forests form the basis of native forest reserve criteria jointly developed by the Australian Government, State and Territory Governments:
- Comprehensiveness aims to secure diversity across forest communities.
- Adequacy is based on the reserved areas being of sufficient size to maintain the viability and integrity of native forest populations, species and communities.
- Representativeness seeks to ensure that the diversity within a native forest community is reserved across its range.
Taking into account social and economic factors, and recognising that vulnerable and endangered ecosystems require greater protection, the criteria call for the following levels of reservation:
- 15 per cent of the distribution of each forest ecosystem that existed before Europeans arrived in Australia
- 60 per cent or more of the current distribution of forest ecosystems, if rare or depleted
- 60 per cent or more of the current distribution of old growth
- all remaining occurrences of forest ecosystems or old growth that are rare or endangered, and
- 90 per cent or more of high-quality wilderness.
There are also important criteria to ensure the quality of reserves:
- replicate reserved areas of a forest ecosystem, to decrease the impact on an ecosystem of such events as fire or disease
- include as much high-quality habitat as possible for all known elements of biodiversity, particularly for rare, vulnerable or endangered species, for special groups of organisms such as migratory or mobile species or those with complex habitat requirements, for areas of high species diversity, as natural refuges for flora and fauna and centres of endemism, and for those species whose distributions and habitat requirements are not well correlated with any particular forest ecosystem
- be large enough to sustain the viability, quality and integrity of populations, and
- sample the full range of biological variation within each forest ecosystem, including the successional stages associated with each species.
Across Australia, 15 per cent of our forests are in reserves. Within RFA regions, this includes 41 per cent of our native forest that is protected under the CAR reserve system. Important parks outside RFA regions include such natural attractions as the Daintree National Park, in far north Queensland, and the Kakadu National Park, in the Northern Territory.
Reserve and off-reserve management
Some native forests outside reserves contain ecosystems and species not well represented in conservation reserves. These forests are important for maintaining environmental and aesthetic values, ecological processes and providing wildlife corridors.
Strategies for managing forests outside reserves include ecologically sustainable forest practices and voluntary nature conservation agreements with private landowners.
Wilderness
Allows natural processes to continue with minimal human disturbance.
Wilderness also provides us with places of peace, challenge and inspiration as well as a reminder of what the continent was like before European settlement. Many wilderness areas are of great significance to Aboriginal people.
High-quality wilderness was assessed using the methods of the National Wilderness Inventory. Size thresholds were applied. The NWI measures wilderness quality on a class scale by adding scores derived from four standard indicators:
- remoteness from settlement
- remoteness from access
- apparent naturalness, and
- biophysical naturalness.
The term wilderness does not mean land without human history. Aboriginal custodianship and customary practices have been, and still are, undertaken in areas defined as wilderness.
Old growth
The National Forest Policy Statement committed the signatory governments to "a strategy designed to conserve and manage areas of old-growth forests and wilderness as part of the reserve system".
The national reserve criteria require the protection of all viable examples of rare old growth and 60 per cent of existing old growth for all other forest ecosystems. For the RFAs, old-growth forest is defined as "ecologically mature forest where the effects of disturbances are now negligible".
The following principles were applied as an integral part of the definition.
- Ecological maturity is defined by the characteristics of the older growth stages.
- If data were available on the structural, floristic and functional qualities that would be expected to characterise an ecologically mature forest ecosystem, these data were used in assessing the significance of disturbance effects.
- Negligible disturbance effects will be evident in most forests by a significant proportion of trees with age-related features and a species composition characteristic of an ecologically mature forest ecosystem.
Sixty seven per cent of old-growth forest is protected in reserves in RFA regions.
Indigenous involvement in forest policy
Indigenous Australians' cultural heritage and customary law are deeply embedded in the natural environment, its resources and landscapes. To Indigenous peoples, nature and culture are so intricately interwoven they cannot be separated. Indigenous peoples have an inherent responsibility to their law, culture and land, and have a right to ensure the continuation of their spiritual (religious) beliefs and the well being of their land. They also have responsibilities to ensure that their country is managed for future generations.
Indigenous people have been key stakeholders in RFA processes and their continuing involvement in forest management is important to enduring agreements.
The Commonwealth and State governments, through Commonwealth and State legislation including the Native Title Act 1993 (Commonwealth), have responsibilities to ensure formal public consultation with Indigenous communities. The consultation process serves to identify Indigenous cultural, historical, social and economic values, and ensure they are taken into account in forest policy.
To further engage and encourage indigenous people to participate in the forest industry the Australian Government has developed a National Indigenous Forestry Strategy in consultation with Indigenous communities and forest industry stakeholders.
Conservation and forest policy
Regional Forest Agreements safeguard biodiversity, old growth, wilderness and other natural and cultural values in a system of comprehensive, adequate and representative national reserves, with provision for ongoing improvement in forest management across the forest estate.
However, RFAs are only one part of the Government's comprehensive approach to forest conservation policy. Other initiatives to protect environmental values include the Natural Heritage Trust, part of which includes Bushcare and the National Reserves System Program, and the National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia's Biological Diversity.
Forest ecosystems depend on conservation management by landholders, communities and all levels of government to develop ways of using resources without compromising Australia's natural heritage.
Australia is also active internationally in conserving the world's forests.