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Commercial and Environmental Forestry Program
The CEF program was an initiative of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the CSIRO that ran from 2003 to 2007.
Other organisations involved included:
- Regional catchment management authorities
- State Government agencies
- National Association of Forest Industries
- Murray Darling Basin Commission
The aim of the CEF program was to encourage farm forestry and other tree planting in low to medium rainfall areas to help address environmental problems, principally salinity, but also other concerns such as erosion, carbon sequestration and loss of biodiversity.
A key aspect of the program was to identify areas where targeted revegetation could be profitable and have environmental benefits. To provide this information, CSIRO completed a vast amount of research to model how well different tree species would grow under different conditions, and importantly, what the environmental impact and economic effects would be.
Initially the research focussed on the Goulburn- Broken catchment in Victoria and the following key elements were undertaken:
- Predicting Growth. CSIRO measured a number of different species, such as blue gum, spotted gum, sugar gum and pine. Growth models for these species were improved and extended into the low and medium rainfall areas.
- Predicting the Environmental services and economics of the tree growing. This research examined the impacts of forests on stream salinity, stream flow, carbon sequestration, biodiversity value and forest economics.
- Generation of a Geographic Information System (GIS) based planning system known as the Scenario Investment Planning Framework, or the SPIF. The SPIF allows for the integration of the outputs of the different models at a variety of scales, from the region, to catchment, to the farm scale.
In 2006-07, work focussed on the application of the CEF technologies to case studies in Western Australia (Upper Tone) and Victoria (Corangamite). In each of these catchments, the work was done in association with forest establishment programs involving public and private investment. The CEF program contributed enhanced capacity and capability to these programs to help ensure that tree planting achieved the best possible results for a given investment. A key feature of this work was the extensive engagement with various stakeholders, from industry, community and government.
The Commercial Environmental Forestry: Summary of the 4 year program 
PDF [143kb] outlines the history and achievements of the CEF program.
