Background

Under the Australian Constitution, there are no specific clauses covering the environment, whereas the responsibility for management of forests and forest land use decisions primarily rests with the Australian States and Territories. In the early 1970s, the Commonwealth became more active in the forest management domain by enacting a range of legislation that gave it strong indirect powers to control certain aspects of the management of public and private forests within the States and Territories. In that decade, as political and social awareness of the importance of environmental protection grew, it became clear that the transboundary nature of many environmental problems necessitated both international and national approaches. The new Commonwealth legislation related to its powers on external affairs matters, such as World Heritage and export licensing, or on national environment and heritage matters.

In Victoria, all public land designated as State forests was under the control of the Forests Commission of Victoria from 1919 to 1983. From the 1920s to the mid 1970s, the Commonwealth Timber Bureau/Forestry and Timber Bureau, provided forestry advice to the States and Territories, established forestry research stations and trained foresters at the Australian Forestry School. Until the 1980s, most States developed their own forest and conservation policies and governance arrangements, with little involvement of the Commonwealth government, other than financing the expansion of the softwood plantation estate for a decade in the 1960-70s. In the early 1980s, most State forestry legislation was quite old (e.g., Victoria’s Forests Act, 1958) and such legislation gave primacy to the protection of the public forest estate from alienation and fire, as well as to the management of forests for timber harvesting. In Victoria, after the loss of much of the ash forests in the 1939 bushfires and the increased demand for timber during the post Second World War era, the volume of timber harvested annually expanded greatly, with much of this coming from the State forest in Eastern Victoria, with limited application of sustained yield principles.

Since European colonization of Australia, there has been ongoing conflicts over the use and management of native forests. In the 1960s and 1970s, conflicts increased between the forestry sector and the emerging conservation movement. These conflicts were driven by the clearing of native forests for plantation expansion and the introduction of large-scale export-oriented woodchip operations in NSW, which enabled more widespread application of clear-felling silviculture in native forests. During the 1980s and 1990s, this situation led to various conflicts between the States and Commonwealth over forest management, including various Constitutional challenges from the States over World Heritage declarations and the Commonwealth’s natural resource management decisions. It also led to duplication of processes, for example with environmental impact assessments for new resource use proposals.

Early Victorian Initiatives

From 1971, Victoria undertook a comprehensive program of land use planning for all public lands, under the auspices of the Land Conservation Council (LCC) ¹ to determine the most appropriate use of public land across the State. Under the LCC’s processes the future use of Victoria’s public lands was decided rationally, scientifically and critically on the basis of scientific research and public opinion. Between 1971 and 1997, the LCC undertook investigations and reviews across 17 study regions and also undertook special investigations, such as a wilderness study. The LCC published a descriptive report, summarizing all the current knowledge relevant to public land use in the study region, invited public submissions and then produced its proposed recommendations on public land use. Following a further period of public submissions, the LCC made its final recommendations to the Minister for Conservation, with its recommendations tabled in parliament and appropriate legislation to implement the recommended land use changes drafted. Over this 26-year period, the Victorian Government accepted 96% of the LCC’s recommendations, with those not accepted generally relating to changes in government policy, such as the decision to stop clearing native forests for plantation development. Once the recommendations were accepted, legislation was required to change public land designations, which was often a slow process. However as a result of the LCC process, the proportion of public land reserved for conservation increased from 3% in 1970 to 40% in 1997.

In April 1982, following a quarter of a century of Liberal Party governments, the Labor Party won the Victorian election and John Cain became the 41st Premier of Victoria. Rod MacKenzie became the Minister for Forests and subsequently in September 1983 he became the Minister for Conservation, Forests and Lands. The Cain Labor government established the Department of Conservation, Forests, and Lands to consolidate the management of all public land in one Department. A major focus of that initiative was to properly integrate public land use and management with conservation requirements, to ensure the protection of native flora and fauna and their environments.

In 1984, the Victorian government established a Board of Inquiry, under the leadership of Professor Ian Ferguson, to consult widely and make recommendations on the future directions for Victoria’s timber industries, with the aim of developing recommendations for long-term timber production in a way that reconciled timber and environmental interests. Joan Kirner became the Minister for Conservation, Forests and Lands in March of 1985 and then in June 1985 she released the 394-page report of the Board of Inquiry into Victoria’s Timber Industry. In June 1987, the Victorian government released its State Conservation Strategy, which included strategies for safeguarding the environment, with various aspects given legal basis in the Planning and Environment Act, 1987.

Major reform of Victoria’s forest sector commenced in 1986, when the Cain Labor government released Victoria’s first Timber Industry Strategy (TIS) ². The TIS provided a new framework for the development of a sustainable and competitive timber industry, with improved environmental outcomes and public involvement in forest planning and management. When the Minister for Conservation, Forests and Lands, the Hon. Joan Kirner, released the strategy she indicated that the new directions for forest management and timber production achieved a balance between timber production and environmental protection and that the new directions would ensure an economically viable industry with an environmentally acceptable framework. Under this strategy the Victorian Government endorsed the view of forest conservation adapted from the World Conservation Strategy that the prime thrust of forest conservation is the management of human use of forests so that it may yield the greatest sustainable benefit to present generations while maintaining its potential to meet the needs and aspirations of future generations. The TIS described increased protection of environmental values through:

• A legislated Code of Forest Practices which lays down operational standards associated with multiple use of forests;
• A legislated Native Flora and Fauna Conservation Guarantee;
• Commitment to a sawlog-driven industry with a reduction of timber harvesting to a level sustainable in perpetuity on the basis of regional sustainable yields;
• A definition of rainforests together with appropriate prescriptions to ban timber harvesting from rainforest; and
• Ongoing implementation of pre-logging surveys to identify significant flora and fauna habitats for exclusion from logging.

In 1987, the Victorian government released its Rainforest Conservation policy – Victoria’s Rainforests: an overview, which formalised the agreed definition of rainforests, set policy goals and a program of actions to manage and protect rainforest, thereby excluding all rainforest that met that definition from timber harvesting. In 1988, the Victorian government enacted the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act, 1988 which provided a basis to list threatened species and communities and develop actions needed to protect the species or community or to manage the threatening processes. In May 1989, the State Parliament endorsed the original Code of Practices for Timber Production (Revision No. 1) ³ and later that year it passed the Timber Harvesting Regulations, 1989, which gave effect to the Code on public land. The Code laid down state-wide principles and guidelines that applied to timber harvesting, timber extraction roading, regeneration and reforestation in native forests, as well as to the establishment and tending of softwood and hardwood plantations.

Early Commonwealth Initiatives

In the early 1970s, the Whitlam Labor Government passed new legislation on a wide range of environmental issues, including some of the most significant environmental Acts such as the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974, the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 1975, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975 and the Australian Heritage Commission Act 1975. The Whitlam Government had a policy to preserve and protect the National Estate and it established a Committee of Inquiry into the National Estate in 1973. In 1974, the Commonwealth Government ratified the UN Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, which required countries to take suitable measures for the protection, conservation and preservation of cultural and natural heritage.

In the 1980s, the Hawke Labor Government enacted the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act 1983, which was unsuccessfully challenged in the High Court by Tasmania, with court ruling that the Commonwealth had the power to legislate to over-ride a Tasmanian decision to build the Franklin Dam using the external affairs powers in the Australian Constitution

Following the development of the World Conservation Strategy in 1980, the Commonwealth coordinated a two-year process to consider how best to conserve living natural resources in Australia. In June 1983, the National Conservation Strategy for Australia was adopted by a conference involving 150 delegates from the Commonwealth, State and Territory governments as well as from conservation, industry and scientific organisations. This strategy was adopted by the Commonwealth parliament in December 1983. It provided nationally agreed guidelines for the use of living resources by Australians so that the reasonable needs and aspirations of society could be sustained in perpetuity.

After decades of discussion on the need for, and nature of, national forest goals and policies, in 1986 the Australian Forestry Council, comprising Commonwealth, State and Territory forestry Ministers, released a National Forest Strategy. This strategy sought to achieve recognition by the community that forests were a national resource and of the importance of multiple use of that resource on a sustained basis. However, despite having the agreement of all forestry Ministers, it did not have widespread community support and made little difference to resolving conflicts over forest use or improving resource security certainty for the forest industries.

In 1987, the tensions between the Commonwealth and State Governments over forest conservation issues came to a head when the Commonwealth unilaterally nominated Queensland’s Wet Tropics Forests to be declared a World Heritage site and legislated to ban logging in both the wet tropics area and Tasmania’s Lemonthyme-Southern Forests while World Heritage values were being considered. Queensland’s High Court challenge to the listing and the logging ban was rejected by the court, thereby confirming that the Commonwealth did have the right to legislate on forest-related matters where they related to external Constitutional powers including international agreements that Australia had ratified.

The National Estate

Following the passage of the Commonwealth’s Australian Heritage Commission Act, 1975, any person could nominate any place in Australia that they considered to have aesthetic, historic, scientific, or social significance or other special value to be considered by the Australian Heritage Commission for inclusion on the Register of the National Estate. The criteria listed in the Act for national heritage places were broad enough that most forest areas would satisfy one or often many of the listing criteria. Decisions about adding nominated places to the Register were made by the Australian Heritage Council, without any requirement to consult with the State or consider the effects of the registration on other permitted land uses.

Once a site had been included on the Register, the Act required that the Commonwealth could not take any action that would adversely affect the National Estate values of the registered place, unless there was no feasible and prudent alternative. During the 1980s, a very large number of forest-related nominations were made, primarily by conservation groups, and most of these were assessed as meeting the criteria to be included on the Register of the National Estate.

Export Woodchip Licences

Regulations made in 1986 under the Commonwealth’s Export Control Act, 1982, required woodchips destined for export markets to have export licences, thereby enabling the Commonwealth to impose conditions on export licences related to the protection of forests with National Estate values.

For a period of eight years, the States which had native forestry operations producing woodchips or other unprocessed wood destined for export, had to annually obtain the renewal of export licences from the Commonwealth Minister for Resources. Over time, a greater level of detail requested, and it eventually required the submission of detailed plans identifying all the scheduled logging coupes from which export wood products might be derived, as well as information on prudent and feasible alternatives to logging. Commonwealth officers then assessed the information for each coupe, before making recommendations to the Minister for inclusion in export licence conditions. This process became extremely cumbersome and resource intensive and often experienced delays in receiving Ministerial approvals. By the mid 1990s, this process was resulting in significant excisions from planned coupes in order to protect National Estate values or threatened species. Importantly, these mechanisms did not enable a more holistic landscape approach to sustainable forest management, including balancing the use and conservation of the range of important values in native forests. It also resulted in a period of confrontational relationships between Commonwealth and State officials involved in forest management.

Sustainable Development and Natural Resource Use Processes

In 1990, the Commonwealth established a Working Group on Forest Use as part of the process of developing a national strategy on ecologically sustainable development (ESD). The working group consisted of representatives of the forestry bureaucracies of the Commonwealth and States as well as from forest industries and scientific disciplines. Its final report, released in 1991, found that the current Commonwealth-State arrangements regarding forest land-use decisions were unsatisfactory, involved duplication and delay and had resulted in uncertainty about forest management operations. It also found that forest land-use decisions needed to take account of all values, including future uses, and that such decisions can be managed along a continuum from a single dominant use to a variety of complementary uses. Its findings and recommendations ultimately influenced the development of the 1992 National Forest Policy Statement. It recommended clarification of forest policy objectives and the adoption of integrated, streamlined forest decision processes, including scientific assessment of forest values and public consultation, to achieve agreed and durable decisions. The report defined sustainable forest management as optimising the tangible and intangible social and economic benefits which forests can provide to the community, with the goals of maintaining the functional basis of forested land, biodiversity and the options available for future generations.

The Commonwealth government had established the Resource Assessment Commission (RAC) in 1989, in order to facilitate a more consistent and informed approach to resolving natural resource use problems, by providing a sound basis for decision making on contentious environmental and resource use issues. The RAC published its comprehensive final report on Forests in 1992, which contained numerous recommendations including the need to develop a (new) National Forest Strategy and for the Commonwealth and States to develop coordinated national strategies for regional forest planning. With respect to the important but contentious issue of providing resource security for major forestry projects, it recommended the use of long-term access rights to forest resources, with periodic review and appropriate compensation provisions to cover the need for adaptive and precautionary approaches to forest management. The Commission rejected the conservation lobby’s call to end all logging in native forests, but made recommendations to protect wilderness and old growth forests, establish a fully representative reserve system and to implement active management of forests to maintain values and benefits.

The Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment

In early 1992, after years of politically damaging disputes over the management of forests, the First Ministers of the Commonwealth, State and Territory governments signed the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment. This landmark environment Agreement facilitated a cooperative national approach on environmental matters, by conducting joint regional assessments of heritage and other forest values, accrediting State environmental impact assessment processes and involving the States in international conventions and related processes. The Agreement endorsed the policy of ecologically sustainable development and established important principles of environmental policy, including the precautionary principle and principles covering intergenerational equity, conservation of biological diversity and ecological integrity. It also contained a commitment to a representative system of protected areas, together with off-reserve management of flora and fauna. Upon signing this Agreement all Australian governments agreed that the concept of ecologically sustainable development should be used in the assessment of natural resources, land-use decisions and approval processes. Clause 3.4 of the Agreement indicates that within integrated Government decision-making processes the measures adopted in relation to matters that significantly affect the environment should be cost effective and not be disproportionate to the significance of the environmental matters being addressed. Clause 3.5 indicates that, in applying this approach on integrated Government decision-making, the precautionary principle should inform policy making and program implementation and where there are threats of serious or irreversible environmental damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation. In the application of the precautionary principle, Clause 3.5.1 sets out two requirements: careful evaluation to avoid, wherever practicable, serious or irreversible damage to the environment; and an evaluation of risk-weighted consequences of various options. Schedule 2 of the Agreement, which covers Resource Use Assessment, Land Use Decisions and Approval Processes, indicates where the above principles should be used in relation to natural resource and land use decision making.

Outcomes from the 1992 Earth Summit

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the 'Earth Summit', was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 1992. The primary objective of the Rio 'Earth Summit' was to produce a broad agenda on sustainable development and a new blueprint for international action on environmental and development issues, that would help guide international cooperation and development policy in the twenty-first century. Two new Conventions: the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity were agreed to at the Earth Summit, both of which had implications for forest management. While there was no consensus about a Forests Convention at the Earth Summit, there was global consensus to agree to a Statement of Principles for a Global Consensus on the Management, Conservation and Sustainable Development of all Types of Forests (Forest Principles). One of the globally agreed principles was that: Forest resources and forest lands should be sustainably managed to meet the social, economic, ecological, cultural and spiritual needs of present and future generations.

Australia’s participation in this United Nations process, brought an expectation that Australia would take appropriate actions related to the provisions of the two Conventions and also to ensure that its approaches towards sustainable forest management would be consistent with the principles contained in this UN Forest Principles.

The 1992 National Forest Policy Statement

In the late 1980s and early 1990s the Australian Forestry Council and its subsidiary body the Standing Committee on Forestry, composed of Commonwealth, State and Territory heads of forestry agencies, revitalized efforts to develop a more effective national forest policy, to address the ongoing forestry challenges and to achieve a consensus approach on the future management of Australia’s forests and forest industries. This initiative was partially driven by the Commonwealth Ecologically Sustainable Development and Resource Assessment Commission processes, but also by the ongoing challenges associated with the annual export licence process and the desire to provide greater resource and policy certainty to proponents of a number of proposed major forest industry developments.

The Commonwealth and State/Territory First Ministers signed the National Forest Policy Statement (NFPS) ⁴ in December 1992, with Tasmania subsequently signing in 1995. It contains a vision of ecologically sustainable management of Australia’s forests and eleven national goals, together with specific objectives and policies for eleven thematic topics, including conservation, wood production and industry development, intergovernmental arrangements, and plantations. The national goals seek to: manage native forests in an ecologically sustainable manner; conserve the full suite of values for current and future generations; and expand commercial softwood and hardwood plantations while developing an internationally competitive and sustainable forest industry. The NFPS included agreed definitions of biological diversity, ecologically sustainable development, endangered species and communities, nature conservation reserves, old growth forest, precautionary principle, vulnerable species and communities, and wilderness.

The NFPS states that ecologically sustainable forest management will be given effect through the continued development of integrated planning processes, through codes of practice and environmental prescriptions, and through management plans incorporate sustainable yield harvesting practices. Drawing from the report of the Ecologically Sustainable Development Working Group on Forest Use, the NFPS identifies three requirements:

• Maintaining the ecological processes within forests (the formation of soil, energy flows, and the carbon, nutrient and water cycles);
• Maintaining the biological diversity of forests; and
• Optimizing the benefits to the community from all uses of forests within ecological constraints.

A key NFPS policy initiative was the commitment, upon the invitation of a State, to jointly undertake comprehensive assessments of forest environmental and heritage values on a regional basis and then to use the outcomes of these assessments to enable the Commonwealth and State to reach a single agreement relating to each of their obligations for forests in a region. Importantly, the completion of comprehensive regional assessments would enable the Commonwealth to accredit State assessment processes, consistent with the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment. Another key policy related to the development of a set of criteria, based on the principles of comprehensiveness, adequacy and representativeness, to be used as the basis for determining reserve systems to protect conservation values of forests. There was a commitment that such criteria would be used to review the appropriateness of the existing conservation and wilderness reserves, with the goal of achieving a comprehensive, adequate and representative reservation system to protect old-growth forest and wilderness values, which would be in place by the end of 1995.

In relation to wood production and industry development, the NFPS’s specific policies covered use of forests outside the reserve system to meet a range of ecologically sustainable uses, including wood production. They also provided for State governments to determine the amount of wood available from public forests, taking account of a range of environmental values as well as the requirements of other forest uses and Codes of Forest Practice. The NFPS included a strategy that the State Governments will ensure that, for public native forests, existing or new Codes of Practice reflect ‘best available practices’ that conform with the agreed national principles for forest practices related to wood production in native forests. The strategy also committed the State Governments to regularly review and revise the Codes of Practice, in light of improved knowledge of ecologically sustainable management and with appropriate industry and community consultation.

Early Implementation of the National Forest Policy Statement

Despite reaching consensus on important new forest policies within the NFPS in 1992, progress in implementing the comprehensive regional assessments was slow. This was partly because further agreement was required between the Commonwealth and States on what uses and values would be assessed in the comprehensive regional assessments and partly because the States had to invite the Commonwealth to participate in these assessments. However, in 1992 some pilot joint regional assessments of National Estate values were already underway. The pilot areas for these regional assessments were the south-west forests of Western Australia, followed by East Gippsland and Central Highlands Forest Management Areas in Victoria. In the case of East Gippsland, the national estate assessment process took about four years and had to be mostly funded by Victoria.

To implement the comprehensive regional assessments, new methods had to be developed and agreed to by Commonwealth and State officials. In addition, some important regional data sets, such as the mapping of both ecological vegetation classes (EVCs) and remnant old growth forests, were still being developed in Victoria. Victoria led the way on developing the methods for identifying old growth forests. Dedicated teams undertook aerial photograph interpretation to identify candidate old growth areas and determine growth stages of overstorey trees. They also established a process for identifying and mapping different EVCs and for determining the forest disturbance history. The mapped data on EVCs, forest growth stages and disturbance history were combined in a Geographic Information System to model the extent of old growth forests within each EVC.

Major Conflict over the 1994 Export Woodchip Licences

In 1994, the annual export licence process led to major conflicts between the Commonwealth Ministers responsible for Resources and Environment. In mid 1994, the Environment Minister (Senator Faulkner) commissioned various conservation groups to identify high conservation sites (not necessarily places listed as National Estate). That process led to the identification of 1297 sites of high conservation value in various forest regions across Australia, without any clear consideration of the existing scientific data. It was therefore inconsistent with the NFPS and in stark contrast to the processes being used in Victoria to determine which areas of State forest should become National Park and how important environmental values in State forest should be protected. The Commonwealth Environment Minister provided advice to the Resources Minister (Mr. Beddall) listing 1297 coupes that he considered should not be logged. The Resources Minister, who had the decision-making power in the export licence process, then largely ignored this list, excluding the utilization of woodchips from only 85 of these coupes when issuing the 1995 export woodchip licences. This prompted uproar from the conservation groups, protesting outside Parliament House, and resulted in an intervention by the Prime Minister (Paul Keating) to freeze logging on another 509 of the coupes, pending a further review of the environmental values in these sites, with final decisions on logging of each of these coupes to be made by the Federal Cabinet. The Cabinet had to meet several times to consider the individual circumstances of this many logging coupes.

The conflict between the Resources and Environment Ministers and frustration about the slow progress in implementing comprehensive regional assessments led to an intervention by the Prime Minister, Paul Keating, in December 1994. He explained that the States were not inviting the Commonwealth to participate in the comprehensive regional assessments, blaming opposition from forest industries to these assessments. To encourage State participation, he announced that from 1996 each year the Commonwealth would decrease the annual volume of woodchips licenced by 20 percent. After 2000, the export of woodchips would be banned from those areas of native forests that were not covered by Regional Forest Agreements, incorporating a comprehensive, adequate and representative reserve system as required by the National Forest Policy Statement.

In January 1995, the Federal Court set aside a decision by the Resources Minister to grant an export licence for woodchips from northern Tasmania on the basis that the Minister had not complied with the provisions of the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act, 1974. This prompted further interventions from Prime Minister (Paul Keating). He appointed independent scientific experts to help develop a Commonwealth set of criteria for forest conservation, which ultimately were unacceptable to many of the States. The Prime Minister also made a statement in late January that the 509 forest areas identified by the Environment Minister would be included in a comprehensive reserve system.

In February 1995, the timber industry responded with a major blockade of Parliament House in Canberra, forcing the Prime Minister to walk through the log truck blockade to enter Parliament House. Clearly, this level of conflict and political deliberation on individual logging coupes around Australia was not politically sustainable and it led to achieving bipartisan political support for the development of Regional Forest Agreements. Victoria responded by inviting the Commonwealth to participate in regional assessment processes for the remaining Forest Management Areas, other than those in northern Victoria from which no woodchips for export markets were being produced.

Some interim measures were put in place to enable logging to continue while the regional assessments were undertaken. In 1995, the Commonwealth and Victorian Governments jointly undertook a Deferred Forest Assessment, which enabled approval of an Interim Forest Agreement in January 1996. The aim of that agreement was to ensure that options for the development of a Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative (CAR) reserve system were not foreclosed while the comprehensive regional assessments were being undertaken.

The political ramifications of the protracted conflicts over forest use meant that there was bi-partisan support at the Commonwealth level for the implementation of Regional Forest Agreements. When the Howard Coalition Government came to power in March 1996, the Primary Industries Minister announced that three-year export licences would be issued, and the Export Control regulations were amended to exempt any woodchips sourced from Regional Forest Agreement Areas (expected to be in place by 2000).

Development of the JANIS Conservation Reserve Criteria

The 1992 NFPS included a policy to establish a working group of technical experts under a Steering Committee of both the Environment and Forestry Ministerial Councils to make recommendations on broad criteria for conservation reserves, based on the principles of comprehensiveness, adequacy and representativeness.

As with other aspects of Australia’s forest policy development, implementation of the policy concept was not without its challenges. An expert group of Commonwealth and State officials, working within the Ministerial Council system, developed draft criteria, but not all governments were prepared to agree to them. The independent scientific expert group appointed by the Prime Minister in early 1995 produced another proposed set of criteria that had bi-partisan political support at the national level, but these were not acceptable to many State governments. Subsequently, further work was undertaken by Commonwealth and State officials working on the Joint ANZECC/MCFFA National Forest Policy Statement Implementation Sub-committee (JANIS), to refine some of the wording used in the earlier proposals. This led to the Nationally Agreed Criteria for the Establishment of a Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative Reserve System for Forests in Australia (known as the JANIS criteria), which were endorsed by the two Ministerial Councils (ANZECC and MCFFA) by early 1997.

The agreed JANIS reserve criteria covered biodiversity, old growth forests and wilderness, containing some flexibility in their application for reserve design and the ability to take account of social and economic considerations in decision making. It was considered that flexibility was needed in the application of reserve criteria, to enable appropriate consideration of differing regional circumstances. This flexibility was required to ensure that the CAR reserve system delivered optimal nature conservation outcomes, as well as acceptable social and economic outcomes. The JANIS reserve criteria also included some criteria and other guidelines on reserve design and management.

The JANIS reserve criteria apply to both public and private land, albeit with some differences. On public land the CAR reserve system has three components: Dedicated Reserves; Informal Reserves; and Values Protected by Prescription. On private land it was recognized that a number of different strategies would be needed and that the level of protection possible on private land would be limited by the available financial resources. It was recognized that there would be many possible configurations of a CAR reserve system in a region. Therefore, it was agreed that transparent analytical processes should be used to integrate conservation, social and economic considerations; and that the least cost option should be used where there were different configuration options possible for the reserves.

The JANIS reserve criteria were designed to ensure a consistent approach between regions, while allowing the best available data to be used in each region. They were used to develop the CAR Reserve systems in each Regional Forest Agreement process. They set desired benchmarks for forest conservation within the CAR reserve system, including:

• For biodiversity, 15% of the pre-1750 area of each forest ecosystem, with at least 60% of vulnerable and endangered forest ecosystems;
• For old growth forests, 60% of the old growth area in each forest ecosystem, but with 100% protection for rare or depleted old-growth forest ecosystems;
• For wilderness, 90% of the area of high-quality wilderness

The 1997 COAG Heads of Agreement on Commonwealth/State Roles and Responsibilities for the Environment

In May 1996, following the election of the Howard Government, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) agreed to a Review of Commonwealth/State roles and responsibilities for the environment, which was intended to occur every three years under the 1992 Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment. The Intergovernmental Committee for Ecologically Sustainable Development (ICESD) appointed a working group to undertake the Review and to prepare a report. The Review was intended to focus on a number of key environmental issues which would improve the performance of the 1992 IGAE, and to develop a more effective framework for inter-governmental relations on the environment. This was aimed at providing greater certainty for participants in environment issues, minimising duplication of effort to achieve common goals and facilitating improved environmental outcomes.

In November 1997, COAG gave an in-principle endorsement of the Heads of Agreement on Commonwealth/State Roles and Responsibilities for the Environment. Subsequently all Heads of Government and the President of the Australian Local Government Association signed the Agreement. That Agreement ultimately led to the Commonwealth drafting comprehensive new environment legislation. It proposed a framework for comprehensive reform of Commonwealth-State roles and responsibilities for the environment, that aimed to focus the Commonwealth’s role on matters of national environmental significance. It also identified that the Commonwealth's environmental assessment and approval process should only be triggered by proposals which may have a significant impact on any of the seven identified matters of national environmental significance. It also agreed that reform was needed in the listing, protection and management of heritage places, compliance with State environmental and planning legislation and better delivery of national environmental programs. The Agreement also noted that the Commonwealth has interests and obligations for a range of other matters of national environmental significance, but that these matters would not trigger the Commonwealth environmental assessment and approval process. This included: aspects of the conservation of biological diversity related to the Commonwealth’s responsibilities under the Convention on Biological Diversity; and protection and management of forests, in relation to the development and implementation of Regional Forest Agreements and the National Forest Policy Statement. Importantly, clause 10 of the Agreement specified that nothing in this Agreement will affect any arrangements entered into, at any time, as part of a Regional Forest Agreement.

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, 1999

After a lengthy consultation period with State Governments, stakeholders and a Senate inquiry, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, 1999 (EPBC Act) was enacted by the Howard Coalition Government and came into effect in July 2000. Three of the original objects of the Act strongly reflected the outcomes of the various environment and forestry processes outlined in Chapter 2. They are:

• To provide for the protection of the environment, especially those aspects of the environment that are matters of national environmental significance;
• To promote ecologically sustainable development through the conservation and ecologically sustainable use of natural resources; and
• To promote the conservation of biodiversity.

Over the years, various amendments to the EBBC Act have increased the number of objects of the legislation to eight and increased the number of matters of national environmental significance to nine. The key matters of national environmental significance relevant to forest management are:

• the world heritage values of a declared World Heritage property (only affects Budj Bim in western Victoria)
• the National Heritage values of a National Heritage place;
• listed threatened species and ecological communities; and
• the ecological character of a declared Ramsar wetland.

Once this legislation was enacted, there was a very strong incentive for the States that conducted forestry operations, which had the potential to impact on any of these matters of national environmental significance, to expedite the development and approval of their Regional Forest Agreements.

Under the 1997 Heads of Agreement on Commonwealth/State Roles and Responsibilities for the Environment, the Council of Australian Governments agreed that heritage listing and protection would be better managed by the government agencies that were best placed to deliver the agreed outcomes. After the enactment of the Commonwealth’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, 1999 and the abolishing of the Australian Heritage Commission, new listing to the Register of the National Estate could no longer be made from 2007 and the National Estate Register, which contained more than 13,000 places lost its statutory basis in 2012. The EPBC Act provides for National and Commonwealth heritage lists, with National Heritage being a place that has outstanding heritage to the nation and Commonwealth Heritage including places with local heritage significan

The Basis for and Process for Developing Regional Forest Agreements

A Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) is a bi-lateral agreement between the Commonwealth and State Governments that provides the basis for accreditation of the State’s environmental approval processes and it gives forestry operations, that are conducted in accordance with an RFA, exemptions under Part 3 of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, 1999 as well as exempting RFA wood from the controls imposed under the Export Control Act, 2020. The original RFAs had a 20-year life, with provision for five-yearly reviews. They sought to provide a balance of the environmental, social, economic and heritage values that are found in or are obtained from forests.

The Regional Forest Agreements Act, 2002 (Cth) defines an RFA as an agreement between the Commonwealth and a State that satisfies all the following conditions:

• the agreement was entered into having regard to assessments of the following matters that are relevant to the region or regions:
  • environmental values, including old growth, wilderness, endangered species, national estate values and World Heritage values
  • indigenous heritage values
  • economic values of forested areas and forest industries
  • social values (including community needs)
  • principles of ecologically sustainable management
• the agreement provides for a comprehensive, adequate and representative reserve system;
• the agreement provides for the ecologically sustainable management and use of forested areas in the region or regions;
• the agreement is expressed to be for the purpose of providing long term stability of forests and forest industries;
• the agreement is expressed to be a Regional Forest Agreement.

The design and conduct of the Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) process followed the principles agreed to by the Commonwealth and State and Territory Governments in the 1992 Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment and the 1992 National Forest Policy Statement. Essentially the process was driven by four interacting factors:

• A desire by the Commonwealth and State Governments to resolve the ongoing forest conflicts and eliminate duplicative government forest-related processes;
• The need to address various international commitments, legislative obligations on forests, and the commitments made in the National Forest Policy Statement;
• A recognition that ecologically sustainable forest management decisions should be based on region wide analysis of comprehensive data sets on a range of environmental, social and economic values of forests; and
• a desire to achieve an equitable balance between conservation and sustainable use of forest resources and to have improved longer-term certainty for forest related investment decisions.

The RFA process involved six phases:

• Development of a scoping agreement, that identified key government obligations, regional objectives and interests, and broad forest uses;
• Conducting a Comprehensive Regional Assessment (CRA);
• Preparation of a Directions Report, that identified issues relevant to the development of the RFA including application of the JANIS criteria in the proposed reserve system, elements of ecological sustainable forest management, links to environment and heritage legislation and industry development opportunities;
• Integration of the various CRA assessment reports and the development of conservation and resource use options;
• Public consultation on options and issues for the RFA; and
• Negotiation of the Regional Forest Agreement document.

Victoria was an early and active participant in the RFA process, having had experience at working jointly with Commonwealth officials during the pilot regional assessments of National Estate values. Victoria invited the Commonwealth to establish RFAs for five regions: East Gippsland; Gippsland; Central Highlands; North East and West Victoria. The Scoping Agreement, setting out the arrangements for undertaking the Comprehensive Regional Assessments and developing the five RFAs, was signed in January 1996. Victoria entered the RFA process with a long history of public land use investigations under the Land Conservation Council, recently revised timber industry policies, an active old growth forest survey process and a considerable knowledge of both timber and flora and fauna values in key forest areas. At the time, Victoria was considering a proposal to build a new pulp mill in East Gippsland and therefore had a strong incentive to work with the Commonwealth to avoid the potential for duplicative environmental impact assessment processes.

The very first RFA in Australia was the East Gippsland RFA, which was approved in February 1997. During the development of the RFA arrangements, as an early supporter of the process, Victoria was in a good position to influence some key aspects. For example, during the development of the East Gippsland RFA, there was not yet a national agreement on the number of years an RFA would operate for. Initially the Commonwealth officials proposed a 10-year period but, as Victoria had begun issuing 15-year timber licences it argued strongly for the 20-year period, that was adopted for all the original RFAs.

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet participated in the RFA process and a Commonwealth-State Steering Committee of officials was established to manage the RFA process in each of the identified RFA regions. In the early years, there were tensions within this governance arrangement, not only between Victoria and the Commonwealth but also between officials from the Commonwealth’s environment and resources departments. A separate process was implemented, in parallel to the development of the RFA, for the Commonwealth to assess and accredit Victoria’s land use planning and forest resource management systems, in terms of meeting the requirements of all relevant legislation and international agreements. The accreditation of these State systems applied to the whole forest estate covered by a Regional Forest Agreement, including areas designated as either State forest or National Park.

A Statewide Expert Advisory Group, chaired by Prof. Ian Ferguson and composed of six independent experts, assisted the Commonwealth-State Steering Committee to review Victoria’s existing forest management and planning systems relating to ecologically sustainable forest management. They assessed whether or not these systems contained the necessary soundly based elements and whether or not they were adequately linked to administrative systems, to ensure that stated policies and legislative requirements were being implemented effectively. During this difficult process, there were very strong tensions between the Commonwealth and Victorian members, including arguments about whether or not to recognize recent improvements that Victoria had made to its forest management system. Ultimately, the Expert Advisory Group’s report became the statewide assessment of ecologically sustainable forest management that was used in each Victorian RFA process.

A joint Technical Committee of Commonwealth and State officials coordinated the work of developing the RFAs in each region. Victoria expedited these RFA processes including by establishing regionally-based multi-disciplinary teams in each RFA region. During the RFA processes, the fact that all Victorian officials and specialist staff had been working collaboratively in the one integrated department for more than a decade meant that it had a unified position on the strategies to balance competing forest uses and values. The Commonwealth also devoted substantial resources to the RFA process, establishing teams of officials from various departments to work collaboratively with the Victorian RFA teams. It has been estimated that collectively the Commonwealth and State Governments spent an average of $20 million on the development of each RFA.

The Comprehensive Regional Assessments were undertaken between 1995 and 2000 to determine the values and uses of the forests in each RFA region. They examined: timber harvesting, regional employment, biodiversity conservation, wilderness, water catchment protection, tourism, recreation, and cultural and heritage values. During the implementation of the Comprehensive Regional Assessments, a very large amount of data was compiled into comprehensive databases and, where relevant, into spatial layers of a Geographic Information System. For each RFA region, at least 50 different assessment projects were undertaken, covering the environmental, heritage, social and economic values of the forests. The use of recently acquired Geographic Information System technologies greatly assisted the ability of the RFA project teams to integrate multiple spatial data sets and develop options for developing the comprehensive, adequate and representative reserve system, in order to achieve most of the agreed JANIS reserve criteria in a way that enabled efficient future land management arrangements while continuing to deliver the desired social and economic values from the forest estate. This technology also enabled analysis of the impacts of different options on faunal abundance, water yields and timber yields to be modelled using the existing computer-based forest planning models.

The Commonwealth and Victorian Governments entered into five RFAs as follows:

• East Gippsland RFA – signed on 3 February 1997
• Central Highlands RFA – signed on 27 March 1998
• North East RFA – signed on 9 August 1999
• West Victoria RFA – signed on 31 March 2000
• Gippsland RFA signed on 31 March 2000

Each RFA also included maps of the agreed Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative reserve system and a series of tables listing the representative conservation of forest and non-forest Ecological Vegetation Classes and Old Growth Forests within each category of the reserve system.

The Genesis of Victoria’s Forest Management Plans

Forest Management Plans are the mechanism for articulating the detail on how different parts of the State forest landscape are to be managed to achieve multiple land use and environmental objectives within a region of forest. They are integrally linked to the Regional Forest Agreements, because they are the place where the specific management strategies, actions and specific localized prescriptions for different forest uses and values are articulated. They also include the forest management zoning maps which detail the locations of the Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative reserve system.

The 1986 Timber Industry Strategy was the impetus for the development of comprehensive regional forest management plans. That strategy contained three initiatives which were subsequently brought together in the forest management planning process:

• A commitment to move from a statewide to a regional calculation of sustainable wood and non-wood product yields;
• A recognition that forest planning should be based on multiple use and ensure that all non-wood products were provided for when determining regional sustainable yields of wood products; and
• A commitment to provide improved transparency and public involvement in forest planning and management.

The 1986 Timber Industry Strategy had divided Victoria into 15 Forest Management Areas, with the intention that a comprehensive forest management plan would be prepared for each area. The purpose of Victoria’s Forest Management Plans was to direct the use and care of State forests for a ten-year period. The original Wodonga and Wangaratta Forest Management Areas were amalgamated, and then in some cases during the management planning process it was decided to cover more than one Forest Management Area in the one Forest Management Plan. The development of these Plans was undertaken during the RFA process and they were accredited under the relevant RFA as a key component of the accredited Forest Management System.

The Process for Developing Forest Management Plans

The planning process for the development of Victoria’s Forest Management Plans provided opportunities for public consultation and participation. That occurred through a “have your say” process, public consultation on discussion papers and the draft management plans, as well as the active involvement of a multi-stakeholder Forest Management Advisory Committee in each FMA. These planning processes commenced in the late 1980s, with the East Gippsland FMA process commencing in 1989.

The first step in the development of a Forest Management Plan was to prepare a Statement of Resources, Uses and Values for the Forest Management Area. These documents described the physical and biological features of the public land, provided an overview of the FMA’s history and social and economic profile and described its current use and management as well the issues and concerns to be considered during the development of the Forest Management Plan. The published Statement of Resources, Uses and Values documents were comprehensive reports of more than 200 pages and included many tables, figures and maps. The individual chapters in the report included a substantial list of relevant references.

During the preparation of the Forest Management Plans, a regionally-based multi-disciplinary planning team prepared options for achieving an appropriate balance between timber production and conservation in State forest. For example, in the development of the East Gippsland Forest Management Plan, a discussion paper was prepared that examined five options covering the forests of the upper Cann River catchment. From the public consultation process it became clear that none of the options emerged as the most favoured, so the planning team with input from the Forest Management Advisory Committee developed a set of principles for a preferred management option. These included:

• Its conservation strategy should be based on a network of protected areas and a prescriptive approach that takes account of the existing conservation reserves;
• It should provide high level protection for old-growth forest and apply a cautious approach to conservation of sensitive and threatened species. Sites of biological significance, significant rainforest areas and areas listed under the Register of the National Estate should be managed in accordance with an assessment of the rarity, sensitivity and representation status of their values;
• Emphasis should be placed on modified timber harvesting practices to accommodate significant biological values rather than automatic exclusion of harvesting;
• The growth of advanced regrowth forests should be accelerated by thinning, which would help offset sawlog resources made unavailable by conservation initiatives in the plan;
• The management strategies and zoning scheme adopted should be flexible to accommodate change; and
• The plan should meet the current sustainable yield level of A, B and C-grade sawlogs per year.

The Forest Management Plans were developed in two stages: a proposed Forest Management Plan was released for public comment which generally resulted in many submissions from individuals and organisations; a final Forest Management Plan was developed that included changes arising from the public comment, new information and additional input from departmental staff.

The Content of Forest Management Plans

The primary aim of Forest Management Plans was to ensure that State forest was managed in an environmentally sensitive, sustainable and economically viable manner. They sought to ensure that planning was a continuing process, responsive to changing community expectations and expanding knowledge of the forest ecosystem. To achieve the primary aim, the Plans established strategies for integrating the use of State forest for wood production and other purposes with the conservation of natural, aesthetic and cultural values across the whole planning area.

They mapped all forests into zones and established objectives for conservation, timber harvesting and other land uses. The forest management zoning scheme within State forests has three categories:

• Special Protection Zones (SPZs) are managed specifically for conservation values, including smaller occurrences of listed species and communities, and timber harvesting is not permitted;
• Special Management Zones (SMZs) are managed to conserve specific features, but may permit timber harvesting under special conditions specified in SMZ plans;
• General Management Zones (GMZs) are managed for multiple uses and values, with timber harvesting having a high priority.

The Forest Management Plans included Conservation Guidelines and Management Guidelines, as well as a series of actions to be implemented during the life of the plan. They also established an orderly process for the review and refinement of forest management strategies and zones to ensure that forest management programs remain responsive to new information, community expectations and other developments in natural resource management, while maintaining resource security for the regional timber industry.

At the time they were prepared, the Victorian Department had been undertaking a separate planning process to develop regional fire protection (management) plans, which included a fuel management zoning system, across all public land tenures. Therefore, the original Forest Management Plans did not address fire management in detail. Rather, they described the fuel management zoning system contained in the regional fire protection plans and indicated a small number of actions related to managing potential conflicts between planned burning and either timber utilization or biodiversity conservation. By 2004, when the Gippsland Forest Management Plan was approved, the plan contained a more detailed section on fire management which included a series of actions to progress the implementation of ecologically based fire regimes.

Victoria’s Forest Management Plan Legacy

The first Forest Management Plan was approved for the Otway FMA in 1992. Another eight Forest Management Plans were approved between 1995 and 2010, with the four plans covering all the State forests east of the Hume Highway all being completed by 2004. The original 1995 East Gippsland Forest Management Plan was amended in 1997, to take account of additional commitments, including changes to management zones and protection levels, that arose from the signing of the East Gippsland RFA in February 1997. The approved Forest Management Plans included:

• Otway FMA – 1992
• East Gippsland FMA – 1995 and an amendment in 1997
• Midlands FMA – 1996
• Central Highlands – 1998
• North East – 2001
• Mid Murray FMA - 2002
• Gippsland FMA – 2004
• Bendigo FMA – 2008
• Portland and Horsham FMAs – 2010

All of the approved Forest Management Plans have a legal status as ‘working plans’ under Section 22 of the Forests Act, 1958. However, these legislative provisions do not adequately cover the breadth of forest uses and values covered by the plans, the consultation processes to be used or any specified time bound requirement to review them. These Forest Management Plans included provisions to enable refinement of the management guidelines, prescriptions and zoning scheme in response to new information or changes in government policy, community expectations, technology and market conditions. Importantly, they were to apply for a 10-year period, after which intended to conduct a major review. Unfortunately, the major review processes were never undertaken.

Implementation in the 1990s

When Victoria signed the National Forest Policy Statement in December 1992, it was already well progressed with programs to implement the key strategies relevant to ecologically sustainable forest management in its native forests. These included:

• Integration of forest policy development, strategic planning and operational management at the organizational and regional levels, via its Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (1992-96)
• Development of Victoria’s Rainforest Conservation Policy in 1987
• Passing of the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act, 1988 to enhance the conservation of threatened species and communities and to manage potentially threatening processes
• Completion of more than 16 strategic public land use decision making processes by the Land Conservation Council involving a comprehensive evaluation of the potential uses and values of land within the study area and significant public consultation processes
• Completion of a Statewide Special Investigation by the Land Conservation Council of Wilderness Areas in 1991
• Transition from statewide sustained yield for sawlogs to regional sustainable yield for sawlogs under the 1986 Timber Industry Strategy which had led to substantial reductions in sawlog harvest levels in East Gippsland and the Central Gippsland regions, and a 14% reduction in sawlog volumes statewide
• Implementation of the Code of Practice for Timber Harvesting (Revision 1) ratified in May 1989
• Implementing efficient use and value adding, through the introduction of long-term evergreen timber licences to forest industries that invested in value-adding processing
• Preparation of Forest Management Plans, including establishment of multi-disciplinary regional teams developing each plan and a local stakeholder-based Forest Management Plan Advisory Committee providing community input
• Undertaking joint assessments with the Commonwealth of National Estate values and then joint assessments of key forest uses and values
• ystematic mapping of old growth forests, rainforests and ecological vegetation classes across all public land, and
• Implementing a substantial program of conducting flora and fauna surveys in forest blocks planned for timber harvesting in the next decade.

With its access to extensive data sets on forest uses and values and implementation of regionally based integrated forest management planning processes, Victoria was in a strong position to work collaboratively with the Commonwealth officials to use the best available information to develop proposals for the Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative reserve network in each of the five proposed Regional Forest Agreement regions.

At the time the National Forest Policy Statement was signed by First Ministers in December 1992, Victoria had just recently had a change of government, with Jeff Kennett becoming the Premier in October 1992. With the appointment of separate Ministers for Conservation and Environment and for Natural Resources, some aspects of the integrated approach to forest policy and land management began to change. In 1993, the renamed Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (CNR) reorganized its field structure into five Areas from the previous 16 Regions. The Forests Service was established and five Managers of Forest and Fire were appointed within the new Area structure. Much of the forest policy work was implemented through the Forest Management Branch of the Forests Service, with development of Regional Forest Agreements managed by a smaller separate Branch.

At the time the National Forest Policy Statement was signed by First Ministers in December 1992, Victoria had just recently had a change of government, with Jeff Kennett becoming the Premier in October 1992. With the appointment of separate Ministers for Conservation and Environment and for Natural Resources, some aspects of the integrated approach to forest policy and land management began to change. In 1993, the renamed Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (CNR) reorganized its field structure into five Areas from the previous 16 Regions. The Forests Service was established and five Managers of Forest and Fire were appointed within the new Area structure. Much of the forest policy work was implemented through the Forest Management Branch of the Forests Service, with development of Regional Forest Agreements managed by a smaller separate Branch.

The NFPS coverage of plantation forestry largely focused on increasing the plantation resource, improving the productivity of existing plantations and integrating plantation enterprises with other agricultural land uses. There was also agreement on ensuring public plantation resources were managed to maximise net returns. In November 1992, the Kennett government passed the State Owned Enterprises Act and then it established the Victorian Plantations Corporation under that Act in March 1993 and issued it with long-term leases covering almost all of the existing public plantation estate.

The NFPS required State governments to regularly review and revise Codes of Practice in light of improved knowledge of ecologically sustainable management and with appropriate industry and community consultation. In early 1995, the then Department of Conservation and Natural Resources commissioned the CSIRO Division of Forestry to undertake a review of the science that underpinned the content of the Code of Practice for Timber Harvesting. CSIRO was asked to recommend changes to the Code based on scientific evidence, experience, and observation of the effectiveness of the Code in achieving environmental care on the ground. CSIRO’s scientific commentary report presented succinct reviews of the relevant current knowledge on five broad topics covered by the Code: forest planning; conservation of flora and fauna; protection of water values; silvicultural treatments and site management practices. CSIRO, with input from departmental staff, developed a revised Code of Practice, which was released for public comment in September 1995, for which 55 written submissions were received. The second revision of the Code of Forest Practices for Timber Production was approved in November 1996. It broadened the scope of the Code and identified 11 Environmental Care Principles that would apply to timber growing and harvesting operations, with two new principles added covering: regional planning for determining priorities for wood production and maintaining or enhancing the wood production capacity of forests. For public native forests, Regional Forest Planning was included in the Code’s provisions, establishing the following goal: For public land Forest Management Plans are the fundamental plan for the management of environmental, cultural and resource values.

In the mid 1990s, discussions commenced within the Forests Service on how best to separate the costs of commercial wood production operations on State forest from the wide range of non-commercial management activities. This was partly due to the introduction of the National Competition Policy in April 1995 and partly related to external criticisms that timber production in Victoria’s public native forests was being undertaken at a financial loss. Under the competitive neutrality component of the National Competition Policy, the States had to demonstrate that government businesses did not enjoy unfair advantages over private businesses. The States also had to progressively review all legislation that potentially restricted competition. The Commonwealth provided additional funding tranches, in 1997,1999 and 2001 to the jurisdictions that had progressively implemented the agreed NCP reforms. By 1997, policy work was being undertaken for the government to consider establishing Forestry Victoria as a new State Owned Enterprise. In parallel to this work, the position of Manager, Forest Policy was established within the Forest Service, with initial work focused on a review and potential for a substantial revision of the outdated Forests Act, 1958. However, by late 1999, the impetus for this legislative revision had waned.

Changes in the early 2000s

One of the original intentions of the Regional Forest Agreements was to provide long-term stability of forests and forest industries. Since the Victorian RFAs were developed, there have been many changes to the policies and legislation that relate to timber harvesting in Victoria’s State forest. In 2002, the Victorian Government’s Our Forests Our Future policy statement introduced changes that revised down sustainable yield levels by 31 per cent and introduced a new market-based system for the sale of timber to industry. The subsequent addition of further areas of native forest to National Parks and other reserves together with the impact of extreme bushfire events in 2002–03, 2006–07 and 2009 further reduced the volumes of timber available to the forest industries. The impact on Victoria’s native forest timber resources was most acute in Ash forest areas in the Central Highlands region.

While the Forests Act, 1958 still had not been substantially updated, new legislation was introduced in 2004 via the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act, 2004. It provided the framework for the sustainable timber harvesting in State forest, including the requirement that when undertaking sustainable forest management, the Act’s principles of ecologically sustainable development had to be regarded. These principles include that decision making processes should effectively integrate both long-term and short term economic, environmental, social and intergenerational equity considerations, as well as the need to develop a strong, growing and diversified economy, while maintaining and enhancing international competitiveness in an environmentally sound manner. The Act also provided for a Sustainability Charter that sets out objectives, consistent with the principles of ecologically sustainable development, for both the sustainability of forests and the sustainability of the timber harvesting industry. The Sustainability Charter for Victoria’s State forests was approved in 2006 by the then Ministers for Environment and Agriculture. Objective 6 of that Charter is “to maintain and enhance the socio-economic benefits of State forests to Victorian communities”. Under that objective, the government committed to providing access to State forests for both wood and non-wood forest products and services on a sustainable basis, to promoting the native forest harvesting sector as a sustainable and attractive investment option, and to supporting forest industries that a socially and economically viable.