Flawed forest policy: flawed Regional Forest Agreements

ABSTRACT

Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) are 20-year State–Federal agreements first signed between 1997 and 2001. They underpin the management of the majority of Australia’s commercially productive native forests. Their objectives are to deliver certainty of resource access to forest industries, ensure that forest industries are profitable and protect environmental values, including biodiversity. I argue the objectives of RFAs have not been met with five key areas being unsuccessful. RFAs have: (i) failed to protect biodiversity and maintain ecosystem processes; (ii) been characterized by poor governance and watered down forest protection; (iii) overseen a demonstrable lack of profitability of, and declining employment in, native forest logging industries; (iv) led to the overcommitment of forest resources to wood production and (v) failed to account for other forest values that are often much greater than wood production. There is an urgent need for a comprehensive environmental, economic and social re-assessment of Australia’s RFAs and forest industries per se. Efforts to thoroughly review RFAs must take better account of recent scientific and economic information, and explore new ways to manage forests values beyond only timber.

KEYWORDS:

• Forest policy
• forest management
• forest biodiversity conservation
• native forest values

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Professor Helen Ross for the invitation to write this paper. Long-term field-based staff, particularly David Blair and Lachlan McBurney, have made substantial contributions to the knowledge and understanding of Victoria’s Mountain Ash forests for a decade or more. Claire Shepherd assisted with preparation of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

David B. Lindenmayer http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4766-4088