Laurie L. Kremsater

The Victorian Forestry Roundtable Meeting: a discussion of transitions to sustainability in Victorian forests

Summary A Forestry Roundtable Meeting was convened at Marysville in Central Victoria in August—September 2002 to explore issues associated with improvement of the management of Victorias montane ash forests. Representatives were invited from government agencies, timber interests and conservation groups. In addition, scientists from Australian and overseas academic institutions attended. The aims of the meeting were to: (a) provide a forum for stakeholders to engage in constructive dialogue about approaches to forest management, water production, and biodiversity conservation in the Central Highlands of Victoria, and (b) highlight to stakeholders that resource management issues faced in the Central Highlands of Victoria have been faced in forests elsewhere in the world and by other resource sectors in Australia. Many valuable insights emerged from the Forestry Roundtable Meeting. Three major issues emerged from the meeting and are discussed in this paper. (1) There was considerable stakeholder dissatisfaction with the Regional Forest Agreement process—both from industry and from conservation perspectives. There was concern about overcommitment of resources, with the predicted timber yields exceeding actual yields from montane ash forests. It was argued that a more transparent participatory (rather than consultative) process was needed in which all stakeholders (including government agencies) had access to the same (primary) data and analytical procedures. Many participants believed this would engender greater trust in, and public ownership of, the Regional Forest Agreement process. (2) The reduced technical capacity of resource management agencies was raised as a major concern. Such a capacity is fundamental to improving forest management. This problem is not restricted to Victorian or Australian forests. For example, the extremely poor record on forest monitoring (such as biodiversity responses to logging disturbance) has been recognised as a problem worldwide and is considered likely to be a limiting factor in discussions on how to improve forest management practices in the future. (3) The widespread use of clearfelling to harvest and regenerate montane ash forests was considered to be a major issue. Developing and applying harvest practices that are more ecologically sensitive in at least some areas of logged forest was considered critical to resolving some of the conflict between timber and other values. Guidelines for developing such methods are available elsewhere in Australia (e.g. Tasmania) and around the world (e.g. North America and Scandinavia). A concrete outcome of the Forestry Roundtable Meeting was a broadly-based commitment to begin experimenting with new sil vicultural systems that retain more vegetation on logged coupes and to determine the value of such approaches for biodiversity conservation.