Victorian ash how is it felled

Other work on vascular plants and tree fall in the variable retention harvesting experiment has yet to be published. However, preliminary data suggest that rates of tree mortality and collapse are limited, although further long-term monitoring will be required to confirm initial patterns.

It is also currently too early to determine the effects of variable retention harvesting on vascular plants. However, earlier work has suggested that retention islands are important for maintaining populations of key plants that are otherwise highly sensitive to conventional clearcutting operations. These include tree ferns whose populations can be significantly depleted in logged and regenerated areas Blair et al. There has been a range of major challenges in implementing and then maintaining our variable retention harvesting experiment.

Some of these are cultural and social whereas others are economic. First, many large-scale experiments are expensive to implement Westgate et al. To avoid this problem in the variable retention harvesting experiment, we overlaid its implementation on existing timber harvesting schedules following protracted negotiations with private logging contractors and State Government officials.

However, this meant the study took 5 years to be fully implemented and encompass all treatments within experimental blocks. During this time, there was a decline in funding, thereby making it particularly challenging to maintain the experiment and implement all treatments in all experimental blocks.

Cultural and ideological issues were a second major hurdle associated with the variable retention harvesting experiment. Prior to, and during, the implementation of the study, extended field days were held to discuss the study with different stakeholder groups. These were useful but typically served to further entrench pre-existing views.

Members of some conservation groups have long maintained a strong level of opposition to any timber harvesting of native forests. Such opposition extended beyond clearcutting to include any kind of logging operation, including variable retention harvesting.

Conversely, traditional foresters and some private logging contractors opposed the experiment because of their belief that clearcutting was the most efficient and safest way to log Mountain Ash forests. Indeed, one of the treatment blocks initially established had to be abandoned because the retained islands were inexplicably logged, further delaying the full implementation of the project. Importantly, some senior officials from the Victorian Government championed the work; otherwise, the experiment would never have been established.

Finally, ongoing budget and staff cuts within the Victorian Government, coupled with frequent institutional restructuring has created enormous challenges in maintaining collaborative working partnerships between university researchers and new staff from government agencies.

One of the results of the high levels of churn among departmental staff has been that key management data have not been gathered such as information on additional costs of implementing variable retention harvesting and the extent of reductions in timber yields from harvest units.

The relatively long-term nature of the work in the variable retention harvesting experiment has created a third broad set of challenges. A critical one is that extensive recent fires especially in and changes in the ecological and economic context of the Mountain Ash forest have altered the underlying rationale and drivers for ongoing logging in this ecosystem.

This is further discussed in the following section. In addition, part of the experiment was damaged by the wildfires in , thereby undermining the initial experimental design and forcing us to alter the nature of the work so that the data from the experiment as well as data from ongoing monitoring could be analyzed as part of a portfolio of inter-related projects spanning a gradient in forest disturbance types and intensities Blair et al.

Finally, obtaining continued access to funding, even base-level funding, to maintain long-term research and monitoring has proven to be an enormous challenge.

This has particularly been the case with the demise of the Australian Long-Term Ecological Research Network of which the research in the Mountain Ash forests was formerly a part. Yet, ongoing, long-term monitoring is critical, particularly given the ecosystem-wide demise not only in key structural types such as old growth forest Lindenmayer et al.

Our work has shown that variable retention harvesting has positive benefits for maintaining and recovering populations of small mammals Lindenmayer et al. It appears likely that variable retention harvesting will benefit some species of native plants, particularly logging-sensitive resprouting species such as tree ferns Ough and Murphy , although further data collection will be needed to determine if initial patterns are maintained in the long term. Notably, the generally positive outcomes from variable retention harvesting extend beyond green-tree logging operations to those where fire-disturbed areas are subject to salvage logging, at least for forest-dependent bird taxa Lindenmayer et al.

For many years, it was the only example of variable retention in the wet eucalypt forests of Victoria and there was a general reticence to operationalize it more broadly across the State.

This was despite parallel experiments and successful implementation in Tasmania Baker and Read Yet, despite having been shown to be operationally achievable Baker and Read ; Lindenmayer and now having targets, implementation has been slow, with only 3. An additional issue associated with the on-the-ground application of Variable Retention has been major damage to retained islands resulting from high-intensity fires deliberately lit to promote the regeneration of harvested stands see Fig.

Indeed, entire islands are often fully engulfed during such burning operations Lindenmayer et al. Moreover, the smoke pollution generated from these logging burns can be substantial with subsequent negative impacts on air quality and human health Lindenmayer and Taylor The solution to these problems remains unclear.

Redistribution of logging slash throughout cutblocks and away from islands rather than it being heaped in large piles may reduce fire intensity and reduce damage to retained islands.

However, these benefits may be offset by increased long-term damage to soil environments created by greater levels of activity by harvesting machinery, including more soil compaction and greater losses of soil nutrients Bowd et al.

Logging slash on the floor of a harvested forest is burned in a high-intensity regeneration fire. The island retained within the logging coupe top center is unfortunately burned and all retained trees killed so they cannot grow to become large old trees as is the intention of such retention. Notably, the third image top right in this sequence shows the regeneration fire burning under the retained trees at the top of the logging coupe; the fire subsequently escaped the boundaries of the logging coupe and burned into the adjacent water catchment forest after Lindenmayer et al.

One of the most profound issues associated with the implementation of Variable Retention in Mountain Ash forests has been dramatic changes in the ecological, social, and economic context of this ecosystem. That is, the ecosystem is at risk of being characterized by impaired key ecosystem processes, depleted biodiversity, and a reduced capacity to generate important ecosystem services and products e.

These risks are a result of very limited amounts of remaining old growth 1. Further disturbance in this ecosystem, including through logging, would increase the risk of ecosystem collapse Lindenmayer and Sato For example, increasing numbers of cutblocks in Mountain Ash landscapes has been found to elevate the rates of collapse of large old trees in adjacent uncut areas Lindenmayer et al.

These ecosystem-wide changes also have the potential to influence the long-term effectiveness of variable retention harvesting. This is because of the potential decline in populations of animals at a landscape-level whose offspring would presumably have otherwise been the source of animals recolonizing areas that have been harvested and regenerated, including cutblocks containing retention islands.

A further contextual issue for the implementation of variable retention harvesting relates to the timber availability and sustained yield.

In the case of the Mountain Ash forests, widespread recent and past fires, coupled with extensive timber harvesting, have severely depleted the amount of forest available for sawlog production. A result of this was overcutting of the remaining green unburned forest Lindenmayer We argue that whilst the widespread implementation of variable retention harvesting would be a positive step, it would be unwise to do so without simultaneously implementing a major reduction in sustained yield.

Failure to do so would result in a greater overall area affected by logging as less timber is removed from each cutblock subject to variable retention harvesting, with more cutblocks are required to achieve the same volume Lindenmayer et al. Notably, logging operations in the Central Highlands Mountain Ash forests have consistently failed to achieve Forest Stewardship Council certification, in part, because harvesting is not deemed to be ecologically sustainable.

The economic context for variable retention harvesting is also an important consideration in its implementation.

That is, the ongoing harvesting of forests needs to be assessed not only against the condition of the broader ecosystem subject to management, but also relative to the economic values of other natural assets that are diminished as a direct result of logging in the same ecosystem. The water yield from forests regenerating after logging is significantly lower than the water yield of intact, uncut old-growth forests Vertessy et al.

The economic case for ongoing timber harvesting, irrespective of the silvicultural system employed, would therefore appear to be tenuous at best Keith et al. Nevertheless, the work has shown that this silvicultural system is operationally achievable and has environmental benefits for some key groups such as small mammals and birds and likely also vascular plants.

Variable retention harvesting has value not only in green-tree logging but also in post-fire salvage logging where the retention of patches of retained forest can provide valuable habitat for birds and plants. Despite these positive outcomes, important operational issues remain, including the severe negative impacts of high-severity regeneration burns on the integrity and condition of retained patches within cutblocks.

More significantly, the ecological and economic context for variable retention harvesting must be addressed. In some cases, including in the Mountain Ash forests, overarching issues like the sustained yield of wood production and the relative economic value of other natural assets such as water that are traded off when the forests are logged need to be carefully assessed.

Aust J Bot — Article Google Scholar. For Ecol Manag — Aust Forestry — Ecol Appl — Curr Biol — Austral Ecol — Campbell RG Evaluation and development of sustainable silvicultural systems for Mountain Ash forests. Discussion paper. But there is no indication the Victorian Government will adopt this system, despite it having been successfully trialled in Mountain Ash forests.

The Victorian Government lags well behind other Australian states and other nations when it comes to the use of ecologically sustainable logging practices. The most extensive areas of Mountain Ash forest remaining for logging are those that regenerated after the wildfires. This age of forest has been targeted for clearfelling for more than two decades. This is out of around 38, ha currently available.

Present cutting rates would exhaust the regrowth resource within around 15 years. Older trees are needed to produce sawlogs, but there are very few stands of forest older than and those remaining are critically important for wildlife conservation. Past and present overcutting will collapse the sawlog industry. The forest industry will increasingly be dominated by low value woodchips and pulpwood from young forest. Tens of thousands of hectares of Mountain Ash forest were burned in the wildfires.

But there has been no reduction in the sustained yield of timber and pulpwood from Mountain Ash forests. This has ramped up pressure on the reduced available green unburned Mountain Ash forest, making over-cutting inevitable. I agree this is important. The so-called balance is tipped radically toward what are demonstrably unsustainable forest management practices.

There is an urgent need for reform. The timber and pulpwood resources in Mountain Ash forests are overcommitted. These ideas have also been around for decades. It is time that the managers of these forests started taking note of the long-standing research. Areas that are exempt from logging need to be transferred to an expanded reserve system where there is an increased chance that such stands can grow through to an old growth stage.

The industry is already being subsidised by the taxpayer through the losses incurred by organisations such as VicForests. At the end of their service, timber pallets are sent to landfill, chipped for particleboard, reused for landscape mulch or burnt for energy generation. Longer-lived wood products, such as the small proportion of native timber used in building and furniture, have a lifespan of around 90 years.

These wood products are used to justify logging native forests. But at the end of their service life, the majority of these wood products also end up in landfill. In fact, for the , tonnes of wood waste generated annually from building, demolition and other related commercial processes in Victoria, over two thirds end up in landfill, according to a Sustainability Victoria report.

A second myth is using logs from Victorian native forests will prevent logging and degradation of rainforests across South East Asia, particularly for paper production.

This is patently absurd. And Australia is a net exporter by volume of lower-value unprocessed logs and woodchips. Read more: Native forests can help hit emissions targets — if we leave them alone. Processing pulplogs from well managed plantations in Victoria instead of exporting them would give a much needed jobs boost for local economies. With most of these plantations established on previously cleared farmland, they offer one of the most robust ways for the land use sector to off-set greenhouse gas emissions.

The time is right for Australian governments to develop a long-term carbon storage plan that includes intact native forests. This is patently counterproductive from a carbon-storage point of view.

Read more: Native forest protections are deeply flawed, yet may be in place for another 20 years.