Call to actively manage ‘sick’ forests

Philip HOPKINS

FOREST and forest firemanagement in Gippsland must be done on alandscape scale, with activemanagement over longtimeframes, using expert knowledge offorests,a major state and federal government review has found.

The expert panel that assessed the impact of the 2019-20 bushfires on Victoria’s forests and Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) made 37 recommendations that highlighted the need for amajor overhaul of current forest management strategies.

“These forests aresick because we arenot managing them properly,” amember of the expert panel, Dr Tony Bartlett, AFSM (Australian FireServices Medal) told aForestry Australia conferenceinAlbury in areport on the RFAreview, which took 13 months to complete.

The othermembers of the panel were the Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability in Victoria,Dr GillianSparkes (AM) and KatherineMullett, atraditional owner from East Gippsland.

Dr Bartlett said if the communitydid not learn the lessons from the massive bushfires, “we areall culpable of not treating the disease”.

“The fires affected all values reserves. Logging is not the enemy of these forests; uncontrolled wildfires is what is having the biggest impact on the multiple values so important under the RFAs,” he said.

“Whether rainforest conservation reserves or state forests, they aresick. The issue is inadequate firemanagement, the threats aremultiple -not just loss of timber resources or old growth forest. All the values areimportant,even recreation values; all arebeing affected in amajor way. If fires aremore frequent and worse, they (the values) will get worse.”

Dr Bartlettsaid forest management plans andnational park managementplans were both hugely out of date.

“Firedoes not carewhether it’s national park, state forest or private land; the firewill go over the top. If we don’t integrate them, we have no hope in making progress,” he said.

Among the recommendations were:

 Moreactive and adaptive management, including the scaling up of ecological burning in the forests;

 Empowering an active role by traditional owner groups in the management of forests on public land or Country, including adequate resourcing of the groups and their greater participation in bushfiremanagement;

 The panel noted that Victoria’s harvest level review’s finding that the 2019-20 bushfires would not affect Victoria’s ability to supply the levels of ash and mixed species sawlogs committed under the Victorian Forestry Plan, and;

 Validate the effectiveness of the current CAR reserve system for listed species and communities in the next scheduled five-yearly review, including afull analysis of the current status of old growth forest post-fires.

Dr Bartlett said allparties needed to support theexpansion of forest industries to drive jobs and economic benefits to the regions.

“This serves the added benefit of having knowledgeableand trained crews on the ground when fires do occur,” he said.

The Black Summer bushfires burnt 1.5 million hectares, including nearly1.3m ha of native forest; 70pcofthe forests in the EastGippslandRFA were burnt and morethan 270,000ha in the North East.

About 760,000ha of the conservationreserve system was affected, withmorethan half burnt at high intensity. About 270,000 ha had been burnt multipletimes,particularly in easternVictoria.

Dr Bartlett, who had previously workedinEastGippslandand knewthe region’sfirehistory, said he was “shocked” when he saw the state of some of the forest.

The premises of the RFAs was to protect the most significant environmental values in the CAR reserves system.

“The CAR reserve system -the data is showing it’s not working. Thereare multiplethreats to forest values,” he said.

An additional62,000 ha of old growth forest was lost, and lots of listed fauna species wereaffected. Tenper cent of Aboriginal sites wereaffected, but most Aboriginal sites had not been surveyed.

“Apiary sites suffered significant impact, with along tail end for when the sites will produce honey. The biggest ever impact was on recreation areas, with a big impact on tourism, which have not all been fixed,” he said.

Dr Bartlett said he was visibly moved by somecomments from traditional owners,who were severely affected by the fires and their impact on Country.

“Thetakehomemessage is they are crying out for a whole of forest management. They need genuine engagementbefore, during and after the fires,” he said, althoughthis variedacross the state.

“A couple of traditionalgroups told us, ‘You have stuffed these forests, you now want to give back to us to fix the problems. We want to be involved; it’s not up to us to fix your problems’.”

Dr Bartlett praised Victoria’s major program to try and restore some Ash forests.

“If we do nothing more, nothing will be left of Ash forests in our lifetime,” he said.

Between the RFAs in early 2002 and now, Victoria had lost 60 percent of its old growth forest -equivalent of four times the size of the Wilson’s Promintory National Park.

The damage was due to wildfires.

“Less than one per cent relates to timberharvesting, those with an agenda don’t talk about it,” he said.

Dr Bartlett said firelosses of plantations assets were continuing.

“It’s difficultinbig fires to do somethingaboutit, but if we keep going like this, no private investor will invest in large-scale

It’s difficult in big fires to do something about it, but if we keep going like this, no private investor will invest in large-scale plantations because the numbers will never stack, they will never gettorotations stage

Dr Bartlett

plantations because the numberswill never stack, theywill never get to rotations stage,” he said.

These weremainly private assets, not government assets.

“They must be integrated into the wholeprocess. The panels weretold of plantations in East Gippsland wheretheycould not even get approval to do a backburninthe middle of the night around their plantations because decisions weremade a long way away and not locally,” he said.

Dr Bartlett said in the modernised RFAs, there were lots of good things that the two levels of government had committed to in 2020, “but action has not match words in the revised RFAs”.

When theRFAswerefirst developed, therewerevery comprehensive regional-based teams, floraand fauna and forestry people teams, and divisional committee with relevant stakeholders, he said.

Eachhad anadvisory committee of stakeholder groups, compromises weremade at regional level.

“I don’t see any of that. We need to update forest management by next year.I’m not surewhether the process hasstarted.There arebig issues,” he said.

The RFABushfireReview can be viewed at https://www.agriculture.gov.au/sites/default/ files/documents/vic-rfa-merbushfires-report-2022.pdf