Australia has many forests of importance due to significant features, despite being one of the driest continents. As of 2009[update], Australia has approximately 147 million hectares of native forest, which represents about 19% of Australia's land area.[1] The majority of Australia's trees are hardwoods, typically eucalypts, rather than softwoods like pine. While softwoods dominate some native forests, their total area is judged insufficient to constitute a major forest type in Australia's National Forest Inventory. The Forests Australia website provides up-to-date information on Australia's forests. Detailed information on Australia's forests is available from Australia's State of the Forests Reports that are published every five years.
Forest typesedit
There are 458 forest communities distributed across Australia. These have been grouped into the following seven native forest types, which are characterised by dominant species and the structure of the forest:
Plantation forests (softwood and hardwood) have been defined as an eighth group that covers trees planted for commercial use.
Governmentedit
Policiesedit
In Australia the states and territories are responsible for managing forests.[2] Guidance is primarily provided by the 1992 National Forest Policy Statement (NFPS).[3] The NFPS allows for the inclusion of Regional Forest Agreements, which are 20-year plans for the management of native forests.
Departmentsedit
Department of Primary Industry and Fisheries in the Northern Territory
Large nature reserve on the western boundary of the City of Brisbane, bordering on the Mount Coot-tha Reserve, that supports a large variety of native plants and animals.
Located in East Gippsland, Victoria, abuts the Errinundra National Park, and is notable for containing large tracts of old growth forest, including over fifty mountain ash trees estimated to be over 300 years old. The eucalypt forest provides key habitat for rare and threatened species such as the powerful owl, the spotted quoll, mainland Australia's largest marsupial carnivore, and the long-footed potoroo, Victoria's rarest marsupial. Campaigns to protect the area from logging led to blockades and non-violent direct action in 1990 and 2009.[4]
Tropical rainforest near Tropical North Queensland. At around 1200 square kilometres the Wet Tropics Rainforest is a part of Australia's largest contiguous area of rainforest. Contains 30% of frog, marsupial and reptile species in Australia, and 65% of Australia's bat and butterfly species. 20% of bird species in the country can be found in this area including the threatened cassowary. Added to the World Heritage List in 1988. This followed campaigning by environmentalists, including blockades against logging and road construction earlier in the decade.[4]
Extensive mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans) forest with dense treeferns along many creeks. Prior to the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, which burnt the majority of the reference area, this forest has not been burned since the 1700s, making many of the trees ~300 years old.
The biggest remnant of natural bushland on the Liverpool Plains in north-west NSW and the most extensive and intact stand of the nationally listed critically endangered box-gum woodland remaining in Australia. It is habitat for 34 critically endangered species and several endangered ecological communities.[5]
Over 550 native species occur; the most significant vegetation communities are the alpine and sub-alpine communities. The lower slopes have communities of mixed gum and peppermint, including the bogong gum, Eucalyptus chapmaniana. These grade into pure stands of alpine ash, Eucalyptus delegatensis around 1100 metres elevation, and subalpine woodland of snow gum, Eucalyptus pauciflora above 1300 metres. Numerous endemic plant species.
Despite extensive historic mining and human activity on its slopes, Mount Read has unique and significant stands of rare Huon pine forests on its slopes.
Wet sclerophyll forest with the dominant tree species being the mountain ash, Eucalyptus regnans, the tallest flowering plant in the world. The forest has recovered well from logging that occurred from the mid-19th century until 1930. Sherbrooke Forest is famous for its population of superb lyrebirds.
Extensive stands of eucalypt forest and cool temperate rainforest that includes ancient myrtle beech trees. Conservationists have intermittently blockaded logging in the forest since the mid-1990s.[4]
Remnant cool temperate rainforest in the Stzelecki Ranges. The deeply incised river valleys of the park are dominated by wet sclerophyll tall open forest of mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans), with an understorey of blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon), hazel pomaderris (Pomaderris aspera) and tree ferns (Dicksonia antarctica and Cyathea australis). Pockets of the park feature cool temperate rainforest, including myrtle beech (Nothofagus cunninghamii).
Contains the only known wild specimens of the Wollemi pine (Wollemia nobilis), a species thought to have become extinct approximately thirty million years ago, but discovered alive in three small stands in 1994.
Bushfiresedit
Over the years, bushfires have destroyed a lot of trees and this in turn destroyed the habitat of many animals;[6] most notably koalas numbers have decreased nearly 30% across Australia since 2018.[citation needed]
^Australian Forest Profiles Archived 2011-06-04 at the Wayback Machine – Australian Government Department of Agriculture and Water Resources
^"Australia's Forest Policies". Department of Agriculture. 5 February 2013. Archived from the original on 17 May 2014. Retrieved 17 May 2014.
^"National Forest Policy Statement". Department of Agriculture. 5 February 2013. Retrieved 17 May 2014.
^ abcMcIntyre, Iain (2020-11-04). "Environmental Blockading in Australia and Around the World - Timeline 1974-1997". The Commons Social Change Library. Retrieved 2023-07-07.