Case Studies of the Financial Performance of Silvopastoral Systems in Southern Queensland, Australia

Tom Lewis,Ben Francis,Tyron Venn,Jeremy Brawner

doi:10.3390/f13020186

Abstract

There is considerable uncertainty surrounding the future availability of hardwood timber from state-owned native forests in southern Queensland. The timber industry is becoming increasingly reliant on private native forests, where much is on properties primarily managed for beef cattle grazing. Historically, these forests have been periodically high-grade harvested without silvicultural treatment or cleared to increase pasture production where landholders have the right to do so. This study compares these traditional forest management practices at four case study properties against silvopastoral system alternatives. Merchantable timber, pasture and cattle production was estimated for each management scenario with a native forest silvicultural treatment response model. The net present value of each scenario was estimated over a 20-year management period. For all case study properties, the worst-performing forest management scenario was to clear forest for grazing. Investment in silvopastoral systems in southern Queensland was found to be financially attractive, particularly when silvicultural treatments were implemented in year zero to increase timber production. Silvicultural treatments increased the mean annual increment of merchantable timber over 20 years by an average of 1.3 m3/ha/year relative to the scenario where no management was performed in year zero. Forest management scenarios with silvicultural treatments had better financial performance than scenarios without silvicultural treatment. However, long payback periods and sovereign risk are serious impediments to silvopastoral system adoption in southern Queensland. If these concerns can be overcome, private native forests have the potential to be sustainably managed to improve the financial performance of farms, improve regional employment and income generation, supply Queensland’s future hardwood timber needs, and increase carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation on private land.

Highlights

Silvopastoral systems, which combine natural forests or planted trees with pasture and livestock on the same land management unit, have gained popularity internationally in recent years as an environmentally friendly and economically viable land use [1,2,3,4]
Four case study properties in southern Queensland, Australia, with willing landholders, native forests dominated by spotted gum (Corymbia citriodora subspecies variegata) and forest inventory data collected by Private Forestry Service Queensland (PFSQ) and the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, were selected for analysis
Properties dominated by spotted gum forests were selected because the decision support tool (DST) utilised to predict forest growth response to silvicultural treatments had been largely developed from spotted gum forest data [39]

Summary

Introduction

Silvopastoral systems, which combine natural forests or planted trees with pasture and livestock on the same land management unit, have gained popularity internationally in recent years as an environmentally friendly and economically viable land use [1,2,3,4]. This popularity has come as agriculture is facing intense pressure globally to increase productivity while having greater environmental accountability [3]. Silvopastoral systems are not homogeneous, and there are many ways forestry and livestock production may be integrated [5]. Along with the environmental benefits such as aesthetics, water quality improvement, soil conservation, carbon sequestration, and wildlife habitat conservation [6], silvopastoral systems have the potential to be financially beneficial to private landholders by increasing the resilience of farms to climate change, ameliorating the annual cash flow problems inherent in timber growing, diversifying farm incomes and promoting multipleuse management [7,8]

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Discussion

Conclusion