National forest strategy for Australia

Abstract

Summary Australia has recently released its National Forest Strategy but unfortunately this document has received little attention from either foresters or environmentalists. This paper describes the concept of a forest strategy and of forest policy and identifies the elements which need to be included in a national forest strategy and a process for its formulation. Implementation of forest policy in a Federation like Australia presents obstacles to achieving a meaningful national forest strategy. The dangers of ad-hoc policy development and the importance of a national forest strategy are demonstrated by reference to two recent forest policy debates in Australia. Several forest policy contributions from the environmentalists, forest industries and the Institute of Foresters as well as the current National Forest Strategy are reviewed. None of these documents on their own amount to a true national forest strategy, but all provide valuable contributions. Australia needs an urgent review of its National Forest Strategy to ensure that it includes long-term objectives for both the productive use and conservation of our forests and policies covering the controversial subjects such as clearfelling, size of harvesting coupes and harvesting of non-sawlog material. Without such a strategy, reached by consensus, conflicts over the use of Australia's forests will grow.