Plantations
Photo: SAForestry
Plantation management
Plantation forests are crops of trees planted with the purpose of eventually harvesting them for timber and paper production. They can comprise either native or introduced tree species. Australia currently has 1.7 million hectares of plantation forest.
New plantations are usually established on cleared land to provide future timber products and to meet an increasing demand for the environmental services that forests provide, such as reducing salinity and absorbing carbon dioxide.
Recent years have seen a substantial investment by private companies in timber plantations. Research is currently being undertaken to explore how plantations can be made more productive, including the possibility of identifying and selecting fast-growing eucalypt species.
Australian Federal and State government forestry agencies have set down a range of national principles for the management of timber plantations. These principles provide the framework for scientifically sound plantation management and encompass a range of important environmental, socio-economic and cultural issues as well as codes of practice for plantation management.
To comply with State codes of practice, plantation managers must carefully plan all aspects of each operation from location and land selection through management for a decade or more to harvest. Plantation growers are required to comply with a variety of State laws regulating soil and native vegetation conservation, occupational health and safety, fire control and the management, and safe use of approved pesticides.
Case Study: Plantations in the Australian Capital Territory
The native forests of ACT provided settlers with timber for fuel and domestic purposes but by the early 1960s, logging had depleted the forests, and concern about water quality led to forests being closed. Interest in forestry in the ACT begun in 1915, when T.C.Weston trialed a number of plantation species including Radiata Pine on the slopes of Mt Stromlo. Plantation forestry began in earnest in 1926 with 2 km² planted annually.
By 1938 the area planted yearly was 4 km, with the favourable benefit of reducing erosion in the catchment. In 1967 the Australian Government approved a plan for a total 160 km of plantation in the ACT, and by 1970 this goal had been achieved.
For more information on the history of plantation forest areas in the ACT visit the Environment ACT website.
