ABARES has released its Forest inventory for private native forestry, farm forestry and Indigenous forest sector report. The ‘Forest inventory for private native forestry, farm forestry and Indigenous forestry’ project was developed under the 2018 National Forest Industries Plan Growing a Better Australia – A billion trees for jobs and growth (DAWR 2018). Source: Timberbiz
The goal of the project is to improve the national description of Australia’s forests in areas outside the publicly managed estate, and it delivers on one of the key actions identified in the plan, “Working with state governments, private native forest owners and interested Indigenous communities to unlock potential timber supply, and to deliver economic returns to landowners”.
The project assessed existing available information on three sectors: privately managed native forests, planted farm forestry, and native forests managed by Indigenous peoples.
The Farm forestry sector report is one of three reports developed as part of this project, with separate reports for each of privately managed native forestry and Indigenous forestry forthcoming.
The Farm forestry sector report delivers an improved understanding of Australia’s planted farm forestry resource, through identification, compilation and validation of existing available inventory data as collected by various programs over time. A complete inventory of Australia’s current farm forestry estate was not undertaken in this project.
A total of 73,400 hectares of farm forestry in Australia was identified in 40 historical datasets, representing about 3,000 landholders. Farm forestry occurs in all Australian states, and in 10 of the 11 Regional Forestry Hubs (no farm forestry was identified in the Northern Territory), with most of the area identified (62%) being in Tasmania.
Of this identified area, 53,100 hectares have previously been identified and reported as commercial plantation in Australia’s National Plantation Inventory.
You can download the report ABARES_FarmForestrySectorReport_.
