CSIRO Review of the Code of Forest Practices for Timber Production
September 1995; Page 18.
2.1.2 Protection of Rainforest
Suggested Goal: Rainforest must be excluded from timber harvesting, and because rainforest communities may be particularly vulnerable to adjacent disturbance they should be surrounded by an appropriate buffer.
Suggested Guidelines:
- areas of rainforest must be defined, and a strategy for their management must be included as part of planning for conservation of flora and fauna in regional forest (FMA) plans. The most important areas should be accorded highest protection;
- rainforest areas must be identified in the field and buffer edges marked prior to harvesting
- timber harvesting must be excluded from buffer areas surrounding rainforest;
- there should be an increasing degree of protection commensurate with increasing significance of the rainforest patch. Interim minimum levels of protection should be:
(i) for stands of lesser significance – 40 m buffers, or 20m exclusion plus a 40m modified harvesting strip (> 40% of basal area retained, low machine disturbance, minimal burning);
(ii) for stands where Nothofagus makes up >20 % of the canopy – buffers of 60 m, or 40 m buffer with 40m modified harvesting zone (> 40% of basal area retained, low machine disturbance, minimal burning);
(iii) for stands containing nationally significant rainforest that is sensitive to management operations- sub-catchment protection.
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