Forestry Victoria's management of rainforest

Forestry Victoria provided a summary of how they protect Otway Cool Temperate Rainforest to the Otway Regional Forest Reference Group.

The following provides a response from OREN (in italic) to Forestry Victoria interpretation of research, recommendations and the way logging near rainforest is managed.

Rainforest Conservation in the Otways - Attachment 2

Background Information for Otways Regional Forest Reference Group.

1. The Otway Ranges support significant areas of Cool Temperate Rainforest. Rainforest develops in sheltered areas where rainfall is high, evaporation is low and the drying effects of wind and sun are reduced by topography. In the Otways, rainforest is largely confined to higher elevation areas in deep gullies with an easterly or southerly aspect.

2. Rainforest is closed broadleaved forest vegetation with a more or less continuous rainforest tree canopy of variable height with a characteristic composition of species and life forms. In the Otways, the characteristic species and life forms include Myrtle Beech, Austral Filmy Fern, Leathery Shield-fern and Mother Spleenwort. Stands must be greater than 0.4 ha in area or linear strips along streams of 20 metres by 100 metres to be recognised as rainforest. Eucalypts including E. regnans and E. cypellocarpa are not regarded as rainforest species. Rainforest species may occur in the understorey of eucalypt-dominated stands, but such areas are not considered to be rainforest.

3. The Otway rainforests have been assessed by NRE for their botanical significance in a report published in 1990. The report categorised rainforest into National, State and Regional. In the Otway State Forest rainforest sites on Youngs Creek was considered to be nationally significant. Another site on Clearwater creek is considered to be of State significance. These sites were protected within a 690 hectare and 350 hectare reserves, respectively. There are other sites on the East and West Barham river that are of Regional significance. Victorian rainforests are listed as a threatened community under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act. An Action Statement for the community is in preparation.

- The reference to a report published in 1990 is in fact David Cameron's memo of understanding which is an unpublished report.

- The Forest Management Plan classifies the 690 ha Youngs creek and 350 ha Clearwater creek reserves as "Rainforest Conservation Zones", not Rainforest Sites of Significance. The areas nominated as the Youngs Creek-Aire River and Clearwater Creek RSOS by Cameron and listed in Table 6 of the Otway forest Management Plan are much larger than the Rainforest Conservation Reserves. See Map. The fact that Forestry Victoria only reserved a proportion of these State and National RSOS is deliberately being made unclear in this document.

4. Timber harvesting has been excluded from rainforest in Victoria as a matter of policy since the mid 1980s and this has been formalised in the Code of Forest Practices for Timber Production (Code). Clearfall timber harvesting in the vicinity of rainforest creates risk of increasing exposure of the stand. Accordingly, the Code requires the establishment of a management regime in forest management plans which addresses the risks of disturbance in a systematic way. The Otway Forest Management Plan and the West Victoria Regional Forest Agreement have established a protection regime which has the most significant sites protected within sub-catchments. Sites of lesser significance are protected with 40 metre buffers.

- The West RFA and Otway FMP require the completion of Action Statements as a part of the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act to provide the prescriptions to protect endangered species from logging practices. The RFA and FMP do not provide a detailed strategy to protect Otways Rainforest. As highlighted by points 3 and 8 above, Action Statements have not been completed for Cool Temperate Rainforest and the myrtle wilt threatening process, hence there are no prescriptions to safe guard against logging.

- The Code of Forest Practices provided an interim minimum buffer distance for the protect of rainforest of 60 metres. (See CSIRO recommendations).

5. In the absence of a Forest Management Plan, the Code requires the implementation of a 60 metre buffer on Myrtle Beech dominated rainforest. Because NRE has established a protection regime in the Otway Forest Management Plan and the West Victoria RFA, this provision of the Code is redundant in the Otways.

- Prescriptions in the revised 1996 Code require the Otway Forest Management Plan to provide a detailed strategy plan to manage rainforest. However Forestry Victoria interpret the Code to mean that the absence of a Forest Management Plan requires forestry officers to follow Code prescriptions, not the absence of a 'detailed strategy plan'.

- The 1992 Otway Forest Management Plan does not in fact have a detailed strategy plan for rainforest but instead refers to prescriptions provided by the old 1989 code.

- As a consequence Forestry Victoria breach the code by allowing logging within rainforest sites of national significance and only apply a 40 metre buffer instead of the 60 metre buffer to Otway rainforests.

6. The Otway rainforests are subject to infection by Myrtle Wilt, a fungus disease that causes the death of Myrtle Beech trees. Fungal spores are wind borne. Infections are believed to establish in wounds in the trunk or branches. In undisturbed forests, wounds may arise from natural branch shed as trees age, wind or fire damage, or mechanical damage caused by other nearby trees falling or shedding branches.

7. Elevated levels of mechanical damage that may be associated with timber harvesting, roading or recreation developments create additional risks of Myrtle Wilt infection. NRE believes that the management regime in place, including buffers on rainforest stands, means that the contribution of these activities to the spread of Myrtle Wilt infection is minimal.
It should be noted that Myrtle Wilt is ubiquitous in the Otways. Infections are known to occur in rainforest stands within parks and reserves which have not been subjected to timber harvesting.

- Forestry Victoria self congratulating themselves for not increasing the levels of myrtle wilt is done without scientific proof. The fact is, Forsetry Victoira have suppressed research into the impacts of logging on rainforset. A draft report titled "Surveying and Monitoring of Myrtle wilt within nothofagus Cool Temperate Rainforest in Victoria, 1996" , recommended that further research should be conducted to work out the relationship between logging practices and the increase in the levels of myrtle wilt. This recommendation was dropped from the final report. Also forestry officials have in the past publically contradicted themselves regarding the impact of logging on Otway rainforset.

- Cameron 1996 and Burgam 1995, all scientifically explain how logging practices can increase the levels of myrtle wilt in remote areas away for where the logging actually occurred. The fact Forestry Victoria does not acknowledge this scientific explanation shows a high level of ignorance, arrogance or PR spin.

8 .Human activity which results in elevated or epidemic levels of Myrtle Wilt within Nothofagus dominated Cool Temperate Rainforest is a listed Threatening Process under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act. An Action Statement is in preparation.

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