Otway rainforest implications
If the actual prescriptions and recommendations put in place by the government were actually followed, then the following should have happened.
1. Logging in the Aire - Youngs creek National RSOS should have stopped after the revised 1996 code was released. Logging would not have gone ahead at Wait-a-While N (1998), Ciancio (2000-01) and Browntown (2002).
2. If the State Conservation Strategy (1987) was followed then logging in State RSOS at Clearwater Creek would not go ahead.
3. If recommendations in unpublished reports from the Flora and Fauna Unit were followed, then no logging would go ahead in any RSOS. In the event logging does go ahead, at least a 100 metre buffer on rainforest would be applied and areas individually assessed on their merits to see if logging should proceed.
4. If provisions to protest rainforest that were added to the revised 1996 Code of Forest Practices were actually followed, then there would be 60 meter buffers on Otway rainforest as a minimum (instead of 40 metres) and no logging in National RSOS.
5. Government should have completed the Action Statement for Cool Temperate Rainforest. This is now 10 years overdue.
6. Government should have completed the Action Statement for Human activity which results in artificially elevated or epidemic levels of Myrtle Wilt within Nothofagus-dominated Cool Temperate Rainforest.
7. The 1992 Otway Forest Management Plan that is now outdated and over due for revision to keep up with demands made by the revised 1996 Code of Forest Practices.
8. The defunct Land Conservation Council means there is no public forum to protect RSOS.
Don't know the meaning of a word? Check the glossary.