The three maps appearing below are:
1. 1999 EVC maps issued in the Gippsland RFA Comprehensive Regional Assessment
2. 1982 Land Conservation Council map
3. 1995 RFA Deferred Forest Area map
All of which depict the Strzelecki ranges
Map 1. shows the abundance of WET FOREST in the Strzeleckis, shown here as bright green
The Strzelecki Hardwood reforestation is also wet forest, and DNRE's EVC maps show it as such. However, the RFA version shown here has lumped the HW reforestation into the same vegetation class as Softwood plantation and both are shown as grey. Had DNRE's EVC maps been reproduced truthfully, the bright green area would appear more cohesive and would resemble the area coloured brown in map 2 more closely.
--------------------
Map 2. In this LCC map, all coloured areas are public land. Comparisons with map 1 show that most of the WET FOREST in the Strzeleckis is on public land. It depicts the Strzelecki hardwood zone as brown and the pine plantations (and proposed future pine plantations) as grey. The extent of WET FOREST on public land can be judged by looking at the brown areas. The brown/grey diagonally striped area is the area of State forest leased to Amcor. This area is also mostly WET FOREST with a small proportion of pines, mostly to the north. Had the DNRE's EVC maps been reproduced faithfully, virtually all the brown areas appearing here would appear bright green on map 1.
-------------------------------------
Map 3. This 1995 map issued by the RFA shows theStrzelecki Deferred Forest Area. This DFA was supposed to give the area coloured light green temporary reserve status until the Gippsland RFA was complete. DFA's were also eligible for consideration for inclusion into a permanent reserve system. This particular DFA, however, was renegged on due to tinkering with the Strzelecki State Forest's land status and tenure. It closely mimics the LCC's hardwood zone boundaries, minus the area of State Forest leased to Amcor which had already been placed into a "psuedo-private" category.
The Letter to Sherryl Garbutt....
29-10-99
re: Gippsland RFA - CRA Report
To Sherryl Garbutt, Minister for the Environment, Government of Victoria
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Ms Garbutt,
Having studied the Gippsland RFA's CRA report and maps, we feel the need to draw your immediate attention to a matter which we believe is of serious concern.
The 7000 ha. of Hardwood reforestation in the Strzelecki State Forest, now under Hancock Victorian Plantations management was classified by the DNRE as Wet Forest (category 30) in their Ecological Vegetetation Class maps. This classification was personally verified to Kim by John Davies, Brian Ward and Peter McHugh, who are all from either Traralgon or Warragul DNRE. However this classification has been altered in the RFA maps and the HW reforestation is now lumped into the same vegetation class as pine plantation ( 149: pine and HW plantation). Botanically speaking, Mountain Ash forests have virtually nothing in common with Pine plantations. This move is not a botanical decision but a political one. Intended land use has no place in EVC maps, but might be more appropriate for land tenure maps or land use maps. EVC's should be the jurisdiction of botanists and must be approached purely from a botanical perspective. It is important that they be free from tinkering. Botanists have decided that the HW reforestation fits the Wet Forest category. As far as we can gather, DNRE still classify the areas in question as Wet Forest and there has been no directive to alter it. The decision to remove it from that category and lump it into a new category along with pine plantations defies the precedent set by DNRE botanists, has no scientific basis and undermines the credibility of the EVC's.
The method by which HW "plantations" on land leased to HVP have been mapped is also flawed. Neither DNRE or the RFA prepared these maps. Instead, this task was left up to HVP, who are not impartial observers, but a self-interested business holding the timber rights to this land. Reports, personal experience and observations made by the local community have already shown grave errors in this mapping, with areas of natural regrowth and old growth wrongly marked as plantation; areas of public native forest converted to plantation since 1986, when the Timber Industry Strategy supposedly stopped this practice; areas of native forest converted to plantation since vesting took place in 1993; failed plantations marked as native forest; etc.
The validity of the HW reforestation being labelled as plantation is also questionable for a host of reasons too long to list in this letter. Some of the main reasons are as follows: Most definitions of plantation require signs of intensive management, and regular spacing. Strzelecki HW reforestation, on the whole, lacks both these characteristics. The original intentions behind the HW reforestation was clearly a multiple-use strategy, to "restore beauty and productivity" (LCC 1980) . The current use of the term plantation suggests a singular use - wood production. In a great deal of cases, the areas labelled HW plantation are in fact regenerated native forest logging coupes. Only in the Strzelecki State Forest has regeneration after harvesting been allowed to be called plantation. In all other State Forests, these areas must retain the label Native Forest. The defiance of the 1986 Timber Industry Strategy directive to cease the practice of clearing Native Forest on Public Land in order to establish plantations is also of concern. Since 1986, around 1200 ha. of HW "plantations" were established in the Strzelecki State Forest, most of which were established on land that carried Native forest immediately prior to establishment.
The extent of pre-1750 Wet Forest presently in reserves in the Gippsland RFA region is 7.5%. In order to bring this figure up to the minimum 15% targets, the Gippsland RFA is faced with the choice between reserving a large proportion of Wet Forest which exists in smallish patches through the Great Dividing range - (a move that will no doubt meet with a great deal of disapproval from the local communities to the north), or the creation of a major National Park in the Strzeleckis, where the bulk of remaining unreserved Wet Forest still exists - (a move that already has widespread approval from local communities in south and central Gippsland).
Please refer to the Gippsland RFA EVC map. Wet Forest is marked in as Dark Green. It is obvious that the Strzeleckis contains the largest, most cohesive areas of Wet Forest in the region. Had the HW reforestation also been marked in as Wet Forest, as originally intended, the fragmented appearance of the Dark Green would disappear, and it would become all the more apparent what an unbroken and cohesive area of Wet Forest exists in this area. The area of Public land in the Strzeleckis carrying Wet Forest would more or less resemble the LCC's Strzelecki "hardwood zone" ( South Gippsland area district 2 final recommendations 1982) and the RFA's own 1995 Deferred Forest Area map, which form an obvious basis from which to create a cohesive, workable, high quality reserve....
Yours sincerely,
Kim Devenish and Julie Constable
c.c. Peter Ryan; Peter McGauran; Wilson Tuckey; Susan Davies; Environment Victoria; Strzelecki Working Party; John Dargavel; Hancock Victorian Plantations; RFA: Joint Commonwealth-Victoria Steering Committee; RFA: Joint Commonwealth-Victoria Technical Committee; Robert Hill; Peter Hall; Philip Davis; Bob Brown; Prof. David Bellamy; The Age; VNPA; John Howard; Steve Bracks.
Home