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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 614 asked in the Legislative Council on 17 June 2020 by Hon Peter Collier

Parliament: 40 Session: 1

DALGARUP JARRAH FOREST

614. Hon PETER COLLIER to the Minister for Environment:

My question without notice of which some is given is asked on behalf of Hon Dr Steve Thomas, who is on urgent parliamentary business.

I refer to the ministerially initiated reassessment of Dalgarup forest block, including comments by the minister that an unusual number of ringbarked trees were discovered in the reassessment.

(1) Was any new or additional area of old-growth forest located in the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions' reassessment of Dalgarup block?

(2) How many ringbarked trees were discovered and what species were they?

(3) How many forest operations in Western Australia have been impacted or halted through the ministerial application of a silviculture reference site?

(4) What are the specific characteristics and criteria required for a forestry site to be deemed a silviculture reference site?

(5) Given that silviculture is a recognised method of managing the state's forests for future timber harvest, is this political decision by the government now a precedent of stopping logging in order to create an example of how the state manages forests for logging?

Hon STEPHEN DAWSON replied:

I thank Hon Dr Steve Thomas for some notice of the question.

(1)–(5) A key requirement in developing silviculture guidelines to balance the many outcomes desired of native forests is sound knowledge of the impacts that natural disturbances and past silvicultural practices have had on the structure and dynamics of our forests. Since European colonisation, a wide variety of practices have been applied, and in recent decades there has been greater awareness of the need to maintain representative reference areas of these past practices to inform future management. Many patches of forest in the south west demonstrating the effect of varied planting densities, overstorey competition or specific eras of silvicultural prescriptions have been set aside from harvest operations by the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions for education, training and monitoring purposes.

The reassessed area in cell 5 of Dalgarup forest block was found to have an unusual forest structure resulting from a combination of topography, natural and human disturbance events. These include periodic regeneration events arising from fires and a harvest event during the 1940s, as well as ringbarking of at least 65 jarrah trees, standing or fallen, dispersed throughout the surveyed 16-hectare cell. Although no additional old-growth forest as recognised in the ''Forest management plan 2014–2023'' was identified, in this instance, the localised changes in forest structure resulting from successive patterns of competition release, tree growth and mortality, together with the adjacent old-growth forest, provide a valuable continuum containing many examples of jarrah silvicultural principles, warranting retention of the area.