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.