FPA 2017. State of the forests Tasmania 2017

The Forest Practices Authority is required to report every five years on the state of Tasmania’s forests pursuant to section 4Z of the Forest Practices Act 1985. Previous such reports have been prepared and released in 2002, 2007 and 2012.

The reporting period for this report is nominally 1 July 2011 to 30 June 2016. The Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) between the State of Tasmania and the Commonwealth of Australia was signed on 8 November 1997. Clause 91 of the RFA required the Parties to develop agreed sustainability indicators. A key requirement was that the indicators should have regard to the Montreal Process Criteria and Indicators2 as amended from time to time.

A set of indicators was developed and released in June 2000. It was also agreed that the Governments would prepare a joint report against the indicators on a five yearly basis timed to inform each five year review of the RFA as required by clause 45 of the RFA. The State of the forests Tasmania 2017 has as its framework 42 Sustainability Indicators, and therefore also serves to meet the requirements for reporting under the Montreal Process for the five yearly reviews of the Tasmanian RFA.

Major changes have occurred in Tasmania’s forests and forest industry since the previous reporting period (2006-11), and these have impacted on the structure of the data presented in this report. A summary of the legislative, tenure and forest management changes which have occurred is given in the Introduction.