ABSTRACT

Australian forests are in a period of dynamic change. The old order of state and industrial forestry, dedicated to producing wood, had been engulfed in environmental conflicts which governments could not resolve. This chapter describes the Australian Regional Forest Agreement programme and draws some preliminary lessons from it. Post-colonial Australia is deeply structured by its colonial origins. If a policy was to be successful in overcoming the conflicts, it had to address both the substantive issues of the environment–development conflicts and the thorny issues of governance. The assessment of each forest region had to cover ecological or biodiversity values, cultural heritage, indigenous heritage, social values, wood resources and other extractive uses. Cultural heritage values were assessed using systematic surveys and community workshops in which people recorded places of importance to them. The existing wood resource information and the models used by the States' forest services to project future volumes were largely taken at their face value.