Environment
The truth about aggregated retention
Rob Blakers
Firstly, a note on variable or aggregated retention. This practice was developed in North America, where fire is not used to promote the regeneration of eucalypts. Burning of variable retention coupes is a management nightmare, requiring very specific conditions (wind speed and direction, soil moisture, humidity, temperature etc) to ensure that the logged sections of the coupe are burnt, whilst the “clumps” remain unburnt. In the autumn of 2007 many retained “clumps” in the Styx Valley were incinerated. In the autumn of 2008, all variable retention coupes in the Weld and Florentine Valleys that were scheduled for burning were held over due to the lack of appropriate conditions. Beyond 2 seasons, the forestry management protocol is that variable retention coupes will be burnt in the manner of traditional clearfalls, ignoring the clumps, to salvage regeneration. Variable retention is an impractical system when burning is practiced, that was imported for political expediency. Read more, Comment here