Ian Johnston
Why was this harvesting method not presented as an option for forest management? The author of the trial knows of the failure of Warra 5D and the sucess of Warra 8G so why have they done all that work in a fatally flawed project?
THERE IS currently a University of Melbourne project being run to test the social acceptability of forest management options.
Participants are helped to develop viable broad scale alternatives to current practices on a very clever computer software program. The participants can choose options of no harvesting, single stem harvesting with no burning, aggregated retention (clearfelling and burning 70-80% of a coupe ) or the standard Tasmanian clearfell and burn.
Unfortunaetly there are two major flaws in the project, firstly single stem harvesting as described does not work in our wet forest (there was a trial, Warra 5D that failed).
Secondly, in the past couple of years Warra 8G was developed and succesfully trialed. This involves clearing 20-30% of a coupe (concentrating on mature sawlog) , removing 50% of the sawlog, burning 10% of the area and naturally regenerating with all species, the very small amount of carbon lost is quickly returned and the only people to miss out is the woodchip industry.
Why was this harvesting method not presented as an option for forest management? The author of the trial knows of the failure of Warra 5D and the sucess of Warra 8G so why have they done all that work in a fatally flawed project?
Ian @ Howden
(Who has been working part time with FT for 10 years developing viable alternatives to clearfelling our native forests.)
