Biodiversity
Permanent Timber Production Zone land covers a range of forest and vegetation types in various successional stages that support a large diversity of species and communities.
Sustainable Timber Tasmania has a range of mechanisms in place to manage for biodiversity values. These include the identification and management of significant biodiversity values as defined and required by the Australian Forestry Standard, and for High Conservation Values as defined by the Forest Stewardship Council®.
Our native forest management is guided by natural forest disturbance cycles, thus enabling the ecological processes that allow species to persist in the landscape to continue. This is done by:
- maintaining a range of forest types and growth stages in both the local and wider landscape, including in the Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative reserve system;
- retaining legacy habitats such as coarse woody debris and hollow-bearing trees across different spatial scales;
- harvesting and regenerating all areas of native forest in accordance with forest practices plans; and
- using our Landscape Context Planning system to manage biodiversity at the landscape scale
Threatened species and communities
Sustainable Timber Tasmania manages threatened species, communities and habitats in accordance with the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement, relevant legislation and the Forest Practices system.
Tasmania’s Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative reserve system includes viable examples of all forest and old growth communities identified in the Regional Forest Agreement, and provides the core protection for threatened species and communities.
Sustainable Timber Tasmania uses established procedures to identify and manage threatened species and habitat. These procedures incorporate field surveys, searches of spatial conservation databases, use of Forest Practices Authority manuals, and where required, the seeking of expert advice.
Where threatened species or habitats are identified, prescriptions are incorporated into Forest Practices Plans so that they are managed during operations. The prescriptions used by Sustainable Timber Tasmania for many threatened species have been developed by specialists and incorporated into the Forest Practices system.
Where required, strategic management plans to manage nominated threatened species and their habitat are prepared in collaboration with DPIPWE and the Forest Practices Authority.
For more information, see Fact Sheet No. 9 Protecting biodiversity in production forests in the tab below.
In addition, more information on threatened species is available from the DPIPWE's and the Forest Practices Authority websites.
