Planning and monitoring forest sustainability: An Australian perspective

Misunderstandings have arisen in the Comprehensive Regional Assessments (CRA) leading up to the Regional Forest Agreements (RFA) on the utilisation and management of Australian native forests, due to different perceptions held by stakeholder groups on what constitutes forest sustainability. In the CRA process, terms such as ‘sustained yield’, ‘sustainable yield’, ‘sustainable forest management’, ‘multiple-use forestry’, ‘ecologically sustainable forest management’ and ‘adaptive forest management’ have been used indiscriminately, adding to the confusion. This paper attempts to define forest sustainability in the contemporary usage. It is hoped that the paper will help clarify related policy issues and the processes required to plan and monitor forest sustainability. These processes address goals over a long time horizon, and these goals in turn provide a framework for guiding and constraining detailed short-term planning.