The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) has today released Australia’s State of the Forests Report: Synthesis 2023.
ABARES Executive Director, Dr Jared Greenville, said the five-yearly report covered all areas of Australia’s forests-public and private forests, forests managed for production and forests managed for conservation-and the full range of social, economic and environmental values.
“Gaining a better understanding of our forests is a crucial part of ensuring they are managed sustainably,” Dr Greenville said.
“That’s why this report is so important-it provides the information that Australia’s policy-makers and planners need if they are to plan continued growth into the future.
“In 2021 Australia’s forest area was 134 million hectares and has increased by 750 thousand hectares over the previous 5 years.
“Most of Australia’s forests are privately managed with 90.8 million hectares, or 68% of Australia’s forests, on leasehold or privately owned tenures.
“The Indigenous forest estate is 80 million hectares, representing 60% of Australia’s total forest area. This is an increase of 10 million hectares since 2018.
“In 2022-23, the value of logs harvested from native forests and commercial plantations was $2.4 billion, and the sector employed 51,123 workers in 2021, only slightly down compared to 2016.
“Over the period 2016-17 to 2020-21 the average annual area of harvest from multiple-use native forest was 77 thousand hectares or about 0.06% of Australia’s total area of native forest.
“A total of 49 million hectares (37 per cent) of Australia’s native forest is on land protected for biodiversity conservation, or where biodiversity conservation is a specified management intent.
“The most common threats to nationally listed forest-dwelling fauna and flora include land-use change and/or forest loss; unsuitable fire regimes; predation and competition by introduced fauna and flora; and small or localised populations. Forestry operations were the least prevalent of the 11 specified threat categories for listed forest-dwelling fauna and flora.
“Carbon stocks in Australia’s forests increased slightly to 19,417 million tonnes, during the period 2016 to 2021. In addition, in 2021, 167 million tonnes of carbon was present in harvested wood products, a 5% increase since 2016.”
SOFR Synthesis 2023 is the 6th in the series of five-yearly national reports on Australia’s forests, and presents a new approach for national reporting.
