Australia’s forests and forestry glossary

Quantity of carbon in a carbon reservoir or pool. For example, the quantity of carbon stored in forests and wood products.

A carbon reservoir or pool. Forests and wood products are examples of carbon stores.

A genus of trees closely related to the genus Allocasuarina, both of which are commonly referred to as she-oaks.

See Casuarina forest.

As a national native forest type used by the National Forest Inventory, forest dominated by trees of the genera Allocasuarina or Casuarina in the family Casuarinaceae.

See Allocasuarina, Casuarina, Native forest type. 

A drainage basin: an area of land bounded by natural topographic features such as ridges (watersheds), through which water flows in watercourses such as creeks, streams and rivers.

See Watercourse, Watershed.

A process whereby the quality and sustainability of forest management, or of a product supply chain from forest to market, is assessed and certified by an accredited, independent third party, against the criteria and requirements of a credible and recognised forest management standard.

A forest area managed under, and complying with, the requirements of a credible and recognised forest management standard that has been certified by an accredited, independent third party.

See Certification.

A process of verifying the origin and supply of wood or timber products through the supply chain to a point of market. Generally, this applies to products from forests with forest certification or where products are legally harvested.

See Certification.

Yellowing or whitening of leaf tissue due to a lack of the green photosynthetic pigment chlorophyll, typically caused by disease, changed drainage, plant nutrient deficiencies, damage to roots, or compaction of soil.

See Photosynthesis.

1. A native forest silvicultural system in which all (or nearly all) the trees in an area are harvested in one operation, such that more than half of the harvested area is greater than one tree height from a retained forest edge. Clearfelling is generally used in native forest types dominated by shade-intolerant tree species.

2. In the harvest of plantations, harvesting all the trees on a site.

See Harvesting, Silvicultural system.

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Genetically identical copies of a plant produced by tissue culture or vegetative reproduction.

As a National Forest Inventory cover class, forest in which the tree crowns cover more than 80% of the land area.

See Crown cover, National Forest Inventory, Open forest, Woodland forest.

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See Cross-laminated timber (CLT).

See Carbon dioxide equivalent.

A set of principles, procedures, guidelines and standards that defines and prescribes minimum acceptable practices in forest management, wood harvesting and associated forestry operations.

See Forest management, Forestry operations, Harvesting.

A National Forest Inventory forest category that comprises hardwood or softwood plantations managed commercially to supply logs to wood-processing industries for the manufacture of wood products. Previously known as Industrial plantation.

‘Commercial plantation’ does not include forest reported in the other two national forest categories, ‘Native forest’ and ‘Other forest’.

Commercial plantations are reported through the National Plantation Inventory.

See Native forest, National Forest Inventory, National Plantation Inventory, Other forest, Plantation.

Forest commerciality is a rating of the expected yield of commercial sawlog (or veneer log or high-value equivalent) from a forest that is available over the long term based on good silvicultural practices; derived from the combination of merchantability and productivity.

See Merchantability, Productivity.

A group of species inhabiting a particular area and interacting with each other in a habitat, especially through ecological relationships, relatively independently of other communities.

See Vegetation community.

A management area of a production forest, made up of one or more coupes.

See Coupe, Production forest.

Of plants, the competitive interaction to obtain sunlight, nutrients, water, and growing space.

An audit of conformance to an environmental or forest management standard, silvicultural practice, or set of code-of-practice prescriptions.

See Certification, Code of forest practice.

A joint assessment of all forest values (environmental, heritage, economic and social) in a region by the Commonwealth and a state, leading to the establishment of a comprehensive, adequate and representative (CAR) reserve system, agreements on forest management, and (for four states) the signing of a regional forest agreement (RFA).

See CAR reserve system, Regional Forest Agreement.

See CAR reserve system.

Any taxon of the order Pinales (formerly Coniferales), a group of gymnosperms with characteristic reproductive structures called cones. Includes Araucariaceae (araucaria family), Cupressaceae (cypress family), Pinaceae (pine family) and Podocarpaceae (podocarp family).

See Gymnosperm, Pine, Softwood.

The degree of vegetation structural links between forest patches in a landscape. Connectivity facilitates species movement across a landscape, and is the converse of fragmentation.

See Edge effect, Fragmentation.

A voluntary, permanent, legally binding agreement made between a landholder and a covenant scheme provider to protect and enhance the natural, cultural and/or scientific values of a specified area of land. Conservation covenants are typically entered into for privately managed forest on private freehold or leasehold tenures. The scheme provider can include not-for-profit organisations, government agencies or local councils.

See Conservation reserve.

Area of land set aside to protect environmental values. Development in, and use of, conservation reserves is usually restricted to activities that are compatible with conservation of the environmental values for which the reserve was declared. Conservation reserves include national parks, conservation parks and nature reserves, and informal reserves on public land, and are complemented by areas protected by conservation covenants on private land.

See CAR reserve system, Conservation covenant, Formal reserve, Informal reserve, Nature conservation reserve, Protected area, Reserve.

Growth of a new stem or stems from a lignotuber or base or stump of a tree, typically following damage or disturbance.

See Disturbance, Epicormic growth, Lignotuber.

The practice of placing large (5–30 centimetres in diameter) woody material on extraction tracks before wood harvesting, to protect soil against heavy vehicle traffic and to minimise soil erosion.

See Matting.

A defined area of forest within which harvesting and forest regeneration occur.

See Compartment.

A category of conditions or processes by which sustainable forest management may be assessed. A criterion is characterised by a set of related indicators that are monitored periodically to assess change in conditions or monitor trends over time. The criteria represent broad forest values that society seeks to maintain, while the indicators describe measurable aspects of those criteria.

See Indicator, Montreal Process.

A native species/ecological community facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild in the immediate future. One of the categories of threatened species/ecological communities defined in the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

See Ecological community, Endangered species/ecological community, Extinct, Extinct in the wild, Threatened ecological community, Threatened species, Vulnerable species/ecological community.

A solid timber panel produced by bonding together layers of timber with the grain for each layer at a right angle to the grain in adjacent layers.

See Laminated veneer lumber (LVL).

The upper part of a tree, including branches, foliage, flowers and fruit.

See Canopy, Crown cover.

The area of ground covered by tree canopies, ignoring overlaps and gaps within individual canopies. Often expressed as a proportion of total area. Three crown cover classes are used in Australia's National Forest Inventory: Woodland forest, Open forest and Closed forest. 

See Canopy, Closed forest, Open forest, Woodland forest. 

A property of tree crowns, measured as the proportion of light from the sky that is blocked from reaching the ground by living or dead plant material.

Land belonging to the Crown, being a national, state or territory government, including Crown land under private leasehold title.

See Leasehold title, Other Crown land, Public land.

A monument, group of buildings or site of historical, aesthetic, archaeological, scientific, ethnological or anthropological value.

See Natural heritage.

See Callitris.

A tree and/or shrub that sheds its leaves seasonally or annually.

See Evergreen.

1. Area of forest under management control of an agency, private organisation or individual.

2. In relation to certification, the area of forest managed under, and complying with, the requirements of a credible and recognised forest management standard that has been certified by an accredited, independent third party.

3. In relation to the Australian Standard for Sustainable Forest Management (AS 4708), the area of forest (including land and water) to which the requirements of the standard are applied and over which a forest manager can demonstrate management control, which allows them to achieve the requirements of that standard.

See Certification, Forest estate.

A type of land clearing involving the permanent removal of forest cover. The Kyoto Protocol and various carbon emission reduction initiatives use specific definitions of deforestation.

See Afforestation, Forest, Reforestation.

1. Loss of specific aspects of a forest ecosystem, such as tree cover, structural features or species, or of habitat characteristics that support the requirements of species or communities, short of being defined as deforestation.

2. Reduction in the capacity of a forest to provide a range of goods and services, including ecosystem services.

3. Any process that lowers the value of the wood in timber and other wood products.

A measure of the diameter of the trunk or bole of a standing tree at a standard height (usually 1.3 metres).

A group or groups of angiosperms that produce seeds with two embryonic leaves (cotyledons).

See Angiosperm, Monocotyledons (monocots).

A symptom of disease agents or environmental factors in which foliage dies progressively from the extremities and trees exhibit loss of vigour. Used in reference to native forests affected by one or more of salinity, drought, pest load (including as a result of abundant Bell Miner birds), disease (such as Phytophthora), or changed nutrient, water or fire regimes; or in reference to trees on land subjected to overgrazing.

See Phytophthora.

The number of jobs in public and private agencies and firms relating directly to the process of producing goods or providing a service. Any secondary economic activity resulting from the primary activity is referred to as indirect employment.

See Indirect employment.

A natural or human-caused event that damages, destroys or removes some or all of the trees or other vegetation from an area of land. Disturbance can include planned and unplanned fire, wind, hail, snow, flood, pests and diseases, and forestry operations such as wood harvesting and thinning. Disturbance can also impact on the structure or physical properties of soil, or expose soil to erosion.

See Dieback, Harvesting, Planned fire, Thinning, Unplanned fire, Windthrow.

Typically, eucalypt-dominated sclerophyll forest associated with water-limited or nutrient-limited conditions, and with an understorey (if present) of sclerophyll trees or shrubs. Ground cover can be bare, litter, grassy or heathy.

See Eucalypt, Sclerophyll, Wet forest/wet sclerophyll forest.

See Community (ecological).