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  4. Australia's State of the Forests Report
  5. Criterion 1
  6. Supporting information

Secondary Forests Australia

  • Criterion 1: Conservation of biological diversity
    • 1.1a.i Forest area by type
      • 1.1a.i Supporting information
    • 1.1a.ii Forest area by tenure
      • 1.1a.ii Supporting information
    • 1.1a.iii Forest area in RFA regions
      • 1.1a.iii Supporting information
    • 1.1a.iv Forest area change over time
      • 1.1a.iv Supporting information
    • 1.1c: Area of forest protected for conservation
      • 1.1c: supporting information
    • 1.2a: Forest dwelling species
      • 1.2a: supporting information
    • 1.2b: Threatened forest dwelling species
      • 1.2b: supporting information
    • 1.3a: Species at risk from loss of genetic variation
      • 1.3a: supporting information
    • 1.3b: Genetic resource conservation
      • 1.3b: supporting information

1.1a.iii Forest area in Regional Forest Agreement regions (2023) - Supporting information

This is Supporting information for 1.1a.iii Forest area in Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) regions, published December 2023.

1.1a.iii Forest area in RFA regions is one of four parts of Indicator 1.1a Area of forest by forest type and tenure.

The national forest types are not evenly distributed across areas in and outside RFA regions. RFA regions include 16% of Australia's total native forest area and 18% of all Eucalypt forest, but they contain all 100% of Eucalypt tall closed forests, 93% of Eucalypt tall open forests, and 46% of the Eucalypt medium open forests, which are the three major forest types used for wood production. RFA regions also contain 37% of the total area of Rainforest (Table 1.1a.iii-3).

In contrast, RFA regions contain comparatively small proportions of other forest types, namely Casuarina (6% of total extent of this forest type), Callitris (5%), Melaleuca (3%), Acacia (1%) and Mangrove (0.7%) (Table 1.1a.iii-3). Only 0.6% by area of the Eucalypt mallee subtype is in RFA regions.

A total of 62% of the area of Australia's commercial plantations is in RFA regions, including 71% of hardwood plantations and 56% of softwood plantations (Table 1.1a.iii-3).

Table 1.1a.iii-3: Area of forest in Regional Forest Agreement regions, by forest type. Download the table as a Microsoft Excel file from the link below the image.

Click here for a Microsoft Excel workbook of the data for Table 1.1a.iii-3.

The forest area in RFA regions (21.7 million hectares) is 177 thousand hectares less than reported in SOFR 2018.

  • The forest area in RFA regions in New South Wales, the Tasmanian RFA region and all RFA regions in Victoria except for the West Victoria RFA region was largely unchanged.
  • The forest area in the West Victoria RFA region is 60 thousand hectares less than reported in SOFR 2018, due mostly to a decrease in the area of Other forest due to clearing of non-commercial plantations for agricultural purposes.
  • The forest area in the South West Forest Region of Western Australia is 147 thousand hectares less than reported in SOFR 2018, due to a combination of corrections from improved mapping, and clearing of commercial plantations to non-forest for other land uses.

In the Upper and Lower regions of the North East New South Wales RFA region, the area of commercial plantations decreased by 25 thousand hectares (23% of the total commercial plantations in these regions), resulting from the clearing of plantations for agricultural purposes or from reclassification as non-commercial plantations and therefore Other forest.

The difference in forest area in RFA regions since 2018 by tenure class varies from region to region.

  • In RFA regions in Victoria, updated tenure information drives the decrease in the extent of forest on Other Crown land (109 thousand hectares less than 2018) and on Private forest tenure (63 thousand hectares less), and an increase of forest reported on Multiple-use public forest tenure (104 thousand hectares more).
  • In the South West Forest Region of Western Australia, most of the reported difference in forest area is on Private forest tenure (109 thousand hectares less than reported in SOFR 2018).
  • In the Upper and Lower North East regions of the North East New South Wales RFA, an increase in 33 thousand hectares of forest on Nature conservation reserve tenure results from an increase in the area of national parks and other conservation reserves.

Information on forest areas in RFA regions in this Indicator is derived from the Forests of Australia (2023) dataset held in Australia’s National Forest Inventory. This dataset is assembled using a Multiple Lines of Evidence (MLE) (Mutendeudzi et al. 2013) approach that incorporates the most up-to-date versions of suitable regional and national spatial forest cover datasets.

Other reporting on forest areas in RFA regions may use different approaches to identify forest coverage, and thus may show different forest area figures for RFA regions. At signing, the RFAs used forest ecosystem mapping units that were derived from state-based forest mapping programs. Continued use of these forest ecosystems is an approach that provides a consistent baseline figure for reporting against RFA values over time, but does not take account of forest losses (such as through clearing or bushfires) or gains (such as through regrowth or re-establishment) that have occurred since signing the RFAs, and thus gives areas that differ from the current forest areas identified through the MLE approach and reported here.

A compilation of data on forests in RFA regions according to the original forest ecosystem mapping units is provided in Jacobsen et al. (2020).

Jacobsen R, Davey SM, Read SM (2020). Regional forest agreements: compilation of reservation and resource availability outcomes, ABARES Technical report 20.11, Canberra, December.

Mutendeudzi M, Read S, Howell C, Davey S, Clancy T (2013). Improving Australia's forest area estimate using a Multiple Lines of Evidence approach, ABARES Technical report 13.07, Canberra, November 2013.

Further information

Click here for Key information on 1.1a.iii Forest area in Regional Forest Agreement regions:

  • What are Regional Forest Agreements?
  • Forest area in RFA regions
  • Tenure of forest in RFA regions

Downloads

  • Indicator 1.1a.iii Forest area in Regional Forest Agreement regions - pdf
  • Tabular data for Indicator 1.1a.iii - Microsoft Excel workbook

This publication (and any material sourced from it) should be attributed as Montreal Process Implementation Group for Australia (MIG) and National Forest Inventory Steering Committee (NFISC) 2023, Indicator 1.1a.iii Forest area in Regional Forest Agreement regions, Australia’s State of the Forests Report, Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences, Canberra, December. CC BY 4.0.

Downloadable version of 1.1a.iii Forest area in Regional Forest Agreement regions

Click here for Key information on 1.1a.iii Forest area in Regional Forest Agreement regions

Context

Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) were established to provide a framework for sustainable forest management and conservation in regions containing substantial forestry activities. There are 10 RFAs across New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia.

Definition

Regional Forest Agreement: an agreement between the Australian Government and a state government about the long-term management and use of forests in a region, and that meets the requirements listed in the Commonwealth Regional Forest Agreements Act 2002.

Other terms used here can be found in Australia’s forests and forestry glossary.

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Page last updated: 24 September 2024

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Artwork: Protecting our Country, Growing our Future
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