>... I have to take exception >to the comments about wildlife habitats. Sure koalas can live in mature >plantation eucalypts, but where do they live between crops and while the >trees are too small to provide food and protection? To provide continuous >koala habitat you would need such a mosaic of age classes that I am sure the >Australian forest industry would not cooperate. Plantations managed by the large companies or State organisations (at least in NSW, Australia) have a series of water filter strips, wildlife corridoors, flora and fauna reserves which 'connect' the various age classes together with 'natural' avenues of native bush. It is anticipated that animals will move into and out of the various age classes through these corridoors as needed. Radio tracking of koalas, for example, has noted that they can travel several kilometers over night, even making use of inhospitable ground to get where they are going. Many other animals would do the same - yes I know not ALL animals will use the corridoors - but many would. Some worthwhile GIS research could further enhance the network, but it already exists, and the forest industry does cooperate. A mosaic of age classes is also a good idea from a risk perspective too. Large age claseses all in one spot concentrate too much roading etc, and a fire could easily take out the entire class - which would make yield regulation difficult. Numerous small age classes mosaics are a better management idea, and decision support research and systems are being looked at to improve this spatial optimisation - which would also be beneficial to your concerns. >There are also many native >birds and animals that rely on dead and damaged trees, that do not occur in >plantations, for their habitat. In Australia we need plantation forestry to >allow conservation of native forest, not as a replacement for it. > I wasn't advocating the replacement of old growth with plantations - I was advocating the planting of trees instead of hemp. How many animals rely on agricultural crops like hemp for their habitat? However, there are studies from Canada that suggest that the edge effects between very different age classes of trees have very high biodiversity benefits. Therefore...plant MORE TREES and take the land FROM AGRICULTURE to establish the plantations. Lets go further - let us recommend planting trees that produce fodder instead of supporting grazing land; let us produce plantations of trees that produce starchy friuts instead of supporting wheat fields; let us take advantage of the multiple use and habit values of trees, forests and plantations over argicultural crops! Let us fight the politicians and simpltons who think that plantations ONLY produce wood, let us show that plantations produce other benefits even if managed to produce wood - and they could produce these other benefits even more effectively if forest managers were not constrained by the lie that wood is all plantations are good for... I'll get off this hobby-horse now. Have fun :-) Cris. Cris Brack, Lecturer, Forestry Australian National University, 0200, A.C.T. Australia. Phone : +61 6 249 3535 (work) +61 6 258 7478 (home) FAX : +61 6 249 0746
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