Stewardship Report 2013 ( Pdf )
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stewardship report2012–13 SUSTAINING CARBON stoRES, CLEAN AIR, contents WATER AND HEALTHY FORests . 32 Carbon and climate change ........................32 REPORT CARD . .2 . Air quality ..........................................33 Water, soils and geodiversity .......................36 THE YEAR AT A GLANCE . 4 Water quality . 36 Weeds, pests and diseases .........................36 OUR ORGANISATION . 5 Forest health surveillance .....................36 OUR PURPOSE . 5 Use of pesticides ..............................37 CONTENTS Fuel and chemical spills .......................37 STATEMENT OF CORPORATE INTENT . 6 Fire management ..................................38 Contact us: coRPORATE GOVERNANCE . 7 SUSTAINING SAfetY, General enquiries: 1800 FOREST commUNITY Access AND HERITAGE . 40 Tourism enquiries: 1300 720 507 REPORTING STRUctURE AND scoPE . 8 Stakeholder feedback: forestrytas.com.au/sfm/stakeholder-feedback Adventure Forests .................................40 MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN AND CEO . 9 Health and safety ..................................41 Forestry Tasmania GPO Box 207 Aboriginal and historic cultural heritage ............42 SUSTAINING BIODIVERSITY AND HABITAT . 12 Hobart, Tasmania 7001 Community engagement ..........................42 (03) 6235 8203 Reserve system.....................................12 forestrytas.com.au SUSTAINING SCIENCE-bASED [email protected] State forest activity assessments....................13 ABN 91 628769 359 STEWARDSHIP . 44 ISSN 0818 4797 Biodiversity ........................................14 Published October 2013 Threatened species, communities and habitats .....15 Legal compliance ..................................44 Certification ....................................... 45 Front cover: Kristen Dransfield, Research and Development Branch Old growth forests .................................16 Research ...........................................46 Giant trees .........................................17 The appendices to this report may be accessed by clicking below: Organisational capacity ............................47 SUSTAINING JOBS FOR CURRENT Resources information .............................48 Appendix 1 AND FUTURE GENERATIONS . .18. Business systems developments . .49 2012 – 2013 Financial Statements External commercial services . 49 Financial performance . 18 Where to from here? ...............................50 Wood products . 19 Sustainable yield ...................................21 GLOBAL REPORTING INITIATIVE Appendix 2 Native forests ......................................23 CONTENT INDEX . 51 Sustainable Forest Management data tables Eucalypt forests . 23 SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT POLICY . 54. Special timbers ................................26 CONTENTS LIST APPENDIX 2 SUSTAINABLE FOREST Plantations .........................................26 MANAGEMENT DATA TABLES . 55. Non-wood products and services . 30 Research and Development Branch Land and property management ...................30 Annual Report 1 report card 2012/13 Sustaining Sustaining jobs for biodiversity and habitat current and future generations ✓ We adopted our coupe context landscape level ✗ We recorded a loss (after tax) of $13.4 million, ✗ The improved residue market saw the amount of planning tool as standard practice in coupe planning. reflecting the continuing difficult economic residue left after harvesting reduce from 25 cubic circumstances surrounding our business. metres per hectares in 2011/12 to 11 cubic metres ✓ We upgraded our environmental assessment system per hectare in 2012/13. However, we have still for events held on State forest to make permit ✗ Our financial situation forced us to rely on a significant not yet reached our target level of five cubic metres conditions legally binding. We assessed 10 proposals amount of funding from the State Government. per hectare. using this new system. ✓ We fully supported the Tasmanian Forests Agreement ✓ We pruned 4,641 hectares of our plantation estate, ✓ By harvesting only 110 hectares of old growth process, based on the potential for a significantly with 89 per cent of this area meeting our quality forest using clearfelling, we achieved the Tasmanian enhanced Tasmanian reserve system and an standard benchmark. Community Forest Agreement target of harvesting uncontested wood supply. less than 330 hectares of old growth forest using this ✗ The improving pulp market allowed us to thin ✓ We produced 1.03 million tonnes of logs, with silviculture. We harvested a further 521 hectares using 1,159 hectares of plantation. However, we still need a final product value of $188 million. partial harvesting techniques. to conduct thinning operations in many stands where ✓ We paid suppliers, contractors and employees we have delayed operations due to poor markets. ✓ We added seven new trees to our giant tree register. $129.5 million. Most of these were found by using our innovative ✓ We adopted controlled release fertiliser as our primary ✓ LiDAR technology. Of the 9,190 hectares of native forest that has reached fertilisation tool, reducing our fertiliser inputs by 80 per regeneration reporting age, 94 per cent met at least cent whilst achieving improved tree growth and saving the minimum prescribed standard, which is above our establishment costs. benchmark of 85 per cent. ✓ In July 2012, we launched Hardlam, our laminated ✓ Of the 1,726 hectares of native forest artificially veneer lumber product, at the Australian Woodworking sown (the remainder were sown naturally), 79 per Industry Association show in Sydney. Subsequent cent met our strict seed provenance requirements. promotional activities have generated considerable Importantly, we did not sow any seed from our least interest in the product, including a Gold Star Award preferred sources. for design, innovation and marketability at the ✓ We resumed using the rail system for long haul log Australian Timber Flooring Association’s Flooring transport, taking the equivalent of six B-double truck and Finishes Show. movements per day off the Midland Highway. 2 Sustaining carbon stores, Sustaining safety, Sustaining clean air, water and healthy forests community access and heritage science-based stewardship ✓ 97 per cent of the chemical applications we modelled ✓ We maintained our strong culture of safety, achieving ✓ We received no major non-conformances from our using our Pesticides Impact Rating Index were deemed our best safety performance on record, with only AS 4801 (Occupational Health and Safety), AS4708 to be low or very low risk. 4.46 lost time injuries per million hours worked (Australian Forestry Standard) and ISO 14001 ARD 2012/13 C (Environmental Management System) surveillance and all nine performance targets being met. T ✓ We took stream water samples after 18 chemical audit. We received eight minor non-conformances, R application operations. No chemicals were detected. ✓ We continued to inform the public, through various which we are actively working to address. O P media, about the progress of our burning operations. ✓ E Our research staff authored 18 technical reports and ✓ We had no major hydrocarbon or chemical spills. R During the planned burn season, the Environment 15 peer reviewed papers, delivered 14 conference Two minor hydrocarbon spills, totalling 15 litres, Protection Authority recorded only 21 formal presentations, maintained the Warra Long Term were identified and rapidly addressed. complaints, of which 11 could be attributed to our Ecological Research site, hosted seven lunchtime talks ✓ We conducted 32 broad area fuel reduction burns, burning operations. and led numerous field days. which covered 10,054 hectares. ✓ Our staff worked a total of 40,000 hours on the State ✓ We established an 80-metre tall carbon flux tower at our Warra Long Term Ecological Research site. The ✓ We conducted a total of 137 planned burns, including firefighting effort, and were used in various roles tower will enable us to measure how the forest reacts to regeneration and fuel reduction burns, covering such as firefighters, sector commanders, incident climate events and to attract further research at the site. 13,270 hectares. Our careful planning saw only two management team members, air operations ✓ We made excellent progress on our LiDAR project, of the 90 indicative air quality exceedances recorded supervisors, geographic information systems operators, capturing data from more than 700,000 hectares of by the Environment Protection Authority during the fire behaviour specialists and other specialist roles. forest and developing several new tools to assist staff planned burns season attributed to us. ✓ We were not issued any infringement notices under in planning forest operations. the Workplace Health and Safety Act. ✓ We reduced our fossil fuel carbon emissions from ✓ We reduced our staff head count by eight per cent, our vehicle fleet and electricity use by 13 per cent, ✓ We continued to hold our popular school holiday from 383 to 351, to better align with our reduced compared with 2011/2012. open days, produced another series of our television income. This equates to 326 full-time equivalent staff. series Going Bush and donated our skills and time to ✓ Audits of our operations by the Forest Practices many community events. Authority continued to show that our forest practices planning and operations rated ‘above sound’ on all ✓ Visitor numbers to the Tahune AirWalk increased by 11 criteria examined, a result that was above our own 15 per cent on the previous year,