Management Standards and Procedures for timber harvesting operations in Victoria’s State forests 2014 © The State of Victoria Department of Environment and Primary Industries 2014 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence. You are free to re-use the work under that licence, on the condition that you credit the State of Victoria as author. The licence does not apply to any images, photographs or branding, including the Victorian Coat of Arms, the Victorian Government logo and the Department of Environment and Primary Industries logo. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/deed.en ISBN 978-1-74287-897-3 (online) ISBN 978-1-74146-265-4 (Print) Accessibility If you would like to receive this publication in an alternative format, please telephone the DEPI Customer Service Centre on 136186, email [email protected] or via the National Relay Service on 133 677 www.relayservice.com.au. This document is also available on the internet at www.depi.vic.gov.au Disclaimer This publication may be of assistance to you but the State of Victoria and its employees do not guarantee that the publication is without flaw of any kind or is wholly appropriate for your particular purposes and therefore disclaims all liability for any error, loss or other consequence which may arise from you relying on any information in this publication. Management Standards and Procedures for timber harvesting Procedure operations in Victoria’s State forests, 2014 Date issued October 2014 Version 1 Commences Last revision date Management Procedures for timber harvesting operations and associated activities in State forests in Victoria, 2009. Fire Salvage Harvesting Prescriptions October 2009. Statewide prescriptions for commercial timber harvesting in fire management zones 2012. Any mandatory timber harvesting operation prescriptions contained in: o forest management plans; or Replaces o amendments or additions to forest management plans via regional guidance documents such as the Prescriptions for harvesting uneven‐aged forest in East Gippsland; or o the Native Forest Silviculture Guidelines; or o coupe finalisation procedures ; or o Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 Action Statements. Authority Minister for Environment and Climate Change Prepared by Land Management Policy Division Registry File No FS/09/3217 All managing authorities, harvesting entities and operators Scope operating in State forest Review schedule As required All printed copies of this document are uncontrolled. The latest Note version is available on the DEPI website, www.depi.vic.gov.au. Contents Glossary 9 Acronyms 20 1. Introduction 21 1.1 Scope 21 1.2 Role 21 1.3 Application 21 1.4 Procedure for seeking exemptions or temporary variations 21 1.5 Review of Management Standards and Procedures 22 2. Planning and Record Keeping 23 2.1 FMZ and planning information 23 2.2 Communication and engagement 23 2.3 Forest Coupe Plans 24 2.4 Coupe Size and configuration 25 2.4.1 Clearfall, seed tree or shelterwood 1 coupes 25 2.4.2 Shelterwood 2 coupes 26 2.4.3 Thinning coupes 26 2.4.4 Single tree selection coupes 26 2.4.5 Uneven‐aged coupes 26 2.4.6 Salvage coupes 26 2.4.7 All coupe types 26 3. Water Quality, River Health and Soil Protection 27 3.1 Waterway classification 27 3.2 Soil Erosion and Water Quality Risk Assessment 27 3.2.1 Statewide 27 3.3 Waterway Protection 28 3.3.1 Statewide 28 3.3.2 Bendigo FMA 29 3.3.3 Mid Murray FMA 30 3.4 Slope 30 3.4.1 General slope restrictions 30 3.5 Water supply protection areas 30 4. Biodiversity 32 4.1 Habitat Retention 32 4.1.1 Statewide 32 4.1.2 Benalla/Mansfield FMA and North East FMA 32 5 4.1.3 Bendigo FMA and Box‐Ironbark forests in the Midlands FMA. 32 4.1.4 Central Highlands FMAs 33 4.1.5 East Gippsland FMA and Gippsland FMAs 34 4.1.6 Horsham FMA 34 4.1.7 Midlands FMA, except the Box Ironbark forests 34 4.1.8 Mid Murray FMA 34 4.1.9 Otway FMA 35 4.1.10 Portland FMA 35 4.2 Fauna 36 4.3 Flora 36 4.4 Vegetation communities 36 4.4.1 Box Ironbark 36 4.4.2 Heathland 36 4.4.3 Montane Riparian Thicket 37 4.4.4 Oldgrowth 37 4.4.5 White Cypress Pine, Buloke, Grey Box, Yellow Box and Grey Box vegetation communities 37 4.4.6 Snow Gum and Swamp Gum 37 4.4.7 Rainforest canopy species 38 4.4.8 Rainforest field recognition and delineation 39 4.4.9 Rainforest protection measures 40 4.5 Pests, weeds and diseases 40 4.5.1 Diseases 40 4.5.2 Weeds 41 5. Other values 42 5.1 Historic Places 42 5.2 Huts 42 5.3 Landscape 43 5.3.1 Central Highlands FMAs 43 5.3.2 East Gippsland FMA 43 5.3.3 Gippsland FMAs 44 5.3.4 Midlands FMA 44 5.3.5 Mid Murray FMA 45 5.3.6 North East FMAs 45 5.4 Giant trees 45 5.5 Apiary 45 5.5.1 Bendigo FMA 45 5.5.2 Gippsland Forest Apiary Plan Area 46 5.6 Recreation 46 6 5.7 Research 46 5.8 Fuel Hazard ratings in Fire Management Zones 46 6. Roading 48 6.1 Road planning 48 6.1.2 Clearing Widths 48 6.2 Road construction 48 6.2.2 Fill Batter Construction 49 6.2.3 Surfacing 49 6.2.4 Road Drainage 49 6.2.5 Culverts 50 6.2.6 Bridges 51 6.2.7 Fords 52 6.3 Road Maintenance 52 6.4 Road Rehabilitation 52 7. Timber Harvesting 53 7.1 Coupe Management 53 7.1.1 Coupe Boundary 53 7.1.2 Exclusion areas 53 7.1.3 Operations in buffers 53 7.1.4 Operations in filters 54 7.2 Coupe Infrastructure 54 7.2.1 Snig Track and Landing Construction 54 7.2.2 Snig Track and Landing Rehabilitation 54 7.2.3 Boundary Trails 55 7.2.4 Slash and bark management 55 7.2.5 Campsites and facilities 56 7.3 Operational restrictions 56 7.3.1 Suspension of timber harvesting operations 56 7.3.2 Suspension of Cartage 56 7.3.3 Seasonal Closures 56 8. Fire Salvage Harvesting 57 8.1.2 Salvage schedule priority 57 8.1.3 Coupe size and aggregation 58 8.1.4 Habitat retention 58 8.1.5 Water quality 58 8.1.6 Weeds and disease 59 8.1.7 Field determined values 59 8.1.8 Ash Forest Green Patch Exclusion Areas 60 7 8.1.9 Ash habitat tree exclusion areas 61 8.1.10 Barred Galaxias buffers and filters 62 9. Forest Regeneration and Management 63 9.1 Regeneration 63 9.1.1 Stocking surveys 63 9.1.2 Stocking Survey Exemptions 64 9.1.3 Seed 64 9.2 Thinning 65 Appendix 1 Approval request form for exemptions or temporary variations 67 Appendix 2 Soil erosion and water quality risk assessment 69 Appendix 3 In field prescriptions for values 73 Appendix 4 Roading 192 Appendix 5 Planning Standards for timber harvesting operations in Victoria’s State forests 2014 numbers restart from 1 ‐ 164 8 Glossary The first time a word from this glossary appears on each page of these Management Standards and Procedures, it has been highlighted in bold. In this document, unless the context requires otherwise terms used have the same meaning as expressed in the Code or as follows: ‘Action Statement’ means an Action Statement made under section 19 of the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988. ‘approved’ means a practice that is approved by the Minister or delegate unless otherwise stated. ‘Ash’ means Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans), Alpine Ash (Eucalyptus delegatenis) and Shining Gum (Eucalyptus nitens). ‘basal area’ as per Code definition. ‘biodiversity’ as per Code definition. ‘Box Ironbark’ means forest characterised by a canopy of box, ironbark and gum‐barked eucalypts, growing to 25 m in height, over a sparse understorey of wattles, small‐leaved and prostrate shrubs, herbs and grasses. The main trees are White Box (Eucalyptus albens), Red Box (Eucalyptus polyanthemos), Red Ironbark (Eucalyptus tricarpa), Mugga Ironbark (Eucalyptus sideroxylon), Yellow Gum (Eucalyptus leucoxylon) and Red Stringybark (Eucalyptus macrorhyncha). In some areas they may grow with, or be replaced by, Yellow Box (Eucalyptus melliodora), Long‐leaf Box, Silver Bundy (Eucalyptus nortonii), Forest Red Gum (Eucalyptus tereticornis), Coast Grey Box (Eucalyptus bosistoana), Gippsland Grey Box (Eucalyptus bosistoana), Blue Box (Eucalyptus baueriana) and Yellow Stringybark (Eucalyptus muelleriana). ‘buffer (strip)’ as per Code definition. ‘canopy’ as per Code definition. ‘Central Highlands FMAs’ means the Central FMA, the Central Gippsland FMA (the parts within the Central Highlands FMP) and the Dandenong FMA. ‘clearfall’ as per Code definition. ‘Code’ means the Code of Practice for Timber Production 2014. 9 ‘compartment’ means a specific area of State forest usually bounded by natural features. One compartment is often broken up into several coupes. ‘confluent stream’ has the same meaning as temporary stream. ‘cording’ means log material, eucalypt and non‐eucalypt, with a diameter greater than 15cm placed in a corduroy fashion on landings and snig tracks to distribute machine loading over a larger area. ‘coupe’ as per Code definition. ‘coupe infrastructure’ as per Code definition. ‘crown’ as opposed to Crown (the governing power of the state) and in the context of a tree means the main canopy of a tree, including the main branches and leaves.