Southern Forests

THE FORESTS

Temperate rainforests are among the rarest ecosystems in the world, and originally comprised less than  .02 per cent of Earth's land surface. Approximately half of all original temperate rainforests have been logged. The world's temperate rainforests are found in the middle latitudes of both the northern and southern hemispheres. Western Tasmania has one of the world's great  temperate wilderness areas. Southern Tasmania's oldgrowth, high conservation value and wilderness forests, which occur along the eastern fringe of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (Styx, Upper Florentine, Huon, Upper Derwent, Weld etc) are of World Heritage value.

Original distribution of temperate rainforests Values within these areas include wilderness, oldgrowth forests, rainforest, wild rivers, caves, Aboriginal heritage, European cultural heritage, rare and threatened species such as the Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle, the White Goshawk and the Spotted-tail Quoll. These values have been documented by the Regional Forest Agreement Expert Panel on World Heritage; the IUCN (World Conservation Union); the Tasmanian Department of Parks, Wildlife and Heritage; and the World Heritage Bureau. Tasmania's forests are important for the conservation of biodiversity, and are home to rare and threatened species such as the Tasmanian Wedge-tailed eagle.

If these forests are added to the reserve system, wilderness values within adjacent parts of the World Heritage Area will be protected and threats to alpine vegetation from possible escaped regeneration burns will also be mitigated.

In 2005 some forests on public land were added to the reserve system (this outcome is addressed in detail later in this document), prior to this the public forest reserve proposal included 240,000 hectares of ‘highly productive forests' currently available for logging. The protection of these forests would effect high quality sawlog supply so a comprehensive economic and employment package has been developed which more than offset this impact.

upper florentine Valley - Kip Nunn

Conservationists want to see Tasmania's high conservation value forests protected in World Heritage Areas and National Parks. Within five years most of these forests will be damaged beyond repair.