Paperlinx Green Shareholders' Group

The Code of Forest Practice for Timber Production Revision No.2, November 1996

Chapter 1 sets out the Environmental Care Principles.
These include:

• The wood production capacity of forests is either maintained or enhanced using methods consistent with the Code.

  This will be achieved by effective regeneration and establishment techniques, and protection of soil values.

• Water quality is protected by measures which minimise the direct disturbance of streams, springs, soaks, swampy ground, and bodies of standing water and minimise sediment and nutrient input to streams from roads and harvested areas.

• Stream flow is managed to meet community needs by the careful planning of harvesting operations.

• Soil stability is protected by measures which regulate site disturbance and overland flow of water.

• Soil fertility, water quality and landscape values are protected by the careful location, construction and maintenance of timber extraction roads, major snig tracks and log dumps and regulation of their use.

• Fauna, flora and landscape are protected by careful regional planning, maintenance of a range of successional vegetation stages on public land, effective control of harvesting operations, and the reservation of appropriate areas of vegetation.

• Forests are to be protected from the introduction of and spread of pest plants and animals, including plant diseases and insect pests, and managed in a manner which limits the development of epidemics of endemic pests and pathogens.

The standards to be applied in public forests are higher than those specified for private forests. This applies particularly to the width of buffers to be left along streams and watercourses.

The standards of adherence to the Code in forests on Public Land is the direct responsibility of the Victorian Deparment of Natural Resources and Environment. The performance of the Department in ensuring adherence to the Code and to other legislated constraints such as Heritage Rivers has been very patchy, with some major breaches which have become newsworthy, and even to desperate recourse to retrospective relaxation of the law.

Chapter 3 discusses Application of the Code to private land native forests and all plantations

PaperlinX, through its subsidiary, Australian Paper Plantations (APP), owns large tracts of plantations, and has considerable additional plantation land on long term lease from the Victorian Government.

Both Chapter 2 and 3 include discussions of the following:

• Regeneration of Native Forest coupes with species and provenances native to the area with the objective of maintaining genetic pools and species mixes.
• Guidelines for Coupe Plans.
• Protection of Water Quality, Yield and Aquatic Habitat.
• Slope Limitations {maximum 30 degrees, less where soil is unstable where erosion hazard is high (as it is in West Gippsland)}.
• Conservation of Flora and Fauna, Protection of Rainforest.
• Log Landings and Dumps, Roadworks, Snig Tracks and Forwarding Tracks, Fuel Dumps and Machinery Servicing.
• Stream and Drainage Line Crossings
• Wet Weather Restrictions
• Buffer Zones {the purpose of which is to protect sensitive areas such as streams and drainage lines, rainforest.}.

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