• Forestry in Victoria
• Well Managed Harvesting
• Timber Release Plans
• Facts and Figures

Facts and Figures

• Conservation and environmental initiatives account for 79% of Victorian public land use¹.
• In Victoria there are about 841,000 hectares of Old Growth Forest of which approximately 68% is formally reserved². In East Gippsland, more than 85% of the 220,000 hectares (ha) of old growth forest is either in reserves or not available for timber harvesting.
• During 2006/07 VicForests harvested 0.16% of Victoria's State Forests, equivalent to 0.08% of Victoria's forested land.
• All areas harvested by VicForests are regrown with seed from local sources.
• Melbourne's water supply catchments cover about 157,000 ha. During 2006/07 VicForests harvested 94 ha in Melbourne's water catchments (equivalent to 0.12% of the total catchment size).
• Only 13,916 ha of hardwood plantation are managed for sawlog production. The remaining 161,000 are managed on short rotations for fibre production.
• Victorian wood production and processing generates direct employment for 19,500 people and directly accounts for net value of production of $3,034 million per annum³.
• The direct plus indirect impact of the native forest industry on Victoria is likely to be approximately 15,500 jobs and $2.3 billion in value of output (assuming a multiplier of 2.0)⁴.
  • The industry (National) employs around 137,000 people (about 1% of Australia's employment base)⁵.
  • The industry is mostly located in regional areas where it is able to offset the economic impacts of drought and rural decline which is affecting employment levels⁶.
• The Victorian trade deficit in hardwood declined between 2004/05 and 2005/06 ($16.85M to $13.67M)⁷ while Australia's trade deficit in forest products is currently $2.02 billion⁸.
• Imported timber may come from sources that are not as regulated or sustainable as Victoria's. A recent report has estimated that the amount of sawnwood sourced from suspicious or illegal sources is around 8% of Australia's total sawnwood imports⁹.
• In 2004, Australia's production forests and tree plantations are estimated to have absorbed around 44 million tonnes of CO₂ from the atmosphere. This is equivalent to taking nearly 9 million cars off the road for one year¹⁰.
• An average 180m² steel-framed brick veneer house accounts for the release of 2.9 tonnes of carbon, but the equivalent house framed in timber stores 7.5 tonnes of carbon.
• Utilising a concrete slab-on-ground in preference to a raised timber sub-floor produces a net increase in CO₂ emission, an average of 15 tonnes per home¹¹.
• Timber can be easily reused, or passed on in the form of furniture for many generations.
• Recycling timber uses 0.7 megajoules of energy per kilogram compared with Steel (18MJ/Kg) or Aluminium (27MJ/Kg)¹².