Toward sustainable management: Southern Africa’s Afromontane, and Western Australia’s jarrah forests

We review the history of forest management in two southern hemisphere forest types: Western Australia’s jarrah Eucalyptus marginata forests and the Afromontane forests of southern Africa to determine approaches for achieving sustainable forest management. We argue that despite major differences in the ecology and biogeography of these two forest types, a shared pattern in the history of exploitation may provide lessons for achieving sustainable management across forest types. While advanced silvicultural understanding has long been achieved in both forest types, this in itself has not led to either sustainable management or to public acceptance of forest management regimes. In both areas an early, rapid expansion of uncontrolled timber removal and in the number of operating timber mills was followed by controlled exploitation, a rapid decline in the numbers of mills and, more recently, a general decline in yield. In neither case was increased concern about conservation responsible for the reduction in either yield or in employment in the industry. Rather, in WA jarrah forests, amendments in purpose and tenure were subsequent to the loss of most mills and towns, while in southern Africa’s Afromontane forests, timber workers were pensioned by 1939 because of scanty remaining merchantable timber. In the jarrah forests, we believe that the conflict generated by conservation concerns, reduced timber industry employment, and reduced benefits flowing to the communities adjacent to the logged forests, has fueled dissatisfaction with forest management outcomes. This has led to a new process in the preparation of forest management plans. Increased accountability and more realistic expectations of timber yield following productivity declines may mean the current plan for the forests of Western Australia can be used as an example to achieve sustainability in Mediterranean forest ecosystems. However, general acceptance of management regimes may not be achieved until the scale of logging operations is matched with local sustainability criteria. Increasing the area of reserves will not accelerate this process, but rather may impede it. Setting conservative overall yield estimates, and achieving local sustainability seem both to be necessary to achieve general acceptance of management regimes. A sustainable management system appears to have been achieved in the Afromontane forests and has led to the development and maintenance of support for small-scale operations to supply local timber needs from State managed forests. In both environments such a process is achievable because of the high value and specialized nature of the native forest timber resource, and because of the increasing availability of general purpose timber from plantations. 729 Proceedings 6th National Conference of the Australian Forest History Society Inc, Michael Calver et al. (eds) © 2005 Millpress, Rotterdam, ISBN 90 5966 026 9 Millpress koptekst FOREST 1 09-08-2004, 12:37:01 this region (Conservation Commission, WA 2004). The Mediterranean-type climate is characterized by mild winters, a pronounced winter rainfall maximum, and the regular occurrence of summer/autumn drought (McCaw and Hanstrum 2003). Jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata) occurs throughout the region where it displays a range of growth forms from shrub to tall forest tree (WardellJohnson et al. 1997). It is the most important of Western Australia’s commercially important hardwood trees and is most dominant in the Jarrah Forest Bioregion, a heavily lateritized landscape, where it can occur as the dominant overstorey tree over large areas. Karri E. diversicolor is also a commercially important species, occurring mainly in the Warren Bioregion, while other species such as marri Corymbia calophylla, and blackbut E. patens often co-occur with jarrah or karri, while wandoo E. wandoo, occurs inland to the east of the distribution of jarrah. Inland, these forests grade into woodland and mallee dominated bioregions which are now extensively cleared for agriculture. In each of these bioregions, forests occur in a matrix of vegetation types reflecting an extraordinarily long and complex geological and climatic history (Wardell-Johnson and Horwitz 1996). Detailed accounts of the distribution, history, silviculture and ecology of the jarrah forests have been presented (Dell et al. 1989, Bradshaw et al. 1991, Wardell-Johnson et al. 1997 and included references, Stoneman et al. 2005). 3 FOREST MANAGEMENT IN THE AFROMONTANE FORESTS 3.1 The Afromontane forests of the Southern Cape prior to the Forests Act (1913) Prior to European settlement of the Cape in 1652, local people used the Afromontane forests both for slash and burn agriculture and the selective use of small to medium-sized poles and saplings for a range of forest products for domestic and agricultural use (Hoffman 1997). European colonists had different tools and different needs from the forests, and as a result, the small area of forest in the Western Cape disappeared soon after settlement (Grut 1965). The search for timber led to the location of the Afromontane forests of the Southern Cape by 1711 (von Breitenbach 1974). Early exploitation was wasteful and without regard to regeneration. After the Cape colony passed from Dutch to British control in 1806, some interest was shown in the forests, although when expectations proved optimistic, they were again abandoned. In 1847, the forests were closed from exploitation and a conservator of Forests appointed, but it was not possible to prevent illegal felling (Grut 1965). At this time the government sold much of the worked out portions of the forests for agriculture (von Breitenbach 1974). In 1856 the forests were again opened for controlled exploitation and additional conservators were appointed. Nevertheless, uncontrolled felling continued. In 1880, the post of Superintendent of Woods and Forests was created, but was not filled following the retirement of the first Superintendent (Count de Vasselot de Regne) in 1891. Thereafter the conservators were directly responsible to the Commissioner of Crown Lands and Public Works. Nevertheless, the introduction of systematic forest management in 1880 also saw the initiation of a program of plantation development, which had major subsequent implications for conservation. 3.2 The Afromontane forests following the Forest Act (1913) By the time a joint South African forest service was created in 1910, many licensed woodcutters depended on the Afromontane forests but there was general recognition that they could not be maintained (Grut 1965). The Department of Forestry obtained powers under the Forests Act (1913) to limit the number of licensed cutters to those already established in the area at that time. Thus the number of registered woodcutters declined from 1267 in 1911 to 628 by 1923-24 (Grut 1965). However, volumes of timber removed, which were already considered to be above replacement yield, did not immediately decline and timber output was rapidly exhausted. By 1939, the Afromontane forests contained little merchantable timber, and timber cutting was suspended for the next 27 years. The remaining woodcutters were provided with an annual pension through the Woodcutters Annuities Act (1937). Nevertheless, the rapidly expanding plantation program allowed them to be employed in other activities of the Department of Forestry.