Maintenance & enhancement of long term multiple socio-economic benefits to meet the needs of societies

The 17 indicators in this criterion are designed to show the extent to which forests contribute to national and regional economies, benefit personal and community wellbeing, and support cultural values. They are considered under the subthemes of production and consumption; recreation and tourism; investment (including in research and development); culture and spiritual benefit (including Indigenous values); employment and community needs; and community resilience.

Key findings for production and consumption

• The gross value of logs harvested from native forests and plantations in the five years to 2006-07 increased by 11% in real terms. The volume of logs harvested from native forests declined by 14%, while the volume harvested from plantations increased by 28%
• In 2005-06, the turnover of Australia's forest product industries was more than $19 billion, which was 5.3% of total manufacturing industry turnover and a real increase of about 10% since 2000-01. Value added in the forest products industries equalled 0.7% of Australia's gross domestic product, similar to the level in previous years.
• The total value of wood product imports increased from $3.7 billion in 2001-02 to $4.3 billion in 2006-07, while the total value of wood product exports increased from $2.0 billion to $2.4 billion. The trade deficit for the sector increased from $1.7 billion to $1.9 billion.
• Discarded forest products contribute approximately 6.5 million tonnes to the waste stream annually, mostly in the form of paper and timber products; the recycling rates for paper and timber products are estimated to be 53% and 30%, respectively. The volume of recovered paper exported increased by 350% in the reporting period to nearly 1.1 million tonnes in 2006-07, due mainly to increased demand from China.
• Annual production of non-wood forest products is worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the Australian economy. Many non-wood forest products are important for many remote Indigenous communities, which often rely on them for customary uses and cash income.
• Governments are implementing legislative and institutional reforms and establishing financial incentives to encourage the supply of forest-based environmental services. Initiatives to establish a national emissions trading scheme in Australia are likely to have a significant effect on Australian forestry.

Key findings for investment

• Governments spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually on the management of nature conservation reserves and multiple-use public native forests. Limited data are available on investment in privately owned native forests.
• Investment in public and private plantation expansion over the period from 2002 to 2006 amounted to an estimated $902 million. Investment in new or improved wood and wood product manufacturing facilities during the reporting period was worth several billion dollars.
• Reported annual expenditure on national forest-related research and development was $198.5 million in 2004-05, a decrease of $17.5 million from 2000-01. Of this total, annual investment in manufacturing-related research increased from $79 million in 2000-01 to $108 million in 2004-05. At the same time, nationally reported research on forest growing for wood production and forest-related environmental research declined.

Key findings for tourism and recreation

• Most publicly owned multiple-use and nature conservation reserve forests are available to the general public for recreation and tourism. Many facilities, such as visitor recreation centres and tree-top walks, were established or improved during the reporting period. For those forests for which data were available, the number of areas, tracks and sites available for recreation and tourism activities increased or remained the same over the period, varying with location and jurisdiction.
• Forest management agencies have strategies in place to actively manage forest areas of high recreation and tourism use.

Key findings for cultural and spiritual use

• More than 16% of Australia's land mass, or 122 million hectares, is under Indigenous ownership. Indigenous managed land includes about 21 million hectares of forest, which is 14% of Australia's total forest area. Almost half the forest in the Northern Territory is under Indigenous management, with lower proportions in Western Australia (9%), Queensland (6%) and South Australia (3%). Very small areas of forest are under Indigenous ownership in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. Legislative arrangements in all jurisdictions aim to ensure the identification and protection of Indigenous sites and places of significance.
• The number of Indigenous people employed in government agencies responsible for nature conservation and commercial timber production increased over the period. There was also a greater presence of Indigenous people in natural resource management committees and other forest stakeholder forums. Both planted and natural forests are increasingly valued by Indigenous people for their ability to contribute to economic independence.
• About 471,000 hectares of nationally listed, non-Indigenous, heritage places in forests is protected under the provisions of the national Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). The states and territories are responsible for protecting thousands of additional sites in accordance with their heritage management and protection legislation.
• Many forest issues are of national importance and have played a role in recent national and state political debate, as the community seeks biodiversity conservation and the provision of environmental services from forests.
• The expansion of the plantation estate and the proposed development of new wood processing infrastructure have potentially significant employment benefits but are also accompanied by community concerns about their social and environmental impacts.

Key findings for employment and community needs

• Total direct employment in forestry and forest product manufacturing increased marginally between 2001-02 and 2006-07 from 82,800 to 83,400 full-time equivalents, although the proportion of the Australian workforce employed in the sector declined from 0.91% to 0.82%.
• Total national employment in businesses dependent on growing and using timber in 2006 was estimated to be about 120,000 people. Total annual wages and salaries in the wood and wood product industries increased from $2 billion to $3 billion between 2000-01 and 2004-05.
• There are limited national data on indirect employment, but it has been estimated that each direct job in the plantation forest industry in Western Australia's Great Southern region produces 0.7 indirect jobs.
• Limited data are available at the national level on the employment generated by the non-wood forest product and forest contact industries (such as tourism and park management). Nevertheless, case studies indicate that such industries generate considerable direct and indirect employment in some regional communities.
• The rate of injuries and fatalities per 1,000 employees in the wood and wood product manufacturing subsector declined from 48.9 to 37.2 between 2001-01 and 2002-03. Several organisations are working at the state level to improve occupational health and safety, with promising results.

Key findings for community resilience

• Dependence on the forestry and forest products industries as the primary means of employment has declined in some regions. Exceptions include areas of South Australia, East Gippsland in Victoria, and Tasmania. Populations in many forest-dependent regions are static or declining in line with a general trend in rural Australia, with the exceptions of Mount Gambier, Orbost, Oberon and Tumut, where populations have increased marginally. The number of working-age people is also declining in many regions. The growing investment in timber production and processing from plantations is becoming an increasingly important factor in forest-dependent communities.
• The recognition of native title through mechanisms such as Indigenous land-use agreements strengthens the potential value of forests for Indigenous people. Most state and territory land management agencies have targets for Indigenous employment, which help to build capacity in Indigenous communities and, therefore, community resilience.

Full report for Criterion 6 - Maintenance and enhancement of long term multiple socio-economic benefits to meet the needs of societies [pdf 841KB]