23 July 2024.
The Forestry Act will be revived to provide a framework that allows for sustainable forest management on all tenures and allows landholders to manage and harvest native timber on their properties, subject to certain restrictions.
The Queensland Sustainable Timber Industry Framework will cover six priority areas to ensure the longevity of the industry. These areas are set to include:
- Priority Area 1: Securing sustainable timber supply.
- Priority Area 2: Adding value to forest and timber supply chains.
- Priority Area 3: Realising the potential of forest-related markets for industry, landholders and the environment.
- Priority area 4: Future forest workforce and strong timber industry.
- Priority area 5: Growing Queensland’s protected area estate.
- Priority area 6: Fostering First Nations peoples’ forestry employment and enterprise opportunities.
Under priority area 1, the framework aims to “create certainty for private native forestry, develop a revised regulatory framework including the establishment of a new “Category F” in the Forestry Act 1959, and consider other measures to streamline private operations and provide certainty for forestry activities on private land.”
The AgForce Vegetation Management Committee has long advocated for “category F” to be implemented into the Forestry Act and hopes that the revised framework will allow for producers to be able to harvest native timber The proposed framework is set to be delivered by mid-2025.