In Tasmania, we caught up with Timberlands Pacific, SFM, Forico and Norske Skog who all showed us how they work with the FSC standards in each their unique way. Forico, for example, showed us how they manage rare grasslands and the approximately 70,000 hectares of non-productive native forest they have under certification. With Timberlands, we took part in their High Conservation Value (HCV) training day with their staff and learned more about the work they do to restore watercourses in their certified area.
And, of course, all the certificate holders showed us how their forests and production facilities provide large quantities of timber and timber-based products from responsibly managed forests to the Australian and international markets.
We also caught up with Sustainable Timber Tasmania who remain committed to obtaining FSC certification and showed us how they are trialling new harvesting techniques to better retain habitat trees. Sustainable Timber Tasmania hope this and other initiatives will enable them to achieve conformance with the Australian National Forest Stewardship Standard.
Finally, we had meetings with a range of Tasmanian politicians, including the minister, shadow minister and the Greens responsible for forestry, to better understand the political vision for forestry in Tasmania and to emphasise how FSC-certification can play a positive role in this vision.
For the remainder of the year, the team plans to visit Queensland, the Green Triangle, New South Wales and Western Australia. If you would like to catch up with us on these trips, please reach out to Policy and Standards Manager, Stefan Jensen on s.jensen@au.fsc.org.