The areas most suited to long term timber production will usually be on the less productive grazing land, but may also include some smaller areas of steeper "State Protected Land", to form a production unit of at least 20 ha, preferably more. Established regrowth that may have developed from earlier clearing operations make an ideal starting point for commercial timber production.

Tree species should be those that are currently accepted by the timber industry, and the mature height should preferably be over 25 meters, as this is the best measure of site quality and therefore productivity. Timber production will be severely restricted if the land capability is low or there are "old growth" remnants that need to be retained to maintain habitat values.

A Plan of Management for the forest area will need to be developed, and you may need to buy in some professional forestry assistance to get this right. The plan would look at the "facts" (location, climate, soils, topography, forest types, past history, flora and fauna, internal and external access, fire control, likely markets etc) on which management would be based, and developed a series of management "prescriptions".

An important objective of planning will be to have the forest production area included in the coming Regional Vegetation Management Plan as a sustainable forest unit, which will enable routine forest operations to occur without having to seek Development Consent on each occasion from the DLWC.

More information on planning requirements, and in particular the plantations and reafforestation act (1999) can be obtained from the Department of Land and Water Conservation (DLWC).

The three Northern NSW Regional Plantation Committees have the role of facilitating and co-ordinating plantation expansion by the provision of information on general plantation planning and development issues.

Produced by:
John Macgregor-Skinner NRRDB
Northern New South Wales Forestry Services
Max Egan Centre for Sustainable Tropical Forestry