Perspectives on 50 Years of Work on Logging and Forest Biodiversity Conservation in Australia, and Prospects for Future Change

Abstract

The management and conservation of Australia's native forests has been highly contested for many decades. Since the 1970s, there have been major changes in the science underpinning and general perspectives on relationships between logging and forest biodiversity conservation. Science has quantified the impacts of logging operations on biodiversity at a range of scales – from the tree to stand, landscape, and ecosystem levels. It has also highlighted deficiencies in the protection of forest biodiversity, resulting in an expansion of the protected area network in forests, as well as changes in the way forests are managed. In this paper, I briefly discuss some of the changes in the understanding of logging impacts on biodiversity over the past ~50 years, particularly in terms of the array of contributions made by the esteemed ecologist Jamie Kirkpatrick. These include his contributions to the following: (1) the development of new ways of identifying the most important areas as places to reserve; (2) assessments of the conservation values, including world heritage values, of particular areas; (3) forest management change via his rigorous scientific appraisals of forest policies and legislative instruments such as Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs). Just as there have been enormous changes in the management and conservation of Australia's native forests over the past 50+ years, there will likely also be large changes in the coming 10–50 years. On that basis, I conclude with some commentary on future prospects for forest biodiversity conservation in Australia.