Doing things differently

New ways of managing plantations

There are so many negative associations with forestry practices and for very valid reasons. Just look at these before and after satellite images of this property, taken in 2012 and 2015. And all of this, just to chip it, pulp it, ship it and turn it into paper. It’s quite a confronting sight.

Traditionally, forestry enterprises in Australia have operated solely for short term profit per acre. We believe there are other, more insightful ways that we can manage the valuable resource that is wood.

We have an approach that grounds itself in a bigger picture. For us this looks like a collaboration between humans and nature, one that benefits human and non-human life.  We see the value in the forest, not just the cut trees. At Birdsong, the harvested trees are part of a bigger vision. We like the idea that the land management mistakes of the past can provide a valuable contribution towards the healing and restoration of the place they re-defined.

What does this look like in practice?

Existing plantation management

Recognising that eucalyptus species (in this case Tasmanian blue-gum) regenerates potentially endlessly when it is managed to that end. This looks like: thinning the original, densely planted trees and removing multi-stemmed growth from the remaining trees after choosing the healthiest ‘leaders’. This lets in more light and grows better timber. Letting in more light and creating spacings between trees also allows the re-introduction of diverse understory species which will provide habitat and reintroduce bio-diversity where there is none. 

·       Mature stumps stay in the ground

·       Plantation is selectively thinned

·       The harvested timber is sold as sustainable firewood and biochar

·       The next rotation of timber is left to grow

·       Harvest selectively (no clear felling)and the cycle starts again

 Multi-species plantation

Wood is a precious commodity and we look to pioneers such as Rowan Reid from Bambra Agroforestry as exisiting examples of what future, sustainable timber growing and harvesting looks like. Small scale, sensitively managed, multi-species (native and non-native) plantations that can ride the storm of a changing and uncertain climate. We will look at diversifying our plantation offerings to provide other sustainable timber products in future. This will create a multi-generational timber crop 

·       Introduce more species for sustainable timber products

·       Trees raised for multi-generational wood harvesting

·       Understory reintroduced for wildlife habitat

·       Trees will only ever be selectively felled

·       High value timbers over time

·       Blue-gum continues to offer sustainable wood products

 Not all of the trees are for human consumption

Our masterplan sees large areas of blue-gum plantation phased out over time. This is done slowly so as to exploit the existing benefits of the trees in situ. We don’t want to remove habitat before creating a more biodiverse alternative. The areas earmarked for transition are large tracts between exiting remnant vegetation and along Pipers Creek and other seasonal creek lines. These will never be harvested and will lock in carbon and provide habitat in perpetuity. 

·       Thinned blue-gum rows with large spacings act as nursery trees to help raise up new, more biodiverse species

·       Bi-annual planting days, reintroducing endemic species such as Banksia marginate

·       Continue to thin blue gum as re-introduced species mature

·       Blue gum timber and bi-products sold

·       Biodiverse, endemic woodland is never harvested and will continue to lock in carbon for its lifetime

·       Benefits to wildlife and humans alike

Expertise, education and collaboration 

We are learning as we go and will never have all the answers. We are always seeking, questioning,  researching and reaching out to experts in the field. We are working with Wood4good who share our views on sustainably managed forests and we would love to engage with other like minded collaborators. Please reach out if this describes you. We believe in freely sharing learnings and knowledge and will document our successes and failures for the benefit of all. In future we would like to hold tours so that those learnings can be seen first hand and we hope to invite the experts we are engaging with to share their knowledge with other interested folk.