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Australia and New Zealand share many historical and contemporary commonalities. These define five contemporary forest environmental frontiers-for First Nations peoples, between agriculture and forestry, in forest management, in urban and peri-urban environments, and in relation to climate change. In both countries, the First Nations frontier is expanding in scale and significance with those peoples' rights to land and forests. Frontiers with agriculture and in forest management are longstanding but dynamic and as yet little realised in relation to the need for forest and landscape restoration. Both countries are highly urbanised, elevating the significance of the urban and peri-urban frontier, particularly in the context of climate change. In both countries, forests will be profoundly impacted by climate change and are central to mitigation and adaptation strategies. Experience within and intersections between the frontiers offer encouraging prospects for synergies and for learning between the two countries and more widely.

In the summer of 2019/20, bushfires of unprecedented scale in south-eastern Australia focused attention on how forest management might have affected their risks and impacts. Some argued that the severity and extent of these fires were made worse by timber harvesting and associated forest management and that harvesting in native forests should cease as a means for reducing fire risk. Little evidence has been presented to support these contentions. This article reviews evidence for the relationship between harvesting and fire extent and severity from these fires. The proportion of forested conservation reserves burnt in these fires was similar to that for public forests where timber harvesting is permitted, and the proportion of forest burnt with different levels of fire severity was similar across tenures and over time since timber harvest. Recent analysis of the areas burnt in 2019/20 indicated that the extent and severity of the fires was determined almost entirely by three years of well-below-average rainfall (leading to dry fuels across all vegetation types), extreme fire weather conditions and local topography and that past timber harvesting had negligible or no impact on fire severity. Three major inquiries into the fires made no recommendations regarding the impact of timber harvesting on fire risk. We argue that policy proposals to mitigate fire risk and impacts should be evidence-based and, to avoid the cognitive bias associated with expert opinions, should integrate the multiple perspectives of traditional Indigenous knowledge, the experience of local and professional fire managers, and the breadth of evidence from bushfire research. Together, these perspectives should inform strategies for reducing bushfire impacts and increasing forest resilience and community safety.

Agroforestry has been promoted as a promising model of rural development in Lao PDR (Laos), where much upland land use is in transition. Relatively little is known about the contributions of agroforestry systems to Lao farmers’ livelihoods, how these systems compare to alternatives, or the extent to which they might contribute to the national policy objective of replacing swidden agriculture. The consequences of customary land tenure for such transitions in Laos are also poorly understood. We investigated independent adoption by farmers in a Central Lao village of an agroforestry system that combines ‘yang bong’ (Persea kurzii) trees on 7-year rotations with intercrops of rice and bananas. The returns to land from this agroforestry system were more financially rewarding for farming households than swidden cultivation, demonstrating that farmers can develop land use intensification pathways that replace swidden cultivation. However, case study farmers anticipated further expansion of banana monocrops rather of agroforestry systems. In addition, the adoption of the agroforestry system has fostered wealth differentiation in the case study village, reflecting both prior and emerging inequities in the customary land tenure system. Our results indicate that it is important to closely understand the institutional and livelihood contexts of agroforestry systems, to better appreciate their role and potential in supporting sustainable land use transitions. In this case study, the intersection of customary land use practices, national policy goals and land allocation policies, new market opportunities, and farmers’ dynamic livelihood strategies, both define and constrain the contribution of agroforestry to land use transitions.

The contemporary institutional landscapes for multilateral forestry research and tertiary forestry education for development were shaped largely in the last three decades of the 20 th century. Some limitations of largely post-colonial arrangements in the 1970s for forestry research for development were addressed by the establishment of CIFOR and incorporation of ICRAF into the CGIAR system in the early 1990s, following international processes in which FAO, IUFRO and the World Bank played central roles. Contemporaneously, tertiary forestry education evolved and internationalised in conjunction with that sector more generally. Institutional arrangements for multilateral forestry research are now undergoing another phase of change, as key actors seek more impact without more investment. Traditional models of tertiary forestry education for development are similarly challenged by ongoing changes in higher education systems. Both forestry research and education need now to address the profound challenges and potential opportunities associated with major forces such as ongoing forest loss and degradation, climate change, economic globalisation, and social and demographic change. In parallel, the value of evidence-based policy and practice, and of multilateralism, are being challenged by resurgent political populism and nationalism. Together, these contexts suggest that those engaged in forestry research and education for development will need to be politically and institutionally astute, and proactive and strategic, in catalysing and pursuing opportunities; and that various collaborative models, both nationally and internationally, will remain important vehicles for sharing resources, commanding the attention of decision-makers, and realising development impacts.

Four tree plantation models implemented in Lao PDR and a hypothetical model were compared in terms of the projected economic benefits and those realised by participating rural households, and households' attitudes to further plantation expansion. Models comprised two forms of land-sharing plantation concessions, and contract and independent tree growing. Benefits and costs over the plantation cycle were used to calculate net present values. Tree plantations contributed most to household livelihoods when companies engaged in a participatory land use planning process, where opportunities for household labour were greatest, and where plantation models allowed for intercropping by households. In contrast, where contracts were not honoured, crops cannot be grown jointly, or labour opportunities are limited, returns were not competitive with traditional swidden agriculture. Households were generally open to expansion of more beneficial models. These results suggest a set of principles for developing locally appropriate and beneficial tree plantation systems in Lao PDR.

Forest certification was introduced to Chile twenty years ago, to promote sustainable forest management, address the degradation of natural forests, and ameliorate social issues associated with an economically-successful industrial plantation forestry industry. Adoption of certification in Chile offers an informative case study of competition between the two international schemes, FSC and the PEFC-endorsed CERTFOR. This qualitative study explores the reasons why forestry businesses in each of the plantation and native forestry sectors sought, promoted and maintained certification under one or both schemes. Results show that their motivations to adopt and maintain a particular certification scheme depend not only on market access or social licence to operate but also on contextual factors, including the structure of the forest industry and historical land tenure disputes. The current situation reflects the history of certification: notwithstanding that the schemes have converged, the FSC still dominates the SFM discourse, but Chile's forestry industry has maintained CERTFOR for political reasons.

This paper identifies and explores megatrends with major implications for smallholder-based commercial forestry in Indonesia to the year 2030. A megatrend is a cluster of trends that represent a significant shift in the condition of the environment, economy or society, with major implications over the longer term. Megatrend analysis is one example of foresighting, an approach which complements traditional forestry sector outlook studies. The eight megatrends explore the dynamics of Indonesia's urbanising population; their rising incomes and education rates, manifest in an expanding middle class and changing demands; the imperative to provide for the needs of the still-many poor; the tension between market-based opportunities and the Indonesian bureaucracy, inadequate physical infrastructure and vested interests; Indonesia's place as a global hotspot of forest and biodiversity loss; the consequences of climate change; the emerging digital and technology-driven economy and society; and the possible impacts of both natural and man-made crises. These megatrends and their component subtrends have various implications for smallholder forestry; we identify best, worst and more likely case scenarios as starting points for further research.

The Indonesian Timber Legality Verification System (SVLK) has been developed primarily to address illegal logging in Indonesia, and is licensed under the European Union's Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan. While SVLK was catalysed by concerns about the legality of wood originating from natural forests, it applies to all wood production in Indonesia, including smallholders harvesting planted trees. This study investigates SVLK implementation in value chains originating from smallholder forests planted on private land in East Java Province, where these forests are important assets for both farmers and the forest industries. It follows value chains for two manufactured wood products, blockboard and plywood. There are specific SVLK requirements for each value chain actor, other than the market brokers in these chains. Results reveal the limitations of SVLK architecture in relation to smallholder value chains, variation in compliance practices, and points of ‘illegalisation’ and legalization within the value chains. The blockboard and plywood products from each case study chain claimed SVLK compliance. However, only one of the two case study chains for each product was compliant up to the blockboard or plywood manufacturing stage; and no distinction was made at this stage between SVLK-compliant and non-compliant wood. Consequently, none of the final products from any case study chain are SVLK-compliant. These results illustrate the challenges of designing and implementing timber legality systems for smallholder value chains, and suggest areas of focus to improve SVLK for smallholder value chains.

This paper reviews the design of the international forest governance and policy, and analyses its impacts in addressing deforestation and forest degradation as global sustainability issues. Informed by literatures on international relations, regulatory governance of global commodity production, and international pathways of domestic influence, key arrangements are aggregated into six types, and mapped in terms of their main aims, instruments, and implementation mechanisms. Key analytical dimensions, such as the actors involved (state–private–mixed), the character of legal authority (legally binding–non-legally binding), and the geopolitical scope (global–transnational) helped to identify the potential and limitations of arrangements. They were assessed and compared in terms of their main pathways of influence such as international hard-law rules, cross-sectoral policy integration, non-legally binding norms and discourses, global market mechanisms, and direct access through capacity building. Our results reveal important challenges in the design and implementation, and in the pathways of influence, of the forest governance arrangements, including major inconsistencies with forest-adverse economic sectors. We conclude about the need for coherent international forest-related policy cooperation and integrative actions in agriculture, bioenergy, and mining to enhance the prospects of achieving the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

The 2015 United Nations Paris Agreement on Climate reinforces actions to conserve and enhance forests as carbon reservoirs. A decade after sub-national demonstration projects to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) commenced, we examine why many REDD+ schemes appear to have fuelled social conflict while having limited success in addressing the drivers of forest loss and degradation. Our analysis is two-tiered: first we synthesise findings from a set of ethnographic case studies of REDD+ in Mainland Southeast Asia, conducted by the authors; second, we explore whether the insights from our regional synthesis apply globally, through a comparative review of published qualitative research on REDD+ field experiences. Our results reveal three major implementation dynamics that can undermine REDD+ in practice, which we conceptualise from science and technology studies and critical political ecology as follows: 1) problems with the enrolment of governments, civil society, and local forest users in REDD+ governance; 2) the prevalence of overly simplified codification systems for REDD+ implementation that mismatch targeted societies and landscapes; and 3) the consequent dissonance between REDD+ objectives and outcomes. Together, these problematic dynamics reveal how and why REDD+ so often misses its targets of reducing deforestation and delivering community benefits. In effect, it appears that REDD+ in the course of implementation maps onto local power structures and political economies, rendering it blunt as tool for change. The potential of REDD+ as a 'solution' in the global climate regime must therefore be scrutinized, along with other similar mechanisms espoused by the green economy.

Policies in Lao PDR encourage farmers to transition from shifting to sedentary agriculture, and the conversion of ‘degraded’ forest to agricultural and plantation concessions. As access to natural resources becomes increasingly contested in these contexts, it is helpful to better understand the economic value of environmental resources, including ‘degraded’ forests, for rural livelihoods. The ‘environmental income’ from these environmental resources remains underappreciated, in part because of methodological limitations, and is reflected in policy decisions favouring conversion of this natural capital to various forms of agricultural concession. This study draws from immersive fieldwork in four villages in Lao PDR to provide more rigorous evidence about the value of natural capital to rural households. Results show that environmental income was important to all wealth classes of rural households, averaging 23% of total annual household livelihood income. Our findings are consistent with global assessments, help explain why rural Lao people contest development that compromises the natural capital from which they derive environmental income, and emphasise the importance of recognising environmental income in land use and development policies and programmes in Lao PDR.

Ochroma pyramidale (balsa) is a fast-growing tree, grown as a plantation crop by both companies and smallholders in East New Britain Province (ENB) of Papua New Guinea (PNG). The ENB balsa industry...

Forest certification, under both the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the PEFC-endorsed Chilean CERTFOR schemes, has been widely adopted in both the native and plantation forestry sectors in Chile. This study of the impacts of forest certification on Chilean forestry businesses is based in-depth interviews with 72 actors representing a diversity of roles and perspectives in the Chilean forestry sector. The impacts of certification have been greatest in the plantation forestry sector, and for larger businesses. These impacts include the cessation of deforestation for plantation establishment, rehabilitation of natural ecosystems, greater benefits to local communities, and the development of a positive dialogue between forestry businesses and their stakeholders. However, certification has not resolved some long-standing conflicts between forestry businesses and other actors, notably in relation to Indigenous peoples' land claims and workers' rights. Both certification schemes in Chile have promoted legal compliance; FSC certification is encouraging improvements beyond legal compliance, and deepening the changes initiated by CERTFOR. The results illustrate how certification can contribute to effective hybrid governance regimes, but also of the limits of certification in addressing deeply-entrenched social conflicts. Nevertheless, the impacts of certification for Chilean forestry businesses and their stakeholders have largely been positive.

Summary Primary hyperparathyroidism (PH) is a common endocrine abnormality and may occur as part of a genetic syndrome. Inactivating mutations of the tumour suppressor gene CDC73 have been identified as accounting for a large percentage of hyperparathyroidism-jaw tumour syndrome (HPT-JT) cases and to a lesser degree account for familial isolated hyperparathyroidism (FIHP) cases. Reports of CDC73 whole gene deletions are exceedingly rare. We report the case of a 39 year-old woman with PH secondary to a parathyroid adenoma associated with a large chromosomal deletion (2.5 Mb) encompassing the entire CDC73 gene detected years after parathyroidectomy. This case highlights the necessity to screen young patients with hyperparathyroidism for an underlying genetic aetiology. It also demonstrates that molecular testing for this disorder should contain techniques that can detect large deletions. Learning points: Necessity of genetic screening for young people with hyperparathyroidism. Importance of screening for large, including whole gene CDC73 deletions. Surveillance for patients with CDC73 gene mutations includes regular calcium and parathyroid hormone levels, dental assessments and imaging for uterine and renal tumours.

Policies to promote tree plantations in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic have been developed since independence to support national socio-economic and environmental goals, and in response to domestic and international markets. The effectiveness of these policies has been variable, and the resulting plantation wood value chains are poorly developed due to contradictory and confusing laws and regulations with inconsistent application and high transaction costs. Consequently, there has been limited tree plantation investment, and few investments have realized the anticipated benefits. Renewed interest in plantations from the government, investors and other sectors in Laos has prompted policy reviews and recognition of the need for new policy settings. We reviewed the development of plantation policies in Laos and assessed policy effectiveness and barriers to policy options. Through document analysis, interviews with key stakeholders and actors, stakeholder forums, and field research, we found that smarter regulation, and facilitating value-chain partnerships and knowledge sharing, can motivate smallholders and industry investors in plantations, and increase community-level benefits and financial returns to the Government and private sector. These results are discussed in the context of current international developments in plantation policy and the convergence in related policy processes in Laos.

Australia's forests have been characterized by a history of contestation and conflict since British colonization in 1788. This paper adopts a “pathways to sustainability” approach to review Australia's forest governance models, which are strongly tenure-dependent, and generally vary between sub-national jurisdictions; only climate change-related policies, which are in a state of considerable flux, apply to all forests. Consequently, pathways to sustainability are defined largely in terms of the dominant purpose of particular tenures, and are now little-integrated across institutions, landscapes or tenures. Three decades of trialing devolved models of natural resource governance have effectively been abandoned, as have many of the initiatives intended to support development of a more diverse and more integrated ‘forestry’ sector. While the near-term prospects for sustainability of Australia's forests in anything more than the narrowest sense are poor, there are both knowledge-based and historical institutional foundations from which more substantive progress towards sustainability could be realized. This progress will need to be founded on approaches to policy development and implementation that recognize and accommodate the plurality of interests in forests, that enhance coordination and integration between institutions and across landscapes, and that empower and enable the diverse communities of interests in forests.

Smallholder farmers’ choices of tree species in the Gunungkidul region have been limited by lack of management information. This paper describes activities to help inform farmers’ choices of three common timber species—Tectona grandis, Swietenia macrophylla and Acacia auriculiformis—in agroforestry systems in the region through (1) developing models predicting tree diameter growth based on reference growth function and the growth retardation performance and (2) estimating the contributions of site quality variables to the diameter growth retardation of ≤5 and >5-year-old stands. A total of 48 farms were selected, representing three slope ranges and two soil types, with a circular sample plot of 10 m radius established at each farm. A Quadratic model for each timber species indicated that the age of the tree explains a high percentage of the variance in diameter growth. Diameter growth varies with tree age and responds differently in each soil type and slope position. A set of site quality variables were able to predict retarded diameter performances of each tree species in two group ages and two soil types. These results suggest that the models can inform farmers’ choices of tree species and management.

Predicting soil depth using simple ground-based measurements of the tree stem has multiple benefits for precision (site-specific) forest management and estimating carbon stocks of plantation forests. Current methods of mapping soil depth rely on collecting a sufficient density of direct soil measurements, which is expensive and typically not feasible over extensive forest areas. The availability of detailed soil depth information under forest plantations is consequently sparse and this presents a significant impediment to precision forest management and the ability to estimate forest soil carbon stocks. In this study, we propose that the relationship between stem shape and taper in the butt swell of individual Pinus radiata trees and soil depth can be described in a simple empirical model. We demonstrate that shape and taper of the butt-swell section of the tree stem are as robust predictors of soil depth as individual tree height, and also have the advantage of being easy to measure from the grou...

In the original publication of the article Acknowledgements and Disclosures and declarations sections were not provided. These have been given with this Correction.

Indonesia’s internationally- and domestically-significant pulp and paper industries source their feedstock from tree plantations. A suite of regulatory (Indonesian Sustainable Production Forest Management Certification and Timber Legality Verification) and market instruments (forest certification) have been introduced to promote sustainability and legality of production from tree plantations, and some producers have also adopted other voluntary sustainability measures. This study investigates sustainability and legality compliance by actors in an Indonesian pulp and paper value chain as a case study of environmental innovation. Results are based on primary fieldwork along segments of the value chain, and analysis of audit reports and other publicly-available information. The value chain sources fibrewood from tree plantation concessions and pallet wood from a variety of suppliers. Audit reports suggest high levels of compliance with sustainability and legality requirements, but our research suggests that these reports might not reflect some area of poor performance and non-compliance. We identify weaknesses in the design of regulatory systems, and in auditing and monitoring processes, as the principal reasons for these deficiencies. Drawing on relevant theory and on practice elsewhere, we suggest that compliance and sustainability can be improved by addressing key areas of regulatory silence, by shifting auditing to be more performance-than paper-based, by strengthening independent monitoring from civil society, by increasing the frequency of witness auditing from the National Accreditation Board, and by fostering synergies between regulatory instruments and voluntary forest certification. These changes would improve the effectiveness of regulatory and voluntary instruments to promote cleaner production in Indonesian pulp and paper value chains.

In many countries, timber harvesting from natural forests is accompanied by social conflict that governments seek to mitigate, often through the introduction of policy changes that reduce the forest industry's access to natural forest wood. Forest policy changes often have important implications for businesses and workers dependent on forest resources; however, the social impacts of such changes remain relatively unexplored. We conducted an ex post facto assessment of social impacts experienced by members of the forest industry in the Australian state of Western Australia following the introduction of three forest policy changes between 1999 and 2004. Results indicate that the process by which forest policy decisions were made, the nature of the resulting policy changes, and the actions people took in response, together contributed to three key negative social impacts: uncertainty, a perception of injustice, and financial stress. These impacts in turn led to diminished perceptions of industry security, thus discouraging business owners from investing in the industry, rather than encouraging investment, which was a key goal of the forest policy changes. The results highlight the importance of recognizing, avoiding and mitigating negative social impacts associated with policy changes, as these impacts can hinder the realization of policy goals.

Tasmania's forest practices system, one of the most prescriptive globally and the most comprehensive in Australia, has evolved over the last 25years in response to public demands for high standards of governance, accountability and transparency of forest regulation on both public and private lands. The system was developed in the context of strong contestation, in Tasmanian and Australian civil society and politics, about appropriate forest policies and practices in Tasmania. The system is governed by a Forest Practices Act, which provides for a co-regulatory approach administered by an independent statutory body, the Forest Practices Authority. All forest operations must be undertaken in accordance with a certified forest practices plan, prepared and certified by accredited Forest Practices Officers employed by forest managers. These co-regulatory components of the system are supported by independent monitoring and enforcement by the Forest Practices Authority. This paper describes the genesis and evolution of the Tasmanian forest practices system, and summarises the range of measures employed to foster high levels of compliance, with an emphasis on training and education, self-monitoring and reporting by the industry, independent monitoring by the Forest Practices Authority, and corrective actions, backed by enforcement provisions. Compliance monitoring over 27years demonstrates rapid improvement in the decade following establishment of the system, with consistently high levels of achievement subsequently. However, larger corporate forest managers consistently achieve higher rates of compliance than do small-scale forest owners, and redressing this imbalance has been a recurrent theme in Tasmania's forest practices system. Experience of implementation of Tasmania's forest practices system suggests that well-designed and implemented co-regulatory approaches, with high levels of transparency, can be effective in delivery of good technical standards of forest practices and high levels of compliance. However, these will not in themselves mitigate public concern about forest management practices unless the policies governing those practices have broad support in civil society.

Farm household characteristics determine the success of programs promoting agroforestry systems and practices. This paper reports household and farm factors affecting the adoption of timber management practices by smallholders in the Gunungkidul region, Central Java, Indonesia. The research used three logistic regression analysis models—based on each household and farm characteristic, and a composite of both together—to identify the key factors influencing farmers’ adoption and management decisions, and their relative importance. A sample of 152 farmers who managed their trees primarily for timber production was compared to a sample of 115 farmers with similar socio-economic characteristics who did not. The household condition and composite models identified both on-farm and off-farm gross incomes as significant factors affecting farmers’ decisions to manage timber trees. The models confirmed that farmers with larger farms, and with higher on- and off-farm incomes, were more likely to manage their trees for timber production. These results have implications for extension programs that promote adoption of commercial timber management by smallholders in the case study and similar regions.

Social impact mitigation strategies are implemented by the proponents of policies and projects with the intent of reducing the negative, and increasing the positive social impacts of their activities, and facilitating the achievement of policy/project goals. Evaluation of mitigation strategies is critical to improving their future success and cost-effectiveness. This paper evaluates two Forest Industry Structural Adjustment Packages (FISAP) implemented in Australia in the 1990s to 2000s as part of broader policy changes that reduced access to timber from publicly owned native forests. It assesses the effectiveness of the structure, design, implementation and monitoring of the FISAPs, and highlights the interactions between these four elements and their influence on social impacts. The two FISAPs were found to be effective in terms of reducing negative impacts, encouraging positive impacts and contributing towards policy goals, although they did not mitigate negative impacts in all cases, and sometimes interacted with external factors and additional policy changes to contribute to significant short and long term negative impacts.

Social impacts resulting from policy changes and other interventions interact and aggregate, and are influenced by additional interventions and exogenous factors, leading to cumulative social impacts. We explored these complex impacts through a case study of forest policy changes introduced in the state of Western Australia between 1999 and 2004. In this process, we both drew on and modified the recently-proposed Cumulative Effects Assessment and Management (CEAM) framework, to improve its utility as an analytical tool for exploring cumulative social impacts that arise from policy changes in natural resource sectors. Our findings highlight the complexity of the pathways that lead to social impacts and the significant influence of individuals' responses. The findings also demonstrate the importance of considering cumulative impacts - negative and positive, and intended and unintended - when designing and implementing mitigation strategies, emphasizing the value of adaptive management approaches. Our results suggest that the CEAM framework, appropriately contextualized and adapted, is relevant to the assessment of social impacts associated with interventions in complex natural resource management cases, and probably more widely.

Reduced access to publicly-owned native forests for timber harvesting affects businesses and workers whose livelihoods depend on this timber. We explored the social impacts experienced by members of the forest industry, defined here to encompass businesses and individuals involved in native forest management and the harvesting, hauling, sawmilling and processing of timber from publicly-owned native forests. The study focused on one region in Australia, upper north-eastern New South Wales, where policy and management changes both preceded and followed a Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) signed by the Commonwealth and New South Wales governments in 2000. The process of developing the RFA was protracted and signified the culmination of some 20 years of activism by the conservation movement which had progressively restricted the forest industry's access to public native forest resources. The area of publicly-owned native forest in reserve increased by about 190%, and further restrictions were placed on the harvesting of the remaining area, thus requiring reductions in timber harvesting so as to maintain a sustained yield. The RFA process included ex-ante social impact assessments, and a Forest Industry Structural Adjustment Package to assist members of the forest industry to mitigate negative impacts and take advantage of new opportunities. Since the agreement was concluded, little follow-up (ex-post facto) social impact assessment has been undertaken to assess the negative and positive social impacts experienced by members of the forest industry, the ways in which businesses and individuals responded, or the effectiveness of government mitigation measures to assist them. Our study investigated each of these topics. Our results suggest that members of the forest industry experienced multiple negative and positive impacts over four stages: the anticipatory, initial-response, longer-term and subsequent-change stages. Participants' experiences of change and of positive and negative social impacts were influenced by their individual motivations, fears, skills and responses. These factors were influenced by the extent to which participants were able to respond proactively, the changes and impacts they anticipated they would experience, and their access to information and support via mitigation measures.

The Australian Government's ‘Caring for our Country’ program has undermined Australia's ‘regional model’ for natural resource management, and eroded gains made under the precursor Natural Heritage Trust and related programs, in eight significant ways. Contrary to expectations that Caring for our Country, established in 2008, would build on the foundations established by the Natural Heritage Trust, it has adopted a narrower agenda, increased central government control, and compromised buy-in by state and territory governments. In reaction to the difficulty of assessing the cost-effectiveness of natural resource management program investments, priority has been given to discrete projects capable of demonstrating short-term, measurable outputs. Implementation of Caring for our Country has failed to realise the aspirations of regional organisations for core funding, substantially increased transaction costs and diminished success rates under competitive funding arrangements, and prejudiced the goodwi...

The anticipated benefits and co-benefits of REDD+ generated considerable enthusiasm and momentum prior to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, and the lack of agreement of a global mechanism for REDD+ at that Conference generated corresponding disappointment. However, experience from earlier forest-related initiatives, and from recent research in environmental and forest governance, suggest ways forward for REDD+ even in the absence of a post-2012 climate agreement. Comparative studies reveal that forest-rich developing countries already have formal forest management requirements that are at least as demanding as those of industrialised countries, and that poor implementation of these requirements is the key constraint to achieving forest conservation and sustainable forest management goals. Experience suggests that mechanisms that focus on enabling the implementation of these already-agreed requirements, and that draw from the lessons of forest certification as well as from PES schemes, are most likely to deliver positive outcomes for both forests and local stakeholders. Together, these lessons suggests that progress can be made towards the REDD+ outcomes envisaged by the Copenhagen Accord by supporting implementation of existing national and sub-national forest policies in ways that are consistent with the principles of good forest governance.

PurposeCurriculum design is often a challenge. It is particularly so when the subject is sustainability, which is an aspirational but contested concept, draws on a range of disciplinary insights and is relatively new to university curricula. There is no single “right way”, or even agreement across the disciplines that inform the collective enterprise about general approaches to sustainability curricula. The likely content is ill‐defined and spans departmental units and budget areas in most traditional universities. Like other societal and institutional attempts at realising sustainability, curriculum design for sustainability is beset by difficulty, yet an essential intellectual activity. This paper aims to focus on these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe paper compares actual curriculum development processes for “sustainability” in two very different Australian universities, as studied using participant observation and qualitative interviews.FindingsThe paper draws out some of the common challenges of interdisciplinary curriculum design for sustainability, and identifies four principles transferrable to other institutional adaptation settings. It argues that curriculum design is an opportunity to develop collegiality, and further advance the problem area under discussion.Originality/valueCase study research is often difficult to generalise to other settings. The opportunity to observe two sustainability curriculum design processes, operating in parallel, provides transferrable insights.

The effects of adjusting additive (numerator) relationship matrices (A) for inbreeding estimates taken from molecular markers were investigated using a small, model population of Eucalyptus cladocalyx. A number of individual-tree, mixed-models were compared, incorporating estimates of population- and family-level selfing and ancestral inbreeding applied either as average values to the entire population or as variable estimates for subpopulation and family groups. The consequences of ignoring inbreeding were inflated additive genetic variance estimates and underestimation of residual variance, with resulting inflation of heritability. We found models that correct for differential inbreeding at the subpopulation level give similar results to more complex ones including family-level estimates. Our analysis indicates that the commonly applied coefficient of relationship for first-generation eucalypt progeny of ρ = 1/2.5 appears to be quite suitable for correcting variance component and heritability estimates. However, if inbreeding is not specifically corrected for by adjustment of A, some minor rank changes of individual breeding values can occur, especially where levels of inbreeding vary among families, and some suboptimal selections and loss of genetic gain may ensue.

As in other Australian primary industry sectors, there has been increasing concern over the past decade about the skills shortages evident in the forestry sector, and the education and training needs of the sector. The forestry sector, like others in the primary industries, is characterised by relatively low levels of workforce qualifications compared with community-wide averages. We review nationally-consistent data on degree completions at postgraduate research and undergraduate levels, and course completions at vocational levels, in 'forestry' across Australia, and discuss the results in the context of the current workforce at these levels in the Australian forestry sector. Comparative data for postgraduate research and undergraduate completions were available for the years 1994 and 2005-2007, and the years 2001, 2004 and 2007, respectively. The number of research higher degree completions classified as 'forestry' in the period 2005-2007 was around 20 annually, more or less equally divided between PhD and Masters by research; this was substantially more than completions in 1994. Undergraduate pass degree completions declined by more than 50%, to a total of about 30 annually, over the seven-year period studied (2001-2007). In contrast, honours degree completions increased by about the same proportion, but from a very low base, to around eight annually. Data for total course completions in vocational education and training (VET) 'forestry' programs were available for the four-year period 2004-2007. Total completions over this period were around 2000, but declined by nearly 50% between 2004 and 2007. These data underestimate participation in the VET sector and predate the establishment of ForestWorks as the sector's Industry Skills Council. We conducted a simple workforce planning analysis based on available estimates of the workforce employed in the forestry sector and assumed career durations. On this basis, the level of supply of higher-degree research graduates in forestry -at around 20 in 2007 -would seem to be of the right order, although our analysis does not account for the high level of specialisation which characterises both completions and workforce needs. In contrast, the current and projected numbers of undergraduate forestry completions, currently at 19 and projected to decline to 10 by 2013, are well below workforce replacement levels. The decline in undergraduate forestry completions is being offset to an extent by increased numbers of professional Masters graduates in forestry, at around 25 annually, but the combined number of expected undergraduate and professional Masters completions remains less than is required for sustaining the professional workforce at existing levels. The comparatively low rates of completion of vocational-level qualifications suggest that the vocational-level workforce engaged in forest growing and management, in forest operations and in primary processing will remain less formally-qualified than both the primary industry sector and the community more generally. These results emphasize the need for the forestry sector to continue to focus on, and invest in, the education and training needs of its workforce, at all levels.

Summary Aboriginal Australians have diverse interests in forest, encompassing cultural, economic, environmental and social values. Historically, the agencies and industries comprising the forest sector have engaged with only some of these interests, and have typically done so in a fragmented fashion. Our research with Aboriginal communities around Australia suggests a myriad of opportunities for a broadly defined forests sector, but this requires improved relationships between Aboriginal people and the dominant society and much deeper understanding of diverse Aboriginal aspirations at the local level. The National Indigenous Forestry Strategy promotes these aspirations, but requires a much stronger commitment from governments if it is to deliver them.

To date much of the global-scale comparative research on environmental forest policy has focused on ‘macro-level’ policy goals and objectives. Although it is important for identifying broad trends, such research overlooks the specific policy settings that serve to ‘set the bar’ for on-the-ground environmental performance. This article helps to fill that gap by presenting and applying a framework for comparing specific forest practice requirements across 47 jurisdictions worldwide. We develop inductive hypotheses to explore the policy patterns that emerge. Socio-economic parameters – the level of economic development, form of land ownership, and enforcement capacity – appear to strongly influence policy divergence, whereas environmental science, by itself, appears unable to explain our findings. The development of private certification standards is consistent with public policy differences. The article discusses the implications of these findings for policy strategists interested in promoting scientificall...

The material benefits of forests – for example, the production of wood and environmental services – are often characterised as tangible, or ‘real’. In contrast, the cultural and spiritual significance of forests for people is often characterised as intangible, or ‘imagined’. Old forests are particularly valued for both their ‘real’ and ‘imagined’ values. In contemporary Western societies, the distinction between these values for old forests is frequently strongly drawn, and the two sets of values are generally represented as largely incompatible. We draw from empirical and psychological research to suggest that such a division between the ‘real’ and ‘imagined’ values of old forests is less clear or helpful than is often presumed. There is empirical evidence that these values can coexist, for both individuals and societies, and psychological research suggests that the ‘imagined’ values of forests can be just as ‘real’ as their material values. However, there are very real difficulties in assessing and representing the ‘imagined’ values of forests in terms compatible with criteria and indicators of sustainable forest management that emphasize quantification and objectivity; this is a significant constraint to fully incorporating these values into forest management decisions. We identify this as an area requiring further research and development to inform management of old forests. We concur with others that proper recognition of the ‘imagined’ values of old forests does not necessarily lead to unambiguous choices about their management, and suggest that neither the ‘real’ nor the ‘imagined’ values of forests should necessarily be privileged above the other in the management of old forests.

© 2015, The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis. A new approach was developed for Australia's 2011 national State of the Environment (SoE) report to integrate the assessment of biophysical and human elements of the environment. A Common Assessment and Reporting Framework (CARF) guided design and implementation, responding to jurisdictional complexity, outstanding natural diversity and ecosystem values, high levels of cultural and heritage diversity, and a paucity of national-scale data. The CARF provided a transparent response to the need for an independent, robust and evidence-based national SoE report. We conclude that this framework will be effective for subsequent national SoE assessments and other integrated national-scale assessments in data-poor regions.

Temperate hardwoods include both genera grown under traditional long-rotation silvicultural regimes, such as Fraxinus and Quercus , and those such as Eucalyptus or Salix grown as shortrotation plantations. Strategies for breeding temperate hardwoods have developed signifi cantly over the past 20 years, informed by conceptual, technological and analytical advances, and by experience with plantation species in both the tropical and temperate worlds. Successful strategies are characterized by clear identifi cation of breeding objectives, critical assessment of strategic options for breeding and delivery of gain, access to and use of the most appropriate genetic resources, and sustained effort by appropriately skilled and supported staff. Breeding activities and cycles for most temperate hardwood species remain in the early stages and generations, and consequently can be expected to deliver substantial genetic gains in at least the short and medium terms. The distribution over time of costs and returns associated with investments in growing long-rotation hardwoods favours a cooperative approach to breeding activities.

Summary Major bushfires in south-eastern Australia in the 2002–2003 bushfire season caused the loss of ten lives, substantial damage both to rural and urban property and to infrastructure and primary production systems, and had significant environmental impacts. The scale and impacts of the fires prompted the governments of the Australian Capital Territory and Victoria to establish inquiries into the bushfires in their jurisdictions, and the federal House of Representatives and Council of Australian Governments to establish inquiries with wider terms of reference. This paper reviews the outcomes of these inquiries in the context of the most wide-ranging, that of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), which the authors conducted. The inquiries which followed the 2002–2003 bushfire season explored many of the common themes which had emerged from the preceding 13 inquiries into significant bushfire events in Australia since 1939. These include the importance of risk reduction, particularly through fue...

Summary Australia has over 1.5 million ha of plantation forests. Governments and industry share a goal of doubling this area by 2020, with most new plantations to be established on previously- cleared agricultural land. Plantations currently supply over half of the raw material required by the forest products industry and also provide a range of environmental and social services. The ownership and management structure of Australian forest plantations and plantation-based forest industries has changed considerably over the past decade, and plantation growing, processing and marketing sectors are becoming increasingly globalised. This paper reviews the major forces driving development of forest plantations in Australia and the key policy and management issues to be considered if plantations are to meet varied expectations of the Australian community. Our assessment is based on papers and discussion at the ‘Prospects for Australian Forest Plantations 2002’ conference. The wide-ranging papers to the conferenc...

Analysis of stem diameter, height and axis persistence (AP) in a first-generation Eucalyptus cladocalyx breeding population comprising 137 wild and land-race families planted at 11 sites in southern Australia revealed significant genetic variation among subpopulations and among families within subpopulations. Alternative analyses were carried out using individual-tree mixed models that (i) assumed the trees within families were half-siblings (HS) and (ii) used molecular marker-based information to account for highly heterogeneous relatedness and inbreeding depression among families resulting from mixed mating (MM). For certain site and trait combinations, the HS models would not converge, as estimates of additive variance exceeded the total phenotypic variance, demonstrating the fundamental unsuitability of the HS assumption for this breeding population. Where HS models converged, moderate to very high heritability estimates resulted for growth traits. The MM assumption resulted in re-ranking of individual-tree breeding values and markedly lower estimates of narrow-sense heritability for all trait-site combinations. In some cases, however, heritability remained moderate to high, probably reflecting unquantified dominance variance in some highly inbred subpopulations. Genotype-by-environment interaction was significant overall due to reactivity of genotypes on a few sites, with type-B correlations between pairs of sites ranging from 0.06 to 0.99. Generally, families from the Australian land race were found to perform particularly well for both growth and AP traits. Some wild families were found to be vigorous, despite significant inbreeding. The study has demonstrated that traditional models assuming non-relatedness and/or homogeneous inbreeding in first-generation eucalypt breeding populations can be significantly improved upon by flexible mixed models that integrate marker-based data.

Summary Many factors influence adoption of plantation forestry as part of the farm enterprise. This paper reviews earlier work, and reports the results of a study of these factors in North East Tasmania. Before landholders are likely to adopt plantation forestry, they must be motivated to consider adoption of a new enterprise, and be able to access adequate information on farm forestry. Information commonly sought by landholders when deciding whether or not to adopt includes that on the biophysical requirements for commercial tree crops, the opportunity costs incurred, and the infrastructure available for farm forestry. Evaluation of this information is influenced by the socioeconomic status, attitudes and values of the landholder. Plantation forestry may only be adopted if all of the above factors combine in such a way that this form of farm forestry is considered the optimal utilisation of an area of land being considered by the landholder for establishment under a new agricultural enterprise. Promoting...