Forest region covers wider area

David Pollard, VicForests, Melbourne
The Age (letter), 4 Feb 2011

JILL Sanguinetti's letter (31/1) includes some highly misleading statistics. It points out there are 66,000 hectares of forest available for timber harvesting in the central forest management area (FMA). However, VicForests' Central Highlands region covers this area plus the North East, Benalla/Mansfield, Dandenong and Central Gippsland FMAs - which contain 210,000 hectares of available forest. Less than 2000 hectares is harvested and regenerated across this region each year.

Further, almost 90 per cent of the 7.8 million hectares of native forest in Victoria is unavailable or unsuitable for timber harvesting; some 4.8 million hectares of forest are in national parks and conservation reserves where no timber harvesting is permitted; and trees are retained in every area harvested by VicForests to provide habitat for native fauna.