Forestry industry raises ash warning

THE group representing the forestry industry has warned Victoria’s ash forests are at risk of collapsing due to a seed shortage and frequent fires.

Forestry Australia says the of end native timber logging in Victoria may exacerbate the situation.

The Otways are noted for their mountain ash trees, particularly around the Forrest area.

Ecologist Owen Bassett, who has monitored flowering and seed crops in Victoria’s ash forests for decades, said flowering did not occur as predicted for the first time in 28 years, which had greatly affected the trees’ natural regeneration ability and hampered seed collection efforts.

“What this means for Victoria’s ash forests is that they are at serious risk of ecosystem collapse, because they will not have the capacity to naturally regenerate themselves come the next fire season,” he said.

Seeds gathered are used to assist forest regeneration after fire and storm events.

Forests harvested for timber are also resown using seed from the harvest sites, with leftover seed contributing to a bank used to resow areas including national parks.

A succession of bushfires in 1998, 2003, 2006-07, 2009, 2013, 2018, 2019 and 2019-20 has nearly exhausted this seed bank.

“The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning and VicForests undertook the largest sowing event in Victoria’s history following the 2019-20 bushfires, resowing 11,500 hectares of ash forest,” Mr Bassett said.

“However, despite that world-leading effort, more than 10,000 hectares of ash forest was not able to be resown and is not likely to recover following those fires.

“Another serious concern is that there is at least 143,000 hectares of fire-killed forest which is now regenerating, but extremely vulnerable to another fire event.

“If it burns, it will be lost forever because it doesn’t have the ability to reseed itself and we just don’t have the seed to resow it.”

State forest agency VicForests carries out seed collection, but Forestry Australia President Dr Michelle Freeman said this service may be lost following the Victorian government’s decision in May of this year to shut down Victoria’s native timber sector from the start of 2024, six years earlier than originally intended.

“With the closure of native forest harvesting and recent announcement that seed collection contractors are now considered part of that transition package, who will save our forests when the next bushfire comes?”