Genetic impacts of different silvicultural practices in native eucalypt forests

Abstract

Native forests cover 20%, or 156 million hectares, of the Australian land mass (769 million hectares). Policies and strategies for the ecologically sustainable management of Australia’s forests are outlined in the National Forest Policy Statement, which was jointly developed by the Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments (Commonwealth of Australia 1992). Conservation of the biological diversity in Australia’s forests is one of the key national goals of this statement. It is well knovm that biological diversity consists of three components: ecosystem diversity, species diversity, and genetic diversity, with genetic diversity being the baseline component upon which the other two higher level components ultimately rest. Hence, the goal to conserve biological diversity in native forests by definition implies that genetic diversity should also be conserved. With regard to conservation of genetic and species diversity on managed native forests, the National Forest Policy Statement states: “reforestation of extensively managed native forest should be with species and provenances native to the area or an equivalent locality to help conserve species patterns and gene pools present prior to harvesting” (Commonwealth of Australia 1992). Hence, there is a mandate to conserve not only the levels of genetic diversity of species in a locality, but also the local character of that diversity.