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Contents

1.  Introduction

2.  Biodiversity issues
      2.1.  South East Queensland Biogeographic Region
      2.2.  Threats and impacts
      2.3.  Options for biodiversity conservation

3.  Socio-Economic and Cultural Issues
      3.1.  Economic resources and uses
      3.2.  Resource problems - common and different
      3.3.  Social and political conflicts
      3.4.  Cultural landscapes, cultural diversity and traditional knowledge

4.  Governance, conflict mediation and institutional responses
      4.1.  The SEQ outcome
      4.2.  Administrative issues: the policy problem
      4.3.  Legal issues: the constitutional politics
      4.4.  Conflict mediation: arbitration versus collaborative governance
      4.5.  Ecologically sustainable development (ESD): resolving the disjunction between science, policy and decision-making

5.  Conclusions

Appendix

References

Introduction

The South East Queensland (SEQ) Case Study involved a three-year bioregional planning process concerned with resolving competing biodiversity, timber industry and other social and cultural uses of Australian native forests.

This process has had four phases:

Bioregional assessment Decision phase Intergovernmental negotiation Ongoing implementation

January 1997 - February 1999 March 1999 - September 1999 September 1999 - February 2000 February 2000 - present

The case study falls within the ICBS panel session on environmental governance. This report accordingly deals with the second and third phases in more detail than the first, while ongoing implementation also raises ongoing governance issues.

The bioregional planning process used for the South East Queensland forests was part of a national program known as the Regional Forest Agreement process. This was instituted under Australia's 1992 National Forest Policy Statement,² a policy agreement between the federal (national) government and all of Australia's eight state and territory governments with major forest conservation and resource conflicts. The 1992 National Forest Policy Statement was one part of a national strategy for achieving ecologically sustainable development (ESD), and, for the purposes of implementing Australia's obligations under the 1992 Rio Convention on Biological Diversity, it is "the primary means by which [these] objectives...will be met in forest habitats".³ This case study primarily presents a means of evaluating the governance framework provided by the 1992 Statement.

The conservation and management of biodiversity resources in native forest ecosystems, and economic uses of those ecosystems (particularly timber and wood production), have been in conflict since the 1970s. The 1992 Statement was developed to better manage this conflict; but it was an intergovernmental agreement, not supported by any significant consensus between or agreement with either environmental non-government organisations (ENGOs) or the timber industry. Accordingly, its implementation was difficult from the outset, and it took until 1995 for legal and political events to eventually force its implementation.⁴ Since then, the legal basis and purpose of the process has been well described.⁵ From 1995, it became Australia's first-ever national process of strategic bioregional assessment, with eleven Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) initiated, covering about 6% of Australia or approximately 46 million hectares (an area about the size of Morocco or Sweden, and 1_ times the size of Italy). These bioregional assessments led to nine Agreements being executed between the national government and four states between February 1997 and March 2000.⁶

The SEQ process was one of the two assessments which did not lead to the intended intergovernmental Regional Forest Agreement. However, it achieved an agreement of a different kind - it was the only one of the 11 assessments where both ENGOs and the timber industry agreed on the outcome, and with the support of the Queensland state government were able to put this into action. The great paradox of the only true industry-community-government "agreement" to emerge from the process, being one of only two outcomes not supported by the national government which established the scheme, raises a range of governance issues.

As described in section 4 of the paper, this paradox demonstrates:

• problems in the original administrative or policy settings of the process;
• the nature of constitutional politics between the national and state government;
• the different approaches taken by the governments to community engagement and conflict mediation; and
• the universal problem of an ongoing shortage of mechanisms for integrating science and policy approaches into political decisions aimed at achieving ESD.

Each of these produces general lessons for future development in environmental governance.

2.  Biodiversity issues

2.1.  South East Queensland Biogeographic Region

Figure 1 shows the place of the South East Queensland Biogeographic Region within the 80 regions of the Australian continent.⁷ Figure 2 is a map of the region. (Figures to be supplied).

The total area of the SEQ region is 6.1 million hectares. It includes a complete mix of land uses from urban residential to extensive agriculture. Its population is about 2.4 million people, concentrated in one major metropolitan area (Brisbane), two sub-metropolitan area (Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast), and three other major regional cities.

The assessment process covered approximately 3 million hectares of native forest ecosystems within this area. Of this, approximately 358,000 hectares was already located in protected areas managed primarily for biodiversity conservation. This includes two protected area networks on the UNESCO World Heritage list - Fraser Island/Great Sandy Region, and Central Eastern Rainforest Reserves (Australia). Much of the natural forest was located on private freehold land. The assessment provided improved information about forest biodiversity and economic resources across all these tenures, and therefore a basis for a range of possible future strategies for biodiversity management. The central issue, however, was the management of conflict between biodiversity and commercial timber interests on that proportion of these forests in government (public) ownership, outside existing protected areas. This was the central focus of the assessments, negotiations and agreements in this case study.

This primary area of public native forests in contention extended to approximately 689,000 hectares, or about 13% of the region, and about 30% of its total remaining forests.

The bioregional assessment was published in February 1999.⁸ This is available online (http://www.rfa.gov.au/rfa/qld/se/raa/cra/index) and sets out in detail the environmental, heritage, social and economic profiles of the region's forests. In all, 147 regional ecosystem types were mapped, most of which were forest types, defined by specific plant associations, landform and geology. While 110 of these were represented to some extent in existing conservation reserves, this was by no means an indicator of the adequacy of existing protection and management. Fifty-two (52) (35%) of these ecosystems were considered 'threatened' (greater than 70% of pre-European extent destroyed); and only seven (7) (13%) of these threatened ecosystems were protected to nationally-agreed targets. These targets (called 'the JANIS criteria'⁹) were developed by national and state government agencies in 1997, for the purpose of ensuring a 'comprehensive, adequate and representative' (CAR) forest reserve system emerged from the national process. They prescribed different target levels of reservation, based on minimum reservation of 15% of pre-European extent of all common forest ecosystems, and higher reservation levels for higher conservation value types.

Given extent of forest loss to agriculture and urban development, and these low existing conservation levels, the conservation significance of the bioregion's remaining forests was relatively difficult to contest. The key issue for agreement was how much of the 689,000 hectares of public forest needed to be included in the conservation system in South East Queensland to meet the national targets. The assessment showed that this would need to be in the order of 620,000 hectares, or 90% of the area.¹⁰

2.2.  Threats and impacts

Major threats and impacts across the forest estate ranged from immediate and severe (e.g. total and permanent clearance for urban development and agriculture); to long term but moderate (e.g. change of forest structure by logging for timber production; inappropriate fire management; grazing by cattle; introduction of feral animals, pests and pathogens); to relatively slight (inappropriate recreation; unknown impacts of beekeeping and honey production).

The public forests at the heart of the SEQ assessment, being within the control of the state government, were under much reduced threat from the first type. However, they were subject to all the remaining threats. Further, the need to mitigate against severe impacts in areas outside the governments' direct control provided an incentive to compensate with higher conservation measures where possible in public forests.

A key objective of the national process was also always to resolve ongoing questions over the timber industry's access to such forests. In part, this was simply to provide greater certainty and attempt to end social conflict. However, a government objective stated by the 1992 Statement was also to support and develop timber-based industries, based on both native forests and purpose-planted (plantation) forests. The potential for ongoing conflict between these objectives was clearly demonstrated by all the Australian Regional Forest Agreements, including the SEQ process, and is discussed further below.

One impact of this industry development objective, was continued lack of consensus about the degree of threat posed by commercial logging operations to native forests. It was implicit that if logging of native forests was a value to be supported, then its negative impacts on biodiversity should be written down relative to other threats. In Queensland, native forest harvesting was still more selective, and less intensive than the clearfell-style harvesting practiced in other Australian states, for the production of pulpwood (for paper production). The major threat remained, however, long term and cumulative change in forest structure through systematic removal of large trees - including both floristic simplification, and change of habitat characteristics with consequent impacts on faunal biodiversity, particularly hollow-dwelling fauna (a wide range of marsupials and birds). Associated loss of naturalness and remnant 'wilderness' were further cultural impacts.

Assessment of the threat posed by forestry (commercial timber production) was therefore influenced by two competing philosophies. Because trees regrow, forests tend to capture public hopes of finding demonstrable sources of long-term renewable resources.¹¹ On the other hand, it has become increasingly recognised that the ability of wood to regrow in a given timeframe does not guarantee a forest will do the same. Internationally, few if any short-rotation timber harvest regimes have demonstrated the level of sustainability visible in the regeneration and evolution of 'wild' or 'natural' forest ecosystems.¹² The Australian forest debate is an example of this competition.

2.3.  Options for biodiversity conservation

The SEQ assessment confirmed that there may be many options for improved biodiversity conservation, including changed logging practices and management, along with the objective of a CAR reserve system. However, the criteria showed that there was little scope for meeting the core conservation objectives without removing a large proportion of the public forests available for timber production.

The federal and state governments produced a joint options or 'directions' report in May 1999, making this problem clear¹³ (online: http://www.rfa.gov.au/rfa/qld/se/raa/directions/index). However, this problem was not qualitatively different from that experienced in each of the other 10 bioregional assessments in the national program. The first lessons about the governance framework are evident in how this problem would have been solved if the national approach had been followed in SEQ.

In SEQ, the national government put forward scenarios for public discussion presented alternative reserve additions of 156,000 and 391,000 hectares (compared to the 620,000 hectares suggested by the criteria).¹⁴ This was 23% and 57% of the area respectively, rather than 90%. With ENGOs pushing strongly for the upper figure, and timber industry interests pushing for the lower, the final outcome determined by the governments would logically have been about 40%. This would have reserved about half the area required to meet the national criteria, leaving about half available for indefinite logging.¹⁵ This is because the national process includes an established principle that the agreed conservation criteria must necessarily sometimes be compromised due to social and economic factors.¹⁶ There is no limit on the extent of allowable compromise, guaranteeing that a high level of political conflict remains in the final decision-making process, irrespective of the scientific or economic analysis produced by the bioregional assessment itself.

The result achieved by agreement between ENGOs, the timber industry represented by the Queensland Timber Board (QTB), and the Queensland State Government, was entirely outside the national government's conventional 'half and half' or 'divide and rule' approach. The agreement achieved an immediate 62% reservation (425,000 hectares), with a further 12% (80,000 hectares) quarantined from logging unless absolutely necessary, and the remaining 26% (184,000 hectares) available to be logged and then progressively added to conservation resources over 25 years. This was the outcome of a carefully negotiated 'transition strategy' for ending native forest logging altogether, in public forests, in preference for existing and future purpose-planted (plantation resources). How this option was achieved, is explained below.

3.  Socio-Economic and Cultural Issues

3.1.  Economic resources and uses

As set out above, the primary resource use in question was logging of trees for commercial timber production. Other economic uses included tourism and recreation; cattle grazing; mining; commercial harvesting of native flower and plants; and beekeeping (apiary). The relative significance of each of these is set out in the reports identified above.

3.2.  Resource problems - common and different

The normal approach in the national process was to assess each of these interests simultaneously; publish the results simultaneously; and derive the different spatial options for biodiversity conservation in a way which presented the impacts that given levels of conservation would have on different resource uses - simultaneously.

This approach tended towards one major decision-making "crunch", which dealt with all these issues at once - as if each all economic uses posed the same level of threat, and raised the same governance problems. This was clearly not the case. In fact, one result of the normal approach was a tendency to unite different economic interests against high levels of conservation measures, irrespective of the fact that some major uses - especially tourism and recreation - were far more compatible with greatly enhanced biodiversity conservation than others.

The Queensland Government's approach began to differ from the national approach in separating out these interests, and attempting to deal with them sequentially. This occurred partly by design and partly by force of circumstance. Consequently effectively three different processes emerged. The first decision "crunch" needed only to deal with the highest profile issue of timber industry resources and development (see below). Two subsequent processes were designed: one dealing with tenure allocation and development strategies for all the remaining uses, of lesser biodiversity threat; and one dealing with indigenous cultural interests and 'native title' to public lands (see section 3.4).

Timber resource problems

This is the only resource issue which will be dealt with in detail in this report, as it provides the key to the various governance problems.

On paper, the biodiversity result above appears slanted towards conservation at the expense of commercial timber production. In fact, the 'transition strategy' solution was driven as much by industry goals as by conservation targets. There were four such goals:

1. To obtain increased government support (financial and regulatory) for timber plantation development and renewal in both hardwood and softwood sectors.

   Contrary to many public impressions, the timber industry was not based in these native forests. Over time, economic forces and restructuring meant that the industry had already become overwhelmingly based on softwood plantations (see Figure 3). By 1999, of the 1.08 million cubic metres of logs for sawn timber coming from public lands, 92% was already coming from softwood plantations rather than native forests. This trend was predicted to continue, but tended to be ignored in a process focussing so closely on the contentious native forests. However, even before the decision-making phases commenced, the Queensland Timber Board had acknowledged that its future resource was "most likely to come from purpose-planted trees" - notwithstanding the lack of "compelling evidence to suggest continued sustainable [timber] operations in [public] native forests could not occur."¹⁸

   [Figure 3: Queensland Timber Removals from Publicly and Privately Owned Land by Broad Forest Type (1936–1996). To be supplied.]

   Source: Queensland and Commonwealth Governments, Wood and Wood Products Industry Background and Situation Analysis (SEQ CRA SE 2.5 Final Report), Figure 3.5.

2. To maintain and support the hardwood sector in this overall trend, from native forests to plantations.

   This was the central focus of the 'transition strategy' solution, because the major challenge for those businesses still logging native forests, was not so much conservation, as dealing with the large resource reductions needed to place native harvesting on a long-term sustained yield.¹⁹ As the Timber Board later observed, from a resource perspective "the long term scenario for the [native forest] industry wasn't particularly good."²⁰ Any given conservation scenario - no matter how small - required a choice between an immediate drastic reduction to sustained yield, or a softer landing which meant further resource problems later on. This choice was demonstrated in the RFA Directions Report (Figure 4).

   Figure 4. Difference in resource availability between 100 year sustained yield and 20 year transition strategy

   Public native timber harvest by volume (m³)

   Year

   Scenario C = 60% immediate reduction, to long term sustained yield
   Scenario E = 100% reduction over 20 years, via a transition strategy yield (based on same level of conservation reserves as scenario C)
   Source: (Commonwealth and Queensland Governments 1999b) Figure 9 (p.54)

   This problem is important because it is a hallmark of the difficulty of extracting wood from natural forests throughout Australia, and probably the world. It is typical of the ongoing shift from an 'open access' to a 'commons' resource which has underpinned forestry in industrialised countries over the last 30 years.²¹ Past levels of overharvesting, inaccurate information and unknown regeneration levels are ongoing problems, making resource estimation sometimes notoriously unreliable. In 1995, Australia's foremost forest industry historian, John Dargavel, indicated "little confidence" that this era of basic economic sustainability problems had passed,²² underlining its fundamentality to these kinds of forestry operations and the need for more creative solutions.

3. To obtain sufficient security of this transitional resource to support investment and industry planning. (This was achieved by 25-year wood supply agreements between the Queensland government and public forest allocation holders, issued in early 2000, incorporating the final SEQ agreement (see Appendix) as an attachment. It was also supported by certain legislative measures.²³)

4. To end conflict with environmental NGOs, and pre-empt further conservation problems over time, all of which was proving damaging to the industry.

3.3.  Social and political conflicts

Social and political conflict over forest logging versus forest conservation was the reason for the 1992 National Forest Policy Statement and the national process. Many different Australian forest regions had experienced 'direct action' protests against logging, involving some thousands of police arrests. In a few instances there had been violent confrontations between timber industry workers and protesting conservationists. Forest policy had been a major national political issue since the 1987 federal elections, and remains so today.

Because it had twin goals of increased forest conservation, and timber industry development, the Regional Forest Agreement process from 1995 tended to structure, rather than remove, this conflict. This was true of the SEQ case study, where the publication of conservation options in May 1999 produced intense political conflict. A pro-conservation demonstration attracted 3,000 people in Brisbane, and the timber industry engaged in an expensive television and newspaper advertising campaign, all aimed at either maximising or minimising the area of forest to be removed from commercial timber production.

The primary political issue opposing conservation, in the public debate, was employment. Some 409 full-time equivalent jobs were estimated to be directly dependent on logging the public native forests. This was only approximately 5% of the total 8,420 timber industry jobs in the region, but these jobs were often located in small rural communities which were very sensitive to economic shocks. Behind the employment issue, also lay the financial investments and interests of the timber business owners, but this tended to take second place to employment in a debate about 'jobs versus trees'.

From the outset, the national process did not pursue new solutions for preventing or addressing this underlying conflict. The effort put into bioregional assessments created great optimism about the potential for such solutions: some commentators have defended it as "a holistic strategic framework" for "resolution of the significant environmental issues in each region".²⁴ However, the fact that the process did not offer new methods of not just assessment, but decision making, has seen other commentators criticise it for having failed to put out the "forest fires...raging at a public policy level for several decades."²⁵

One national government official, within the process, explained that solving such conflict in and of itself was never the objective. The objective was to enable the national and state governments to reach agreement on a "middle ground" or "reasonable balance" between logging interests and conservation interests around Australia, irrespective of whether the logging interests or broader community were satisfied with the results. Indeed, it was presumed both sets of interests would never be satisfied. This official wrote:²⁶

"...few involved in the RFA process, government or stakeholder organisations, ever believed that the RFA process would end forest conflict in Australia."

The governance framework was therefore one of containment, rather than solution. However, it has since been widely discussed whether this was a sufficient objective for the program.

3.4. Cultural landscapes, cultural diversity and traditional knowledge

The public forests in the case study are important cultural landscapes both for the non-indigenous, predominantly European majority of the population, and importantly for the Australian Aboriginal indigenous minority. Significant assessment work was completed on cultural heritage in each of these areas. However, a major achievement of the process was in establishing a subsequent, ongoing framework for the assessment and negotiation of indigenous title rights in these forest areas. This issue has been the subject of great debate and uncertainty in Australian governance since legal recognition of pre-existing native title to land was belatedly recognised by the High Court of Australia in 1992.

In the case study, native title was able to be separated on the basis that this issue needed to be respected and resolved irrespective of the outcome for the timber industry; and that by and large, indigenous groups regarded commercial logging as a secondary issue, whose solution they were prepared to live with provided their entitlements were respected. This subsequent process is ongoing, and expected to yield improved legal recognition of indigenous ownership of public forest landscapes, as well as concrete economic opportunities in land management, conservation, tourism and recreation. The state government has also funded policy initiatives aimed at increasing indigenous involvement in protected area management, although extent of past disturbance and fragmentation of the forest estate means that the relative role of traditional ecological knowledge in future management remains as yet unclear.

4.  Governance, conflict mediation and institutional responses

4.1.  The SEQ Forest Agreement outcome

The governance framework of Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) has been introduced above. Public participation in the process ended with the completion of assessments in February 1999, and reverted to consultation via written comment on the May 1999 'options' report. A multi-stakeholder reference panel was suspended on the advice of both national and state officials. If followed to conclusion, the national and state governments would have then negotiated an intergovernmental agreement within the range of biodiversity conservation outcomes identified above. As occurred universally with each of the 9 signed RFAs, this outcome would have been expected to satisfy neither of the main groups of public interests.

Approximately halfway through the decision phase, this process changed. The leading environmental NGOs and timber lobby presented the Queensland state government with the basis for an agreement, which they had been developing on and off - despite the social conflict engendered by the national process - for over two years. This was developed and became the basis of the state government's position to the national government on 16 September 1999. Negotiation then followed, which concluded in February 2000 with the Prime Minister (head of government) informing the state Premier that the SEQ agreement was too fundamentally inconsistent with national policy for the national government to be able to sign, or provide any funding. As a result, the only agreement to emerge from the national process with agreement from both the community and industry sectors, was not recognised by the national government and not given the status and legal and financial supports of an RFA.

The dispute between the Queensland state interests and the national government centred on the 'transition strategy' by which the timber industry opted to exit public native forests altogether over 25 years, in preference for expanded use of existing and future timber plantations.

The detail of this strategy was carefully negotiated by the ENGOs, timber lobby and both industry and environmental specialists in the state government, using the agreed national conservation criteria; it enabled a better immediate conservation result in the key high conservation value forests than even the high range of options possible under the normal process, and backed this up with the promise of eventual removal of logging altogether, with flexibility mechanisms to assist in the management of this process. The attractiveness of the strategy to industry and the affected rural communities lay in:

• Greater investment and certainty in the long-term growth area of the industry, being secondary processing of more reliable, purpose-grown timber; this was backed up by a US$9.5 million Queensland government investment in plantation development, within a US$42 million restructure package also involving other industry reforms; and
• Delay of some of the otherwise inevitable resource reductions in the native forests, to help manage the transition. In employment terms, this replaced prospective short-term loss of over half the 409 jobs nominally dependent on public native forests (even without conservation), to short-term loss of only around 80 jobs,²⁷ with all these individuals subsequently redeployed within the expanding industry.

This kind of outcome has a high potential for replication in other similar resource disputes, for three reasons:

1. This was the second time a transition out of natural forests, to plantations, had been used by regional timber interests to escape resource problems. Queensland's current expanding plantation timber processing sector is based, in part, on unique native hoop pine plantations developed in the 1920s and 1930s, after overcutting and resource depletion in the natural hoop pine forests. Biodiversity conservation was not a priority, but the economic strategy of extending some 'overcutting' to enable a 100% transition to plantations was otherwise similar. The joint government 'options' report commented that this strategy was therefore "not a new concept", but rather ultimately a path to stronger industry growth.²⁸ (In its actions, the national government subsequently backed away from this comment.)
2. A similar transition strategy, with strong biodiversity conservation objectives, was used as the basis for the only other known stakeholder agreement of this type - the New Zealand West Coast Timber Accord (1986). This involved a phased reduction of unsustainable native forest logging in line with the maturation of softwood plantations. The ultimate fate of that agreement is one priority area for further study.²⁹
3. It has been claimed that the success in the SEQ case study area was attributable to the non-intensive nature of timber harvesting, and absence of a woodchip (pulpwood) industry, compared to other major timber producing regions.³⁰ In fact, SEQ has an extensive pulpwood industry, based in plantations. Further, the basic resource problems of unreliability and overestimation, in turn necessitating sustainability reductions, are common to natural forest harvesting whether extensive or intensive. The difference in industry structure in SEQ is therefore one of degree, not kind. These factors may have made the agreement easier to achieve, but it does not mean other such agreements are not possible.

The remaining four areas of discussion highlight the governance problems flowing from the current policy framework. These have been brought into sharp relief by the national government's decision not to recognise the SEQ agreement. The governance problems highlighted are:

• inconsistency in original administrative or policy settings of the process;
• the nature of constitutional politics between the national and state government;
• different approaches to community engagement and conflict mediation; and
• the universal problem of an ongoing shortage of mechanisms for integrating science and policy approaches into political decisions aimed at achieving ESD.

4.2.  Administrative issues - the policy problem

As indicated above, the primary policy objective of the national process was to better contain and manage forest issues. This had a specific policy history not only of social conflict, but intergovernmental conflict. The 1992 National Forest Policy Statement, and RFA process, were intended primarily to end this by establishing a working relationship between the national and state governments.³¹ Behind this primary objective, were the two secondary objectives of enhanced biodiversity conservation and timber industry development. To the extent these conflicted, this was not necessarily a problem to governments - intergovernmental agreement was more important than resolving the policy issues themselves. In fact, the results showed that ongoing social conflict could be used as evidence that governments were at least doing their best in impossible circumstances: giving half the contested forests to conservation, and half to industry, was the best anyone could reasonably do to find a "balance" (see 4.5 below).

The key problem lay in the fundamental ambiguity this imposed on the policy. The 1992 Statement, while acknowledging commercial logging was a sufficient threat to biodiversity to warrant its exclusion from the national reserve system, also in other respects was designed to entrench commercial logging in native forests. This reflected its origin as as much a means for "providing stability of access to those [native] forest resources to be used for timber production" as for biodiversity conservation or other purposes.³² The internal inconsistency of objectives was clear in public statements of the policy's drafters at the outset:³³

"Australia's [native] forest resources are scarce. Therefore we must use them efficiently for wood production and non-wood purposes such as conservation."

Consequently, the 1992 Statement describes native forest logging as an "appropriate and desirable" activity, and "an important use of multiple purpose forests [which] can be undertaken in a manner that ensures forest values are maintained".³⁴ It sets out that a world class timber industry can and should be developed in Australia, and that this process is expected to involve substantial native forest logging at least for the forseeable future. The rest is up to the individual Regional Forest Agreements.

The lack of any other means of resolving this policy conflict explains why, in no case, has an RFA resolved the social conflict. Similarly, it is the fundamental reason why the national government found itself unable to endorse the SEQ outcome - because it provided for an exit from public native forest logging over 25 years, rather than providing for indefinite continued logging. At first, the national government was attracted to a genuine "win-win outcome": it agreed to include two 'transition' scenarios in the May 1999 options report, and the Prime Minister stated this as the aim of the program.³⁵ However, the national Minister abandoned joint authorship of the report and criticised the idea of a 'transition' to a 100% plantation industry as "inconsistent with a concern for timber jobs in SE Queensland towns."³⁶ In September 1999, as the stakeholder/Queensland position was finalised, he cited the 1992 Statement in support of the "fundamental view" that:³⁷

"...a SE Queensland RFA must provide for a continued, viable native timber industry."

A variety of technical issues were also initially cited as barriers to the national government's agreement. Negotiations nevertheless proceeded between national and state officials, with seven meetings over five months.³⁸ These tend to suggest that, at official level, there was little difficulty in drafting a Regional Forest Agreement based on the Queensland position;³⁹ the main issue to be left to head-of-government discussions, it appeared, was simply "the quantum of [national] funding."⁴⁰ However, when the head-of-government discussions resumed, they ruled out all possibility of any RFA being entered into. The national government made it clear an RFA had to provide for permanent native forest logging, and said the 1992 Statement backed this up:⁴¹

"the NFPS [1992 Statement] [requires] a comprehensive and adequate reserve system that also allows for...a continuation of a [native] hardwood forest industry. The Queensland Labor Government is being asked to follow the same rules as other States and the Commonwealth who have signed on for a consistent national approach to forest policy."

The national government even stated that "a proper RFA" must provide for "a sustainable native hardwood timber industry in perpetuity" (emphasis added).

A legal interpretation of the 1992 Statement and governing documents of the SEQ assessment process does not, in fact, support the national claim. Prescriptive phrases that imply some or any native forests must be logged "in perpetuity" simply do not appear in the 1992 Statement. Instead, the Statement places great store in "market forces" and "economic viability" as key drivers in the development of the wood products industry, particularly the plantation sector.⁴² Further, the effect of the statement is that only after the regional assessments proceed should it be possible to determine the actual extent of either conservation, or logging, in any event. Reading up the expectation of native forest logging in the Statement, in the way claimed by the national government, tends to risk rendering these more specific, operational parts of the Statement quite meaningless.

Further, the 1997 scoping agreement between the governments, which set the objective of "the development of competitive and efficient forest industries", made it clear that "forest" industries was meant to be a reference not only to natural forest logging, but to the whole suite of forestry dependent on "Australia's diverse native forests and plantations, regardless of age."⁴³ The published national guidelines on the RFA process also identified the necessity of a "whole forest" approach, including "plantations of exotic and native species", as "consistent with the National Forest Policy Statement and [national] legal obligations."⁴⁴

Nowhere does the 1992 Statement say that native forests must be logged. The policy problem lay in continuing assumptions that native forests can be logged; and that therefore they should be logged - irrespective of either conservation imperatives, or the availability of alternative timber resources in the form of plantations. This underlying assumption was amply demonstrated in the SEQ debate. One national parliamentary representative asked: "what is wrong with having those plantations and a native hardwood industry?"⁴⁵ The national Minister later suggested a "more realistic" rate of plantation development than the one favoured by all the case study parties, since he only wanted a rate that was sufficient to "supplement, not replace" the logging of native forests.⁴⁶

It was this policy assumption, implicit in the 1992 governance framework, and central to the conflicting nature of its objectives, that prevented the national government from recognising the SEQ agreement. The apparent inconsistency between this assumption, and a logical approach to the 1992 Statement, is only one indicator of this fundamental policy problem. As one Australian legal commentator notes, the assumption that Australia must have an "internationally competitive timber industry" based in its native forests, means that irrespective of all the science that goes into regional assessments, the framework suffers a basic flaw:⁴⁷

"Such an objective inevitably moulds the outcome of the process and affects the capacity to consider other economic or environmental uses of the forests."

Bioregional assessment and planning has been shown, by the SEQ experience, to be of fundamental importance in the development of new solutions. In many respects, it is living up to expectations of its great potential contribution to the evolution of environmental governance frameworks generally.⁴⁸ The simple scale of the Australian program suggests it compares favourably with United States forestry and land planning precedents, for example, by not only bringing improved science to "the crossroads of management and policy", but attempting a program of preventive decision-making alongside crisis management.⁴⁹

However, the Australian outcomes also suggest that structured crises are little better than unstructured crises, for producing durable solutions. In this, there is a convergence of Australian and North American experience: US analysis supports the idea that bioregional assessment can be a surrogate for "larger questions" that society is not fully ready to tackle;⁵⁰ that successful outcomes depend on the quality of the underlying policy framework, "more than data"; and that it is necessary to "begin and end with the policy problems, not the scientific problems" of the issue.⁵¹ How might Australia have ensured this was done? According to the US experience, by taking "a broad perspective", doing everything possible to "push participants out of their conventional thinking",⁵² and above all, recognising that "reorienting the thinking of individuals is the key to a bioregional future."⁵³

In this case, the solution was based on recognition that, irrespective of whether ecologically sustainable timber harvesting in native forests was possible, the availability and natural economic advantages of plantation timber made it unnecessary.⁵⁴ According to Sedjo and Botkin, this is in fact a global phenomenon.⁵⁵ However, the national government 'outlawed' this option in this case. Its political reasons for doing so are one thing; the fact it called in aid such a carefully constructed national policy framework, however dubiously, is another. The underlying policy problem was the assumption in the 1992 Statement that, somehow, nationally as well as in any given region, a move to long-term ecological sustainability in forest use could and should be achieved with as little actual social or economic change as possible. Until that assumption is rethought, it is of little surprise that the framework would produce such paradoxical results.

4.3.  Legal issues - the constitutional politics

The second governance problem highlighted by the case study, is even more general. This is the lack of 'fit' between current the constitutional structures of government, and the framework of bioregional planning and assessment used to generate the solution.

There is no easy answer to this problem. In the past, Australians have often criticised their federal constitutional structure for preventing the national government from having adequate say over the land planning issues which are basic to biodiversity conservation. In this case, however, the tables were reversed: it was only because the Queensland state government had the constitutional authority to implement the SEQ agreement with or without the national government, that it was able to 'go it alone' with an innovative result. At the same time, it appears that Australia's version of federalism to date is yet to yield the balance between national environmental imperatives and local solutions that, in theory, federalism can provide.⁵⁶

The new focus on bioregional planning is partly a response to this lack of constitutional 'fit'. However, there is the distinct possibility that it is also "displacement behaviour" in the face of the difficulty of making the existing structure work.⁵⁷ This case study certainly confirms that when all is said and done, the enforceability of new bioregional solutions can remain tenuous, with current constitutional and political structures leaving many issues of "scale, roles, resourcing, administration, methods, and especially legal basis" hanging in the breeze.

In the SEQ case study, the extent of the problem was demonstrated by the national government's claims that not only did policy prevent it from approving the 'transition strategy' agreement, but the Australian Constitution prevented it from approving any agreement not fundamentally the same as those in other states. From early in the intergovernmental negotiations, national government sources were reported as saying "the Constitution prevented the Federal Government differentiating between the States on such matters as funding".⁵⁸ Even the Queensland Premier appeared to accept this principle:⁵⁹

"The Commonwealth has to treat the States equally...The Commonwealth is concerned...that our agreement has to fit within the principles, otherwise it looks as if we're different. And if they fund us, they'll open up a battle in another part of Australia. They're concerned about what agreeing to pay us will mean for the other States."

In fact, established constitutional principle in Australia is quite the reverse. Even the RFA governing documents themselves recognised there would be differentiation between states:⁶⁰ necessarily so, given every region has significant differences in remnant forest area, biodiversity values, previous conservation measures, forest practices and industry structure. Even apart from this, however, the Australian Constitution contains no prohibition against grants of financial assistance which discriminate between states or parts of states.⁶¹ It provides no general prohibition of "some vague thing called 'discrimination'" as such;⁶² only specific constitutional limitations on negative discrimination by the national government (i.e. in regulation of trade and commerce,⁶³ taxation and other revenue-raising⁶⁴), where this is "plain and substantial"⁶⁵ or "tangible and definite"⁶⁶ in its adverse commercial effects. There are no constraints on positive discrimination, or preferential grants to encourage particular results in different regions. If anything, in this instance, the national government left itself open to having acted unconstitutionally by withholding RFA status from the Queensland timber industry, in circumstances where this might adversely impact on the region's financial status. This is not least because RFAs are intended to be an international hallmark of the sustainability of Australian wood products, for marketing purposes.⁶⁷

There is obviously more constitutional politics in the case study, than constitutional law. How best to escape this kind of politics is a vexed question. It highlights, however, that there is a bigger challenge of how to give bioregional planning greater legal certainty and enforceability, without locking it into just another version of this kind of behaviour. The question, therefore, is how to develop a more flexible constitutional system, capable of supporting a bioregional approach which is more "bottom-up, grass-roots and organic" than Western (or Northern) legal structures traditionally permit or encourage.⁶⁸ This is an ongoing focus of study.

4.4.  Conflict mediation - arbitration versus collaborative governance

The national process in this case study relied on dividing the native forest estate between various uses, with the views of stakeholders used mainly to define the "extreme ends" of the debate. This was a retreat to a fundamentally arbitral, as opposed for example to corporatist, mode of public participation.⁶⁹ While rhetorically strong on participation, this element of the process can in fact be seen to be superficial by most contemporary standards. Much expert social impact assessment was done, to a high standard; but the weakness of the approach to public participation was present from the outset in the 1992 Statement,⁷⁰ and the national government's subsequent RFA guidelines.⁷¹

One other RFA recorded a "believable institutional attempt" at greater participation, by openly equipping stakeholders to develop the options on which governments made their decision.⁷² For much of its process, the SEQ process also went significantly beyond this, by enabling two reference panel members - in this case the lead industry and conservation representatives - to sit as full members of the steering committee.⁷³ However, it is important that this arrangement was negotiated to reflect, and did not create, the relationship between these stakeholders; and in any event, as indicated above, both the reference panel and steering committee effectively folded at the conclusion of the assessment phase.

The engine room of the SEQ case study was, without doubt, the negotiating relationship between these key industry and conservation stakeholders.⁷⁴ The stage had been set for an innovative solution by their earlier success in collaborating on options for sourcing interim timber supplies.⁷⁵ Unsurprisingly, the relationship was not without its own period of substantial public conflict.⁷⁶ However, its renewal remains living proof that even if rare, such a collaborative outcome is possible. This stands in sharp contrast to the public dissatisfaction expressed by conservation and regional industry groups alike about other RFA outcomes.⁷⁷

Whereas collaborative planning is already an accepted principle of resource management,⁷⁸ in SEQ this was extended beyond 'second order' conflicts over management of lands of settled tenure, to the intense 'first order' conflicts involved in public land allocation and reservation over a 6 million hectare area. This appears to have very few direct equivalents: perhaps only the New Zealand West Coast Forest Accord already noted, and the work of the United States' Northern Forest Lands Council, which was also reportedly able to find the common ground "so elusive in other regions" by relying on public opinion as well as scientific assessment.⁷⁹ This does not mean to say that popular pro-conservation opinion was determinant. The position of the Queensland Timber Board was nothing more nor less than an example of a business group choosing the "increasingly rational strategy" of moving beyond a 'mere compliance' approach to environmental conflict, and pursuing new growth options as a result.⁸⁰

Even at the more cooperative state level, the government attitude to this kind of participation was somewhat confused. On one hand, it was fundamental: the [Australian] Wilderness Society listed "the personal involvement and support of the Queensland Premier" as the "most important" of 31 contributing factors.⁸¹ On the other hand, there were also many obstacles:⁸²

"No one should underestimate just how hard it was to achieve this agreement nor what high risks were taken...It was achieved against intense political and institutional opposition from the Coalition, the AWU [Australian Workers Union], powerful interests inside the [State] Labor government, NAFI [the National Association of Forest Industries], the bureaucracy and significant elements of the media."

The general lesson is that governments have a long way to travel before they are equipped to maximise the potential offered by this form of cooperation. In part, the shift to bioregional assessment recognises "little likelihood of coherent policies emerging from the traditional compartmentalised approach" of governments;⁸³ yet, as Brunckhorst continues, governments still need to "shift away from structured, one-way approaches" to public participation, towards more open and flexible approaches involving "a broad public discourse and dispersal of centralised authority." The experience also confirms that while governments are important - indeed essential to the legitimation of local environmental governance - they need to know how to retreat from resource disputes, rather than cementing themselves as the umpires. Responsibility has been described as resting ultimately on "social institutions, ...developed and run by groups of stakeholders based in the 'civil societies' of these many places."⁸⁴

The SEQ agreement shows a way forward; in fact, it provides an encouraging example of what Lipschutz describes as a truly durable bioregionalism, in which "community and place become mutually constructive...rather than locked in a relationship of extractive exploitation."⁸⁵ A "transformation of meaning" was achieved in SEQ, in the values of both biodiversity and wood products - a process which has been neither "conflict-free" nor likely to end conflicts, but which does place the community on a better footing for pursuing agreed outcomes. Considerable work is required to identify the mechanisms of collaborative governance needed to accelerate this kind of progress beyond governments' current adherence to arbitral and corporatist modes.⁸⁶

4.5. Ecologically sustainable development (ESD) - resolving the disjunction between science, policy and decision-making

A key element of any framework for successfully resolving natural resource conflict of this kind, is its ability to integrate the divergent disciplines and value systems embodied in the concept of ecologically sustainable development (ESD). Descended from the Bruntland report,⁸⁷ this concept continues to provide one of the few international organising principles of environmental governance. The 1992 National Forest Policy Statement coincided with another process in Australia for designing a national strategy for ESD, and was intended to reflect and embody that strategy in the area of native forest management.⁸⁸

In general, development of operational principles of ESD in Australia has been problematic. It was not long before it was observed that sustainable development is "an elusive concept in practice."⁸⁹ Several years on, with few breakthroughs obvious, Dovers' best defence of the original national strategy was that it at least set out a necessary and worthwhile goal:⁹⁰

"While the application of the principles in policy has been not that impressive, and while their statement in law is problematic, it is all we have."

A barrier to ESD remains an assumption that the integration of its ecological and economic components is simply "a question of balance".⁹¹ In Australia, as in other countries, economic development and environmental protection have been typically characterised as competing agenda. Consequently, the prevailing approach to ESD has been the pursuit of scientifically-informed compromises within existing economic systems. Confirming early questions about whether this could ever really be adequate,⁹² most theoretical approaches to ESD to date appear to mainly involve new linkages between the different scientific and professional specialisations which bear on a given problem. This has a tendency to only "reinforce their monopolies and to compartmentalise solutions yet again".⁹³

This problem is well demonstrated by the national RFA approach in Australia. It has been a new effort, but with few new tools: its main mechanism for addressing long-term policy problems has been to again impose a 'balanced' division of native forest areas between permanent conservation and permanent production. This is not to say that vastly improved science has not made this much better informed. The RFA process has contributed substantially to the design and application of new tools for data presentation and interpretation, such as geographic information systems (GISs), which enable land use allocations to be made with far greater transparency and precision than before.⁹⁴ In terms of biodiversity planning, this has definitely improved the rationality of conservation reserve design and management. Economically and politically, however, the process and the results are not qualitatively different from the previous 'ad hoc' approach. The national process involved much discussion of an 'integration phase' in each RFA process, in which competing streams of ecological and economic research were to be reconciled, by way of "synthesis"⁹⁵; but in practice this has involved no mechanism for integrating and reconciling policy, let alone political values. The new tools integrate data, but not its meaning. The only final policy integration process is typically one of bureaucratic negotiation within a joint assessment committee, comprising equal numbers of government officers from conservation and forest industry agencies, from each of the two governments involved.⁹⁶ As McDonald observes, while "the disconnect between scientific analysis and policy formulation is by no means unique to forest management...seldom is it so well illustrated."⁹⁷

The shortage of integrative science-policy approaches has also been noted in North American forest planning.⁹⁸ Indeed, with specific reference to both global climate change and US forest assessments, the US National Research Council has identified this gap in integrative approaches as one of the four priorities for sustainability research:⁹⁹

"[I]f the first steps towards an integrative science of sustainability have been taken, the great leaps forward lie ahead...In short, if there is no longer much doubt whether integrative approaches to research are needed in support of a sustainability transition, how to achieve such integration in rigorous and useful research programs remains problematical."

The SEQ case study had its own, different integration mechanism. For specific reasons, in this case, the two key stakeholders were sufficiently scientifically capable, and sufficiently supported by state officials, to rethink values and objectives from first principles, apply the resultant concepts to the assembled data, test the results and amend until a solution was found that was rational both ecologically, economically, and politically. No such solution would have been obtained by the traditional arbitration method, nor even by conventional mediation, because the solution relied on a new economic approach - the transition to purpose-planted resources - that the custodians of the process treated as taboo. This was therefore fundamentally not an exercise in 'trade-offs' or 'politically-motivated compromise' (although there were trade-offs and political incentives involved). If the economic attractiveness of the transition option had not been proved, no solution would have been found.

The case study suggests this process had two particularly interesting features:

1. A shift from a focus on sustainability determined spatially (i.e. hectares reserved now and forever for conservation and commercial logging), to one determined both spatially and temporally, according to what resources were needed when, under what conditions, and what mechanisms might provide flexibility to deal with uncertainties or contingencies depending on what incentives applied;
2. A shift from focussing on sustainability as an absolute, to a concept of relative sustainability. To date, Australian policy frameworks have tended to assume that a given resource practice can be proved to be either sustainable, or unsustainable. Forest-based industries have therefore usually focussed on proving their own sustainability, with little genuine contemplation of change unless that proof is shown to fail. In this case, the timber industry never conceded the position that if it elected to stay in public native forests for the long term, it could have made some native forest logging sustainable. However, it nevertheless ultimately chose a path it had little doubt was more sustainable.

Each of these features suggests an area in which new integrative policy tools might potentially be developed. This in turn can contribute, without being limited, to the ongoing search for real and effective indicators of sustainability.¹⁰⁰ The second feature, in particular, tends to reveal the limitation of current regulatory frameworks in relying on pseudo-objective tests as to whether any given development proposal or resource activity, in isolation, is or is not sustainable.¹⁰¹ Politically, with enough effort and resources, this is a test almost any human activity seems able to meet. Sustainability frameworks might instead take a leaf out of contemporary business conduct, where 'best practice' is never a fixed, objectively-determinable entity, but rather a relative and ever-changing feast. The case study suggests a similar approach, with proper application of the precautionary principle, might yield some more intuitive and relative tests, aimed not at identifying and ratifying any old development as 'ecologically sustainable', but instead at providing a basis for selecting the 'most' or 'best ecologically sustainable development' path on offer. This could be called the MESD, or perhaps the BESD approach to sustainability.

Conclusions

5.1.  Solutions and prerequisites

In the SEQ case study, a practical solution was reached, in the form of the SEQ Forest Agreement of September 1999 (Appendix), and its ongoing implementation by its signatory stakeholders and the Queensland state government. As shown above, however, the inconsistencies between this solution and the less-than-successful national process intended to support it, reveal a number of governance problems which require solutions in their own right.

1. Administrative or policy settings of the process (section 4.2)

   Solutions may lie in a review of the national policy statement that defined the process (now 9 years old), but only if this provides substantial amendment of objectives away from a strategy of containing forest policy conflict, to a strategy of forging genuine solutions. This in turn requires acknowledgement of the internal inconsistency of some policy objectives, and genuine policy commitment to supporting and facilitating the consideration of a full range of economic options, not just those associated with the status quo or with what appears to be an acceptable political 'middle ground'.

2. Constitutional politics between the national and state government (4.3)

   In the Australian context, potential solutions lie in reconsideration of the role and nature of subnational regionalism generally, in contradiction to current post-colonial political structure. A broad reconsideration of this kind, informed by developments in both bioregionalism itself, and in global economic and political integration, would usefully inform ongoing processes of domestic institutional design. It is quite conceivable that in this way, consistently with Australian federalism, current constitutional structures could evolve to provide greater certainty and enforceability to bioregional outcomes, so minimising some of the unnecessary elements of party-politics. The more vexed question of evolving new, more flexible constitutional structures would be ongoing.

3. Government approaches to community engagement and conflict mediation (4.4.)

   The national process evaluated above involved only superficial commitment to public participation. It was primarily an intergovernmental negotiation process. It therefore does not provide an example of what might have been achieved had contemporary standards of public participation been followed. Even when the state government was committed to genuine stakeholder participation, however, the underlying unwillingness of bureaucracies to relinquish control over major decisions was revealed. The solutions lie in ongoing professionalisation of officials; modifications in organisational cultural; and further effort to identify some standard approaches to collaborative governance, derived from comparison of the few successful precedents of this kind.

4. Mechanisms for integrating science and policy approaches into a politically operational version of ESD (4.5)

   As per the recommendations of the US National Research Council, the solution lies in an accelerated research effort by governments, to distil from such precedents the techniques that their participants used to bridge the ecological and economic specialisations that otherwise continue to dominate sustainability science in areas of high political contentiousness. Once undertaken, at least in the Australian experience, there are likely to be few barriers to carrying the benefits of this research directly into a wide range of ongoing public policy processes, already dealing with biodiversity and other resource planning issues across a range of natural and human environments.

5.2.  Further research

Each of the solutions described above (5.1) are reliant on the further research already outlined.

In the case of the first governance problem listed, the focus of the new and continued research needed is primarily in the area of ecologically-informed economics: the identification of the true role and extent to which purpose-planted wood resources can help relieve the pressures of commercial wood production on forest habitat biodiversity, in other wood-producing regions of Australia, as well as internationally and globally. This is only one area of potential solutions suggested by the case study, however: there is also the need for more general research into how any given policy process of this kind can facilitate the effective development and examination of new economic options, while still remaining a sufficiently manageable and practical process to contribute to effective political decisions.

This public policy focus also applies to each of the other three problems. In responding to the second problem, this also needs to be married to constitutional theory and, in any given national context, supported by empirical work in political culture and economy. The response to the third problem marries public policy with organisational science, public sector management and democratic theory. The fourth problem is also fundamentally a public policy problem, but one which requires an even more multidisciplinary approach incorporating ecological and economic dimension along with each separate level of the political decision-making process.

5.3.  Follow-up projects

1. Regional Forest Agreements in Australia: Promise or Performance?

   See separate outline. This project is a more complete evaluation of the Australian national process as a whole, with a particular focus on (a) the issues revealed by section 4.2, and (b) determining the transferability of the lessons from this case study to improvements in that process, or any that might be based on it (domestically or internationally).

   A similar approach could be taken to a more global project, reviewing the international dimensions of conflicts between wood production and biodiversity with a view to producing a range of new economically-focussed policy options (in line with the work of Sedjo and Botkin, and Clark in Australia).

2. Collaborative Governance in High Contention Resource Disputes: An International Comparison

   Current literature suggests some parallels between three forest biodiversity and resource disputes: this case study, the New Zealand West Coast Timber Accord (1986), and the work of the US Northern Forest Lands Council. All three, while dealing with the high level of political and social conflict usually associated with forest conservation issues, appear to have the rare feature of having produced or contributed substantially towards a genuinely collaborative outcome. All three countries are also post-colonial industrialised countries, whose wood production industries are in different stages of transition from natural forests to modified and/or purpose-planted resources.

   In-depth comparative study of these results should logically yield lessons with a high potential contribution to an improved policy frameworks. Further, attention should be given to identifying up to three developing countries with comparable or related conflicts between biodiversity conservation and wood production, to maximise the opportunity for developing a framework that is sufficiently adaptable to assist such countries to by-pass the less necessary stages of policy development experienced by industrialised countries, and thus achieve a faster track to sustainability.

Appendix

Agreement between the Australian Rainforest Conservation Society, the Queensland Conservation Council, The Wilderness Society, the Queensland Timber Board and the Queensland Government (the parties) on the South East Queensland Forest Agreement (SEQFA).

1.      Objective

1.1    A world class conservation reserve system

1.2    Ecologically sustainable management of forests

1.3    A competitive and efficient timber industry; and

1.4    Enhanced economic development and employment prospects for rural communities.

2.      The Agreement

2.1    The parties agree that:

2.2    The Queensland Government will immediately implement a strategy to develop substantial hardwood plantations which will enable the industry to transition to a plantation based resource at 2025 or sooner where practicable

2.3    To facilitate industry transition, incentives will be available from government to move over the 25 year period into value-added hardwood products, hardwood plantation timbers and private native hardwood resource including farm forestry

2.4    There will be immediate addition to the conservation reserve system of an estimated 425,000 ha (as defined in Attachment 1) to be completed by 31 December 1999 if possible

2.5    There will be no clearfelling

2.6    There will be no export wood chip industry based on native forests

2.7    There will be no harvesting of non-sawlog material and residues other than for products currently produced

2.8    Logging of native forests on State forests and timber reserves will cease at the end of the year 2024 by the latest

2.9    Supply level of 82,981 m3 for the first year then 54,619 m3 for 9 years and 49,119 m3 for the next 15 years will be provided to industry, subject to 2.14, 2.15 and 2.16 (see Attachment 2)

2.10    Current crown allocation volumes will be provided to the end of the year 2024 to the mills listed in the attached allocation zones (Attachment 3)

2.11    Allocation zones will be utilised flexibly to provide the timber supply at approved volumes for the 25 year period

2.12    The current crown allocation to the mill at Dingo will be provided for a ten year period

2.13      To provide timber supply to industry at the agreed volume for the 25 year period logging will continue on State forests and timber reserves and leasehold lands not included in the 425,000 ha reserve

This balance of the area of crown hardwood forests may be logged once in general accordance with the schedule attached (Attachment 4). This schedule has been developed to ensure that the government is able to deliver its commitments to the timber industry as outlined in 2.8, 2.9, 2.12 and 2.14 while avoiding logging on the areas of highest conservation value unless it is unavoidable to do so. The total area available for logging will be subject to two separate harvesting regimes (Part A and Part B) listed in the schedule. Where any logging occurs within Part A (an area of approximately 80,000 ha) it will occur under current harvesting rules. Where logging occurs within Part B it will occur under modified harvesting rules. These modified rules, after making allowance for the DNR Code of Practice (including habitat tree retention) will involve a harvest of all the trees of commercial species that are 40 cm or greater at breast height (DBH) and that meet compulsory sawlog standards, known as 40 cm+ diameter limit cut

It is understood that the harvesting schedule has been developed based on SKED modelling and will be subject to further refinement through operational planning.

2.14    Wood supply agreements with industry will be for 25 years and be compensatable and tradeable

2.15    In the interests of either transferring additional areas in Part A to the reserve system or reducing the impacts of harvesting in the productive forest area the Queensland Government has a first right of refusal in terms of any mill seeking to sell their wood supply allocation or their business. The Queensland Government in purchasing a wood supply allocation or business will have regard to the social and economic implications arising from any such purchase

2.16    Where the Queensland Government chooses to purchase a wood supply allocation it will consider on a case by case basis, in consultation with stakeholders, reducing the impacts of harvesting in the productive forest area or transferring additional areas included in Part A to the reserve system

2.17    The Queensland Government will maintain an adequate planning and monitoring program to avoid or mitigate significant environmental impacts

2.18    The Queensland Government will institute a forest rehabilitation program

2.19    There will be regular, periodic pricing reviews; prices will be market-based

2.20    The Queensland Government will facilitate and provide incentives for ecologically sustainable management of forests and timber reserves on private land

2.21    There will be a program of regional development to diversify the economic bases of regional communities

2.22    New institutional arrangement will be established to achieve the outcomes set by this Agreement

2.23    Other products currently allocated from crown resource will continue to be available consistent with current standards with the Government committing to address substitute resource from plantations as soon as practicable

2.24    Old growth and wilderness identified by CRA projects (and the attached maps) will not be logged.

This Agreement is subject to completion of certain commercial arrangements between the Queensland Government and elements of the Queensland hardwood timber industry, on terms satisfactory to the Government.

[Signed] Hon Peter Beattie MLA, Premier; Dr Aila Keto, Australian Rainforest Conservation Society; John McNamara, Chairman, Queensland Timber Board; Dr Keith Scott, Queensland Conservation Council; Virginia Young, The Wilderness Society

Explanatory notes (cll 2.18, 2.24)

Attachments

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Lockwood, M., D. G. Bos and H. Glazebrook (1997). "Integrated protected area selection in Australian biogeographic regions." Environmental Management 21: 395.

McDonald, J. (1999). Ecologically sustainable forest management, whole-of-government policymaking, and the Regional Forest Agreement process. Integrated Environmental Management: A Whole of Government Responsibility? 18th Annual NELA National Environmental Law Conference, Sydney, 8-10 September 1999.

McGinnis, M. V. (1999). Bioregionalism. London ; New York, Routledge.

McGinnis, M. V., J. Woollet and J. Gamman (1999). "Bioregional conflict resolution: rebuilding community in watershed planning and organising." Environmental Management 24: 1.

Mercer, D. (1995). A Question of Balance: natural resources conflict issues in Australia, Federation Press.

Moore, S. A. and R. G. Lee (1999). "Understanding dispute resolution processes for American and Australian public wildlands: towards a conceptual framework for managers." Environmental Management 23: 453.

National Research Council (US) (1999). Our Common Journey: a transition towards sustainability. Washington DC, National Academy Press.

Prosser, M. (1999). "Loggers are greener than green (Boral Timber)." Courier-Mail. 22 July 1999: 15.

Sale, K. (2000). Dwellers in the land : the bioregional vision. Athens, Ga. ; London, University of Georgia Press.

Sedjo, R. A. and D. Botkin (1997). "Using forest plantations to spare natural forests." Environment 39(10): 14.

Thackway, R. and I. D. Creswell (1995). An Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia. Canberra, Australian Nature Conservation Agency.

Tietenberg, T. (2000). Environmental and natural resource economics, Addison-Wesley.

Tribe, J. (1998). "The law of the jungles: Regional Forest Agreements." Environmental & Planning Law Journal 15: 136.

Webb, R. (2000). Regional Forest Agreements and beyond: a new era in forest management. RFA Forest News: 1.

World Commission on Environment and Development (1987). Our Common Future (The Bruntland Report), Oxford University Press.

Young, L. (1993). A consideration of "environmental accordism" - its theoretical utility and limitations. Facing the future: Ecopolitics VII, Griffith University, Brisbane.

Notes

Note 1:  BA LLB (UNSW) GradDipLegPrac (ANU). Key Centre for Ethics Law Justice & Governance, Griffith University, Nathan QLD 4111 Brisbane Australia. Email A.J.Brown@mailbox.gu.edu.au. The author was policy advisor to the Queensland's Minister for Environment, Heritage and Natural Resources between July 1998 and August 1999. Gratitude to Pepe Clarke for research assistance and to Dr Aila Keto, President, Australian Rainforest Conservation Society, and Rod McInnes, General Manager, Queensland Timber Board for comments. Back.

Note 2: Commonwealth of Australia (1992). A New Focus for Australia's Forests: National Forest Policy Statement. Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service.Back.

Note 3: Commonwealth of Australia (1998). Australia's National Report to Fourth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, Environment Australia. p.21.Back.

Note 4: The Australian Federal Court decision Tasmanian Conservation Trust v Minister for Resources & Gunns Ltd (1995) 37 ALD 73, 55 FCR 516; D Mossop, The Australian (Sydney) 17 January 1995, p.13; Dargavel, J. (1995). Fashioning Australia's Forests, Oxford University Press. pp.262-4; Bartlett, T. (1999). "Regional Forest Agreements - a policy, legislative and planning framework to achieve sustainable forest management in Australia." Environmental & Planning Law Journal 15: 328. pp.331-2.Back.

Note 5: Tribe, J. (1998). "The law of the jungles: Regional Forest Agreements." Ibid.: 136.Back.

Note 6:  Nine RFAs are in existence: East Gippsland Victoria (3 February 1997), Tasmania (8 November 1997), Central Highlands Victoria (27 March 1998), North East Victoria (23 August 1999), Eden New South Wales (26 August 1999), South West Western Australia (4 May 1999), Gippsland Victoria (31 March 2000), Western Victoria (31 March 2000), and North East NSW (31 March 2000): Media Release of Hon W Tuckey MP, 'Export woodchip licences extended to March 2000', Ref AFFA99/116TU, 26 October 1999; Webb, R. (2000). Regional Forest Agreements and beyond: a new era in forest management. RFA Forest News: 1. p.2. Along with SEQ, the other area not to proceed to an RFA was Southern NSW: see Media Release, Tuckey, 'Carr double crosses NSW timber workers - Tuckey', AFFA00/27TU, 14 April 2000. Back.

Note 7:  See Thackway, R. and I. D. Creswell (1995). An Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia. Canberra, Australian Nature Conservation Agency. It has taken some time for Australian ecological regionalisation to reach this point: see e.g. Holmes, J. M. (1944). The geographical basis of government : specially applied to New South Wales. Sydney, N.S.W., Angus and Robertson.; Laut, P., C. Margules and H. A. Nix (1975). Australian biophysical regions : a preliminary regionalisation. Canberra, A.C.T., Australian Govt. Pub. Service. The current regionalisation has matured in tandem with other programs, such as the National Reserves System program: Breckwoldt, R. (1996). Approaches to bioregional planning. Canberra, A.C.T., Department of the Environment Sport and Territories. See esp. A J Bigwood, 'Regional Forest Agreements', pp.143-147. It is comparable to similar regionalisations elsewhere: Brunckhorst, D. J. (2000). Bioregional planning : resource management beyond the new millennium. Amsterdam, Abingdon, Harwood Academic; Marston. pp.24-29. Back.

Note 8:  Commonwealth and Queensland Governments (1999a). Comprehensive Regional Assessment: South East Queensland Regional Forest Agreement. Brisbane. Back.

Note 9:  JANIS (Joint Australia New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council / Ministerial Council on Forestry Fisheries and Agriculture National Forest Policy Statement Implementation Subcommittee), Nationally Agreed Criteria for the Establishment of a Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative Reserve System for Forests in Australia, 1997. http://www.rfa.gov.au/rfa/national/janis/index.html. Back.

Note 10:  Commonwealth and Queensland Governments (1999b). Towards a South East Queensland Regional Forest Agreement: A Directions Report. Brisbane. p.57 (Scenario G). Back.

Note 11:  See e.g. Tietenberg, T. (2000). Environmental and natural resource economics, Addison-Wesley. p.254; Hanley, N., J. F. Shogren and B. White (1997). "The Economics of Forestry Exploitation". Environmental Economics in Theory and Practice, Macmillan: 335. Back.

Note 12:  See generally Alverson, W. S., W. Kuhlmann and D. M. Waller (1994). Wild Forests: Conservation biology and public policy. Washington, Island Press. Back.

Note 13:  Commonwealth and Queensland Governments Towards a South East Queensland Regional Forest Agreement: A Directions Report. Back.

Note 14:  Ibid. Scenarios A and D. Back.

Note 15:  This search for "middle ground" or "reasonable balance...between the conservation of our native forest estate and its sustainable use for economic production" (Webb.: 1.: see below) has been a principal criticism of the RFA process: "The most pessimistic scenario to arise from the agreements reached to date is that no objectives will be met - the guaranteed resource base is too small to merit investment in value-adding industries, and the conservation reserves fail to protect the full suite of biodiversity, recreational and other social, economic and environmental values": McDonald, J. (1999). Ecologically sustainable forest management, whole-of-government policymaking, and the Regional Forest Agreement process. Integrated Environmental Management: A Whole of Government Responsibility? 18th Annual NELA National Environmental Law Conference, Sydney, 8-10 September 1999. p.22. Back.

Note 16:  For example, 1997 scoping agreement cl. 16 included acknowledgement by both governments that "social and economic factors may preclude the achievement of all national CAR criteria within the reserve system". Back.

Note 17:  Commonwealth and Queensland Governments Towards a South East Queensland Regional Forest Agreement: A Directions Report. p.11. Back.

Note 18:  'Queensland timber industry policy position', Queensland Timber Board, 13 Nov 1998, 2 pp. (source: R McInnes, General Manager QTB). Back.

Note 19:  'Sustained yield' in this instance was based only on 100 year wood production, and did not necessarily equate to the more vexed issue of 'ecologically sustainable'; for which, see text accompanying n. 107 ff below. Back.

Note 20:  Transcript of Interview, ABC Radio National Earthbeat, 16 October 1999. Forecasts of resource loss from this source averaged 25%, but over 40% in a number of key high volume logging areas, which combined with other measures was at least as significant an issue as conservation reserves. Back.

Note 21:  Compare the SEQ hardwood sawlog supply crisis with East Gippsland in 1986: J Stanley and A King, East Gippsland: an economic evaluation of the Land Conservation Council's proposed recommendations, NIEIR Melbourne, 1986, as reproduced by Dargavel. pp.196-199, esp. Fig 8.1 and 8.2. Back.

Note 22:  Ibid. pp.261-262. Back.

Note 23:  Forestry Industry Amendment Act 1999 (Qld), passed 13 December 1999. See Media Release, Hon H Palaszczuk MLA, 'Govt's 25-year wood supply commitment passed by Parliament', 13 December 1999; Media Release, Queensland Timber Board, 'Industry supports forest bill before Parliament', 3 December 1999. Back.

Note 24:  Bartlett: 328. p.336. Back.

Note 25:  McDonald. p.12. Back.

Note 26:  Webb.: 1. Back.

Note 27:  These jobs were associated with one large sawmill, Boral Timber's Nandroya operation, whose large public wood allocation was compulsorily reacquired by the State to facilitate the agreement. This was endorsed by the remainder of the industry. For Boral's position see D Kitney, 'Boral can't see wood from the trees', Australian Financial Review 17 September 1999, p.52; S Ryan, Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 18 September 1999; but see also Boral media release, 'Boral Tasmanian Board Mills Sale', 30 June 1999, http://www.boral.com.au/news/news55.htm, 12/07/99 8:34; D Kitney, 'Pressure on Boral to cut more big deals', Australian Financial Review 14 July 1999, p.43. Back.

Note 28:  Commonwealth and Queensland Governments Towards a South East Queensland Regional Forest Agreement: A Directions Report. Section 3.6.2, p.25. Back.

Note 29:  The parties in that case were Royal Forest and Bird Society, Native Forest Action Council, Federated Mountain Clubs of New Zealand, West Coast Regional Council, West Coast Timber Association and Westland Timber Workers Union. See West Coast Regional Council & Ors v Attorney General (NZ), Unreported, New Zealand Court of Appeal, 10 June 1997 (Blanchard J); as cited by P Nuttall & P Wells, 'Corporatisation and privatisation - the New Zealand experience', in B Collier & S Pitkin (eds), Corporatisation and Privatisation in Australia, CCH, 1999, p.499. See generally J Halkett, The Native Forests of New Zealand, GP Publications 1991, ch. 9, p.97 ff. Back.

Note 30:  Cf. McDonald 1999; Courier-Mail (Brisbane), Editorial, 'Optimism on forest funding', 2 October 1999. Back.

Note 31:  See Dargavel.; Kellow, A. (1996). "Thinking Globally and Acting Federally: Intergovernmental Relations and Environmental Protection in Australia". Federalism and the Environment: Environmental Policymaking in Australia, Canada and the United States. Holland, Morton and B. Galligan (ed), Greenwood esp. p.142; Mercer, D. (1995). A Question of Balance: natural resources conflict issues in Australia, Federation Press. pp.30-31; Tribe, J. (1998). "The law of the jungles: Regional Forest Agreements." Environmental & Planning Law Journal 15: 136. Back.

Note 32:  Originating letter of Cth Minister for Resources to State Ministers, 4 September 1991, as cited by Commonwealth Department of Primary Industries and Energy, 'National Forests Policy Statement', Briefing paper to Standing Committee on Forestry, October 1991 (par 6). On the associated issue of resource security legislation, see McDonald. p.8, and more generally Gardner, A., Ed. (1993). The Challenge of Resource Security: Law and Policy, Federation Press. Back.

Note 33:  Commonwealth Department of Primary Industries and Energy, Forest Initiatives of the Commonwealth, June 1991, p.4. Back.

Note 34:  Commonwealth of Australia A New Focus for Australia's Forests: National Forest Policy Statement. Sections 1 and 2 respectively. Back.

Note 35:  Howard, J. (1999). Address to Breakfast Hosted by National Association of Forest Industries. Liberal Party of Australia Federal Council Meeting, High Court of Australia, 3 July 1999. Back.

Note 36:  Media Release, Hon W Tuckey MP, 'Federal government no impediment to Queensland regional forest agreement', Ref AFFA99/51TU, 4 May 1999. Back.

Note 37:  Media Releases, Hon W Tuckey MP, 'Is Beattie's $5000 jobs buyout aimed at timber workers - Tuckey', Ref AFFA99/98TU, 6 September 1999; 'Commonwealth to consider Queensland forest proposal', Ref AFFA99/101TU, 16 September 1999. Back.

Note 38:  Meetings of 8, 15 and 22 October 1999, 3-4 November 1999; 2 and 15 December 1999, and 13 January 2000: Qld Department of Natural Resources Freedom of Information Application 2000/1316. Back.

Note 39:  Drafts dated 29 October, 4 and 8 November, and 13 and 15 December 1999: Qld Department of Natural Resources Freedom of Information Application 2000/1316. Queensland denied access to specific content of the drafts pursuant to s. 38(a), Freedom of Information Act 1992, exempting documents which "could reasonably be expected to...cause damage to relations between the State and another government." The fact they were based on the SEQ agreement is supported by the proposed annexure of the SEQ agreement itself to the RFA from the first of these five drafts: Qld Department of Natural Resources Freedom of Information Application 2000/1316: folio 256, draft SEQ RFA version of 4 November 1999. Back.

Note 40:  Folio 122. Back.

Note 41:  Media Release, Hon W Tuckey MP, 'Tuckey calls on Beattie to sign a 'proper RFA' to protect small timber towns', Ref AFFA00/14TU, 23 February 2000. For response, see Media Release, Hon J Elder MLA, 'Tuckey lies again on Feds RFA backflip', 23 February 2000. Public statement on the issue by the Prime Minister himself was overshadowed by the simultaneous announcement of Commonwealth refusal of larger funding for vegetation management controls: see 'PM defiant as bush burns', Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 22 February 2000, 1; 'Editorial', 23 February 2000; 'PM vetos land clearing curbs', The Australian, 22 February 2000, 6. Back.

Note 42:  Commonwealth of Australia A New Focus for Australia's Forests: National Forest Policy Statement. Section 4, 'Specific objectives and policies'. This extends to the observation that the wood production industry had already for some years "relied less on old-growth forests and drawn increasingly on regrowth native forests and plantations", and the agreement that governments' "approach to conserving and managing old-growth forests will facilitate continuation of this transition": Section 4.1. The statement recognises the economic transition in place in the continuum of wood resources from natural towards purpose-planted, and certainly evinces no intention to restrict that transition, rather the reverse. Back.

Note 43:  Ibid. Glossary, p.47. Similarly, while cl. 3 of the Scoping Agreement initially uses the plural "forest industries" (possibly going even broader to include non-timber uses), it then reverts to the singular "internationally competitive forest products industry" (cl. 3) and "internationally competitive and efficient wood and wood products industry" (cl. 18) in a clear demonstration that these are indeed all references to the same single timber industry, irrespective of wood source. Back.

Note 44:  Commonwealth of Australia, Regional Forest Agreements: The Commonwealth Position, February 1995, Section 1.4, 'Developing a Regional Forest Agreement'. URL: http: //www.rfa.gov.au/rfa/national/ rfa/rfa Last modified: 3 September 1999. Back.

Note 45:  Attributed to Mr Cameron Thompson MP, MHR for Blair - N Maynard, 'Backbench six hit out at Beattie on forests', Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 23 February 2000, 2 (emphasis added). Back.

Note 46:  Media Release, Hon W Tuckey MP, 'Queensland RFA could be a reality under Borbidge forest plan', Ref AFFA00/29TU, 1 May 2000. His comment was on a proposal from the Queensland Opposition: Queensland National Liberal Coalition, South East Queensland Regional Forest Agreement: Discussion Paper, April 2000 (9 pp). Back.

Note 47:  McDonald. p.22. Back.

Note 48:  On the RFA process as strategic environmental impact assessment, see D E Fisher, 'The meaning and significance of resource security', in Gardner, Ed. p.16 at p.47; on the shift from EIA to strategic environmental assessment, see J Court, C Wright, A Guthrie, 'Environmental assessment and sustainability: are we ready for the challenge?', (1996) 3 Australian Journal of Environmental Management 42. Back.

Note 49:  Johnson, K. N., F. J. Swanson, M. Herring and S. Greene, Eds. (1999). Bioregional Assessments: Science at the Crossroads of Management and Policy. Washington, Island Press. Back.

Note 50:  Johnson, K. N. and M. Herring (1999). "Understanding bioregional assessments". Bioregional Assessments: Science at the Crossroads of Management and Policy. K. N. Johnson, F. J. Swanson, M. Herring and S. Greene (ed). Washington, Island Press: 341. pp.369-370 (overall observations 2 and 5 respectively). Back.

Note 51:  Cortner, H. J., M. G. Wallace and M. A. Moote (Ibid.). "A political context model for bioregional assessments": 71. (First of six policy guidelines). Back.

Note 52:  Respectively Ibid. (Second guideline); and Johnson, K. N. and M. Herring (Ibid.). "Understanding bioregional assessments": 341. p.371 (overall observation 9). Back.

Note 53:  Klyza, C. M. (1999). "Bioregional possibilities in Vermont". Bioregionalism. M. V. McGinnis (ed). London ; New York, Routledge: 81. p.95. Klyza observes that this is the case, particularly when also faced by the challenges of globalisation, "state and national governments are often threatened by the mere thought of bioregionalism." Back.

Note 54:  At least on anything like recent scales: see Clark, J. and M. Blakers (1989). Forest conservation and wood supply: no need for conflict, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Department of Planning Policy and Landscape Research.; Clark, J. (1992). The Future for Native Forest Logging in Australia, Australian National University, Centre for Resource & Environmental Studies. Back.

Note 55:  Sedjo, R. A. and D. Botkin (1997). "Using forest plantations to spare natural forests." Environment 39(10): 14. Back.

Note 56:  Cf. generally Holland, Morton and B. Galligan, Eds. (1996). Federalism and the Environment: Environmental Policymaking in Australia, Canada and the United States, Greenwood. Back.

Note 57:  Dovers, S. (1999). The rise and fall of the National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development, or not? Integrated Environmental Management: A Whole of Government Responsibility? 18th Annual National Environmental Law Conference, Sydney, 8-10 September 1999, National Environmental Law Association. Back.

Note 58:  M Robbins, 'Beattie faces axe on forests', The Australian 30 September 1999, p.9. Back.

Note 59:  Transcript of Interview, Carolyn Tucker, ABC Radio 4QR, 1 October 1999. See also Editorial, 'Optimism on forest funding', Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 2 October 1999. See also Media Release, Hon Peter Beattie MLA, 'Qld welcomes Commonwealth commitment on forest agreement', 1 October 1999. Back.

Note 60:  The parties noted that the Commonwealth was required to apply "the same standards with respect to forest management and environmental, heritage, economic and social targets to be achieved", and "allow for differences in the obligations to be imposed on different States" only to the extent necessary to take account of differences in "forest types", "environmental, social and economic pressures", and "the level and quality of information": cl. 1B (d)-(e). Back.

Note 61:  Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia (1900), section 96. See Victoria v Commonwealth (1926) 38 CLR 399; Deputy Federal Commissioner of Taxation (NSW) v W R Moran Pty Ltd (1939) 61 CLR 735; Grasstree Poultry Enterprises Pty Ltd v Bycroft (1969) 119 CLR 390; P H Lane's Commentary on the Australian Constitution, Law Book Company (2nd edition) 1997, pp.178-179, 744; R D Lumb & G A Moens, Annotated Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia, Butterworths (5th edition), 1995, p.483. Back.

Note 62:  Moran's case, per Latham CJ at 764; Lane, p.175. Back.

Note 63:  Constitution, section 99: see Quick & Garran, Annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth, Angus & Robertson 1901, p.877; Lumb & Moens, p.487; Lane, p.176. Back.

Note 64:  Constitution, sections 51(ii) and 99: see Quick & Garran, p.877; Lane, p.175. Back.

Note 65:  Quick & Garran, p.878. Back.

Note 66:  Elliott v Commonwealth (1936) 54 CLR 657; see Lane, p.177; Lumb & Moens, p.488. Back.

Note 67:  See generally A Wallis, D Stokes, G Wescott, T McGee, 'Certification and labelling as a new tool for sustainable forest management', (1997) 4 Australian Journal of Environmental Management 224. Back.

Note 68:  McGinnis, M. V. (1999). Bioregionalism. London ; New York, Routledge. p.5; Sale, K. (2000). Dwellers in the land : the bioregional vision. Athens, Ga. ; London, University of Georgia Press. Back.

Note 69:  Brown, A. J. (1992b). "The Wig or the Sword? Separation of powers and the plight of the Australian judge." Federal Law Review 21: 48. See also Young, L. (1993). A consideration of "environmental accordism" - its theoretical utility and limitations. Facing the future: Ecopolitics VII, Griffith University, Brisbane.. The national forest policy processes leading up to the RFA period had involved a mixture of these trends: see ESD (Ecologically Sustainable Development) Working Groups (1992). Forest Use. Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service.; Hamilton, C. and D. Throsby, Eds. (1998). The ESD Process: Evaluating a policy experiment. Canberra, Academy of Social Sciences / Australian National University.; Dovers. Back.

Note 70:  Cf. the minimal discussion of community involvement in the section dealing with CRAs (under 4.3 'Intergovernmental arrangements'), and Section 4.9, 'Public awareness and involvement', which makes no mention of CRAs or decision making processes. Back.

Note 71:  Commonwealth of Australia, Regional Forest Agreements: The Commonwealth Position, February 1995, 'Executive summary' (emphasis added). For similar confusion of 'citizen participation in government' and 'consultative approaches', see O'Faircheallaigh et al, Public Sector Management in Australia: New challenges, new directions, Macmillan, 2nd edition 1999, pp.217-219. Back.

Note 72:  T Foley, 'Sustainability monitoring - the community role: a case study in the forests', Paper to Sustainability: the triple bottom line, Queensland Environmental Law Association Conference, 2000. Back.

Note 73:  1997 Scoping Agreement, cll. 7-8 and Attachment 4, Figure 1. Back.

Note 74:  It is important to note that these stakeholders created the final outcome and obtained endorsement from government, rather than the other way round. In this respect, Hutton was correct in describing it as an "agreement between the Queensland Timber Board and conservationists and agreed to by the Beattie Government": D Hutton, 'Mining and the environment in Queensland...', Paper to Ecopolitics XII Conference, Katoomba, 7-10 October 1999, p.9; cf. the Queensland Department of State Development's claim to have "played a major role in the coordination and development of the Queensland Government's SEQ RFA Plan that was endorsed by the Timber Industry and Conservation movement": Qld Department of State Development, Annual Report 1998-99, p.76. Back.

Note 75:  This interim agreement, on 4 February 1998, was the subject of a joint media statement by Boral Timber and Australian Rainforest Conservation Society, 16 March 1998; in paying "tribute to Dr Aila Keto...and Rod McInnes of the Queensland Timber Board for their leadership and commitment", then Premier Hon R E Borbidge stated: "The State Government is proud of this agreement and just as proud of the manner in which it was negotiated by all parties to the deal. We firmly believe that this is the way of the future where management and development of our rich resources are concerned": Ministerial Statement, 'Interim Regional Forest Management Agreement', Qld Parliamentary Debates 17 March 1998, pp.322-323. Back.

Note 76:  See Franklin, M. and J. Greber (1999). "Pulp factions: the politics of growing jobs and trees." Courier-Mail. 17 July 1999: 23-24.; Prosser, M. (Ibid.). "Loggers are greener than green (Boral Timber).". 22 July 1999: 15.; Brown, A. J. (Ibid.). "Forest for the trees.". 17 September 1999. Back.

Note 77:  In fact, the three year delay by governments before even attempting to implement the National Forest Policy Statement meant the RFA process was attended by this problem of public confidence even before it started: "In the industry, confidence can only be badly eroded by the confused decision making and uncertain legal outlook. In the conservation movement, there is not much confidence left to be eroded. All of which means the government might have pulled off a rare combination indeed - putting both sides of the debate in an irritable mood": D Greenlees, The Weekend Australian, 14-15 January 1995, p.28. Back.

Note 78:  E.g. Carr, D. S., S. W. Selin and M. A. Scuett (1998). "Managing public forests: understanding the role of collaborative planning." Environmental Management 22: 767.; McGinnis, M. V., J. Woollet and J. Gamman (1999). "Bioregional conflict resolution: rebuilding community in watershed planning and organising." Ibid. 24: 1.; Moore, S. A. and R. G. Lee (Ibid.). "Understanding dispute resolution processes for American and Australian public wildlands: towards a conceptual framework for managers." 23: 453. Back.

Note 79:  Johnson and Herring "Understanding bioregional assessments": 341. p.341. See also Klyza.: 81. pp.84-85. Back.

Note 80:  N Gunningham, 'Beyond compliance: management of environmental risk' in B Boer, R Fowler and N Gunningham (eds), Environmental Outlook: Law and Policy, Federation Press 1994, 254 at 260. Back.

Note 81:  V Young, 'SEQ forests campaign', WilderNews (The Wilderness Society, Queensland), October 1999, pp.3-4. The Queensland Timber Board similarly congratulated the Premier on his "wisdom of Solomon" and "great statesmanship": Media Release, 'Timber industry supports RFA position', 16 September 1999. Back.

Note 82:  V Young, 'SEQ forests campaign', WilderNews October 1999, pp.3-4. Back.

Note 83:  Error! Bookmark not defined. pp.48-49. Back.

Note 84:  Lipschutz, R. D. (1999). "Bioregionalism, civil society and global environmental governance". Bioregionalism. M. V. McGinnis (ed). London ; New York, Routledge: 101. p.115. Back.

Note 85:  Ibid. p.114. Back.

Note 86:  Freeman, J. (1997). "Collaborative governance in the administrative state." University of California Los Angeles Law Review 45: 1.; see Clarke, P. (2000). The South East Queensland Forest Agreement: Conflict and collaboration in regional resource management. Back.

Note 87:  World Commission on Environment and Development (1987). Our Common Future (The Bruntland Report), Oxford University Press. Back.

Note 88:  This process, according to two of its chairs, was acknowledged as "one of the most thoroughgoing and innovative responses to Bruntland in any country": S Harris and D Throsby, 'The ESD process: background, implementation and aftermath', in Hamilton and Throsby, Eds. p.14. The NSESD defined ESD as "development that improves the total quality of life, both now and in the future, in a way that maintains the ecological processes on which life depends" (pp.8-9), a significant improvement on Bruntland, "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs": see Dovers. p.5. Back.

Note 89:  D James, The Application of Economic Techniques in Environmental Impact Assessment Kluwer, 1994 at p.27: Back.

Note 90:  Dovers. Back.

Note 91:  Mercer. Cf Tietenberg. p.86. Back.

Note 92:  Goodin, R. E. (1991). "A Green Theory of Value". The Humanities and the Australian Environment. D. J. Mulvaney (ed). Canberra, Australian Academy of the Humanities. Back.

Note 93:  Brown, V. A. (2000). Planners and the planet: reshaping the people/planet relationship. Royal Australian Planning Institute Conference, Townsville, Queensland, July 2000. Back.

Note 94:  Brunckhorst. pp.56-58. In the forest context, see Cocks, D. and J. Ive (1996). "Mediation support for forest land allocation: the SIRO-MED system." Environmental Management 20: 41.; Lockwood, M., D. G. Bos and H. Glazebrook (1997). "Integrated protected area selection in Australian biogeographic regions." Ibid. 21: 395. Back.

Note 95:  Bartlett: 328. p.335. Back.

Note 96:  Commonwealth of Australia, Regional Forest Agreements: The Commonwealth Position, February 1995, 'Preface'. See also Section 1.4, Box 1 'Stages in developing a regional forest agreement' Stages 6-8; Section 1.4.3, 'Regional assessments' which discusses "integration" only in terms of integrating existing Commonwealth and State statutory EIA processes; Section 1.5.1, 'Managing the process: regional assessments', where it stresses that when it comes to the preparation of "analyses" (undefined) of the reports from "the two streams of accredited or joint assessments", it would be expected that "government conservation and forest industry agencies will be equal participants on the [assessment] committee". Back.

Note 97:  McDonald. p.14. Back.

Note 98:  K N Johnson et al, 'Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment Team Assessments: Case Study', Ch 6 in Johnson, Swanson, Herring and Greene, Eds. Bioregional Assessments: Science at the Crossroads of Management and Policy. p.86 at p.112. Back.

Note 99:  National Research