Forest health monitoring in Australia: National and regional commitments and operational realities

This review examines national and regional approaches and challenges to for est health monitoring in Australia. Divergent management priorities for for ests and plantations within Australia have resulted in differing interpreta tions of what is meant by forest health. This in turn has influenced the ap proaches taken to monitoring forest health. The commercial forest sector ha s taken a simplistic approach, focusing on the surveillance of tree conditi on and the extent of damaging agents that directly affect tree productivity . Resources for this task are generally restricted to high-value plantation s. In order to fulfil their obligations to sustainable forest management mo st State forestry agencies are committed to developing regional Sustainable Forest Management monitoring programs. At the federal level there is a com mitment to complying with several international conservation agreements inc luding the Montreal Process. Forest health in these programs tends to be po orly defined. Some States have established, or are planning monitoring prog rams based on intensive measurements in permanent sites or plots. While cur rent forest health monitoring programs in Australia are slate-based, the ne ed for coordination and compatibility of assessment and reporting systems i s recognized. Several national and state fora exist, far example, the natio nal Forest Health Committee and the state-based Forest Health Advisory Comm ittees. These groups have the potential to develop and coordinate the linka ge from the regional-based forest health monitoring programs up to the nati onal level. A major driver of this process, however, will be individual Sta te's priorities and available resources and funding.