In 1992, as I sit and write these words, two substantial details confront me. The first is that approximately 50% of Australian forests have been cleared since 1788. Today some types such as the tall closed-canopy rainforest, exist only as isolated remnants.

The second point is that the preliminary report of a two year long inquiry into the contemporary forest industry by the federal Resource Assessment Commission produced several findings critical of existing management of forest landuse; management that is predominantly by state agencies. I quote this Report with my added emphasis.

"It seems to the Inquiry that for much of its history the native forest sawn timber industry has been in disequilibrium with the supply of raw material. In most years there seem to have been too many mills for the timber on offer. Milling capacity has almost always been greater than the supply of logs to the mills. Individual mills dependent on native forest, and the groups of such mills that go to make up 'timber towns', can survive only if the forest within their radius of extraction is managed on a sustained-yield basis. So far as this Inquiry is aware, this has never happened in Australia."
Resource Assessment Commission
Forest and Timber Inquiry
Draft Report, July 1991.

Where have all the forests gone?

The decline in the area of forests from approximately 690,000 km2 in 1788 to perhaps 390,000 km2 in the 1980s is largely the consequence of the expansion of agriculture. Forests have been converted to crops and pastures either by complete clearing or partial thinning.

The early forest harvesting has also been exploitative and was in reality a mining operation. Such a landuse is only suitable for temporary occupancy. The forests were cut at rates that could never be sustained. If this mismanagement was based on ignorance, then apparently that ignorance still affected some state agencies at least until the 1980s.

The landuse of forestry also mimics agriculture by undertaking replacement landcover conversions. Hence the landcover of native forest, woodland or abandoned agricultural land is cleared and replaced by even-aged plantations. These plantations have been principally of exotic conifers. However in the last decade there have been increasing areas of native species grown under plantation conditions. Tasmania and Western Australia are the two states with the highest proportion of plantation forestry based on native tree species. Nationally in 1990, the total area devoted to this form of landuse remained less than 10% of the area of managed forests.

Table: Areas under plantation forest

With this background, let's examine six case studies from across the continent. The questions of this Chapter are: what is the nature and spatial pattern of landcover change associated with landuse of forestry and have these patterns changed during years we can look back? At the end of these case studies we can reflect on the third question: does the synoptic view provided by satellite images contribute to a better understanding of the issues?