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Landholders' reasons for adopting or rejecting plantation forestry on farms in North-East Tasmania
Jacki Schirmer
Department of Forestry, Australian National University, Canberra ACT
Peter Kanowski
Department of Forestry, Australian National University, Canberra ACT
Digby Race
Research Fellow - Farm Forestry, Department of Forestry, Australian National University, ACT
Abstract
In the past decade, commercial farm forestry has been widely promoted to Australian landholders by agencies including Landcare groups, Federal and State governments, investment groups and forestry companies (NPAC 1991; RIRDC 1995; Plantation 2020; Vision Implementation Committee 1997). Various national policy initiatives have advocated farm forestry as part of the means of achieving goals of economic development and environmental sustainability. These have included the 1992 National Forest Policy Statement (Commonwealth of Australia 1992), the 1995 Wood and Paper Industry Strategy (Commonwealth of Australia 1995), and most recently the 2020 Vision (Plantation 2020 Vision Implementation Committee 1997). Corporate forest growers have also been promoting farm forestry for reasons which include enhanced resource security through diversification of wood supply and a desire to lower overhead costs by reducing the extent of their land ownership (NPAC 1991).
Although farm forestry is widely represented as having significant environmental, economic and social benefits for both individual landholders and the wider community, uptake by landholders is commonly perceived to be slow (Greening Australia 1995; RIRDC 1995; DPIE 1996; RIRDC 1996; Curtis & Race 1997; Race & Curtis 1997). Factors affecting adoption of farm forestry by landholders have not been closely examined in Australia, and are often poorly understood (Prinsley 1991; Curtis & Race 1997). This study sought to address this deficiency by investigating factors influencing the adoption or rejection of one form of farm forestry - the establishment of plantations on agricultural land - by landholders in north-east Tasmania.
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