Forest management options for adaptation to climate change: a case study of tall, wet eucalypt forests in Victoria's Central Highlands region

Australia has a highly diverse and variable climate and its forests are well-adapted to climatic variation. However, human-induced changes in climate could exceed historical ranges of variability and have effects on forests well beyond the experience of forest managers. These conditions will require implementation of management practices appropriate to a changing climate but there has been little analysis of potential management options for Australian native forests. The paper analyses potential management options for the tall, wet eucalypt forests in Victoria's Central Highlands. This region has already experienced a strong drying and warming trend and a high incidence of severe bushfires over the last 15years. Future changes are likely to include rising CO2, increasing temperatures and an overall decrease and changing seasonal patterns in rainfall. This is likely to result in higher fire danger weather conditions, changes in phenology of flowering, seeding and germination and shifts in forest composition and productivity. A range of different management options were considered and analysed in terms of current practice, costs and implementation feasibility. Many management actions identified to support adaptation to climate change were assessed as currently being implemented as part of sustainable forest management arrangements. Options that are not generally currently implemented include developing gene management programs and off-site gene banks, ex-situ conservation and increasing cooperation in species management, increasing stand and regional species diversity, identification and deployment of more drought- or disturbance-tolerant species or genotypes, planning to reduce disease losses through monitoring and sanitation harvests, managing stand structure to reduce impacts on water availability and implementing silvicultural techniques to promote stand vigour, as practised elsewhere in Australia. The likelihood of more intense rainfall events will require changes to infrastructure, such as forest road design and construction specifications. Implementing adaptation will require new approaches to forest management, potentially involving significant human intervention, new ecological, environmental and social research, new modes of communication with the public, new policies and revised regulations and management prescriptions.