The 5 minute read: A two-page summary of our review of published research
Read the full report here, with every source quoted and referenced.
Why we wrote it
Our report reviews what government reports, scientific studies, legislation, listing documents and the State's own maps say about rainforest in the Strzeleckis. It is written as a summary of the best available information in the sense used by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standard for Australia. That standard requires certified forest managers to assess and record high conservation values using the best available information, and rainforest falls within one of those values: "Ecosystems (including rainforests) that are threatened, depleted or poorly reserved". The standard's guidance says more vulnerable areas are more likely to need field assessment and verification of desktop data, and it requires management to adapt when new information shows it is not working.
What rainforest grows there, and why it matters
Three rainforest communities in the Strzeleckis are listed as threatened under Victoria's Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988. Cool Temperate Rainforest grows in the wettest, most sheltered gullies. Strzeleckis Warm Temperate Rainforest grows along creeks on the lower slopes. Cool Temperate Mixed Forest is rainforest with an emergent canopy of eucalypts such as Mountain Ash; it has never been mapped statewide and the State has said it may be overlooked. Covering just 0.14 per cent of Victoria, rainforests are home to 30 per cent of the State's rare or threatened plant species. They include the critically endangered Slender Tree-fern. Recent surveys at Turtons Creek, Victoria counted 554 of these tall fragile ferns, the largest population ever documented in Australia.
How much rainforest is left, and where it is
By 1999 only about 40 per cent of Gippsland's pre-1750 Cool Temperate Rainforest remained, and only about 38 per cent of what remained was in conservation reserves. The plantation estate was left out of the reserve system set up under the Gippsland Regional Forest Agreement. The regional native vegetation plan rates rainforest in the Strzelecki Ranges bioregion as Endangered and says "all remaining areas need to be protected". Today about 10 per cent of the rainforest mapped in the bioregion is in parks and reserves, and between about 20 and 40 per cent, depending on the map, is on Crown land licensed for plantation forestry.
Rainforest areas have been modelled but not checked on the ground
The State has two rainforest maps for the area, and both are computer models. Neither has been checked on the ground in the Strzeleckis, and they agree on only about 550 ha of the 7,209 ha that one or the other maps as rainforest. The State's description of its newer map says planners "will need to confirm in the field the presence and extent of the rainforest community prior to any forest or fire management activity commencing".
Finding rainforest
Victoria's accepted method is David Cameron's field guide, which uses a differential species approach, based on plants that are much more likely to be found on one side of the rainforest boundary than the other. The boundary matters because it is where the protective buffer begins, extending "typically upslope, into the sclerophyll forest". In 2025 Assurance Services International found that the plantation manager's rainforest procedure did not follow the field guide and that drone surveys are "not an appropriate method to assess and identify rainforest". It raised a major non-conformity against the certification body, SCS Global Services.
What harms rainforest
The sources describe Myrtle Wilt, a fatal disease of Myrtle Beech that spreads more readily where trees are wounded and edges are opened up by clearfelling, road construction and other activities. They also describe drying, wind damage and trees falling into gullies at the edge, along with weeds, deer, herbicide, fire and intensive use of the land next door.
The rules and standards for rainforest protection
On public land the Victorian Government's rainforest action statement sets minimum buffers of 20 m for small linear stands and 40 m for stands of 0.4 ha or more. Research studies recommend more: Biosis recommended protection zones of 100 m to 250 m in the Strzeleckis and the 2024 Turtons Creek survey recommended 200 m. Victoria's Code of Practice treats land under plantation licence as private land, where rainforest "must not be harvested" and must be protected by "appropriate buffers". FSC requirements apply wherever the land is certified, and the plantation manager's 2026 plan says rainforest is protected by buffers without stating their width. The FSC standard requires that the "best available information" be used in the identification and protection of such rainforest. The Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act, the Code and the FSC standard all call for a precautionary approach where the science is uncertain.
What we don't know
The main Strzelecki study dates from 2000, when fieldwork was limited to a few days along main roads in winter. Neither map takes account of the 2019 to 2020 fires, and effective buffer widths are still listed as a research question.
Questions for land managers
- Has rainforest shown on the State's maps been confirmed in the field before harvesting?
- Is the field guide's method used to locate boundaries, and how is a boundary found where the forest beside it has already been harvested?
- Where does each buffer start, and how wide is it compared with the 20 m to 250 m in the sources?
- Is Cool Temperate Mixed Forest looked for before Mountain Ash forest is harvested?
- Are Myrtle Wilt, edge effects and weeds monitored, and mitigated, beside harvested areas?
Read the full report here, or download the pdf, with every source referenced.