The Variable Retention Harvest System and its implications for biodiversity in the Mountain Ash forests of the Central Highlands of Victoria

This report was commissioned by the Victorian Government through the Department of Primary Industries (DPI) in mid-2006. The aim of the report was to describe the impacts of timber harvesting activities on biodiversity in native forests. It was to focus on these impacts at a landscape level and describe opportunities for improving biodiversity and other outcomes through alternative approaches to timber harvesting. The report focuses on the highlyproductive, wet ash-type eucalypt forests of the Central Highlands of Victoria. The alternative silvicultural system described in this report is referred to as the Variable Retention Harvest System (VRHS) and involves the retention of strategic elements of the forest from one rotation to the next. The VRHS aims to maintain ecological functionality at a landscape level and is based on insights into ecologically appropriate harvesting methods being developed and adopted in the Pacific-Northwest of North America