One of the early matters examined in the IAP was the need to select study areas that represent a consistency in data availability and detail.
Consistent with the Deferred Forest Agreement, the IAP only examined public land tenures (ie, State forests, national parks and vacant crown land). As these land tenures account for only 65% of the total current forested area in NSW, the IAP outcomes do not fully consider the State's forest biodiversity. The CRA process, as the next stage in the assessment process, will consider all tenures supporting forest.
The external boundary of the IAP area resulted from a combination of Government policy and practical reasons. The IAP area contains the majority of forested land in the east of NSW.
The areas included in the IAP are, with some exceptions, those included in the NSW-Commonwealth Deferred Forest Agreement, which were set to encompass the forests from which woodchips are exported from Australia, and hence, where an export licence from the Commonwealth Government is required. The Tumut negotiation region was not included in the Deferred Forest Agreements but has been added to the IAP because woodchips are exported from it via Victoria.
Another factor in the delineation of the boundaries is the attention to old growth forests and wilderness in the NSW Government's Forest Policy. The majority of old growth forests and wilderness on public land are within the IAP study areas.
The IAP has five study areas, some subdivided into negotiation regions (see Figure 2.2). The study areas are:
The boundaries of the study areas were set for a variety of practical and historical reasons. For example, the Northern study area adopts the boundaries used by NPWS for biodiversity studies and modelling. Adopting it meant that the collection and recording of the information was consistent across the study area. The Eden study area reflects the southeast forests which have long been recognised as a distinct forest grouping. Central region was set to include those forests north of Sydney not in the Northern region. Tumut, as mentioned earlier, was a late inclusion in the IAP. The Southern region picked up the remaining forest south of Sydney.
The subdivisions into negotiation regions were to produce manageably sized areas for negotiation, in terms of the capacity of the computers and the need for negotiators to deal with complex information. The subdivisions were based on State Forests management areas (often amalgamating two or more) to make the inclusion of wood resources information in the process much easier. The subdivision into negotiation regions also took account of biophysical features, particularly in separating tablelands forests and coastal / foothill forests (for example S1 and S2).
State forests immediately to the west of the Central region were not included in the IAP because it was not possible to collect the necessary information in the time available. State forests in the Moss Vale Management Area were not formally negotiated, but agreement has been reached that these be deferred (except pine plantations).