The interim assessment process is essentially a cooperative venture between government agencies, the forestry industry, the union covering employment in the forestry industry, conservation groups and the academic community.
The recommendations of the Resource and Conservation Assessment Council are therefore the result of input from key stakeholders representing a range of viewpoints and providing a basis for rigorous and transparent decision-making processes.
The consultative nature of the Council is continued through to the bodies advising the Council: the Steering Committee and both the Conservation and Socio-Economic Working Groups include representatives of the key stakeholder groups on the Council.
Consultation has also been integral to the assessment and identification of outcomes for the deferred forest areas which are the result of extensive negotiations between stakeholder groups (refer Section 2.8).
As part of its commitment to open communication, the Council gives a high priority to keeping members of the community informed of its activities and work to date. It has therefore issued a newsletter, RACAC News. Members of the community are invited to contact the Secretariat so that they may be included on the mailing list.
The Council held information sessions in March and April in centres throughout the study area to inform the community of progress on the IAP and to describe how members of the community can comment on and contribute to the outcome of the assessment. As well as a briefing by the Director and representatives of agencies on the Council, members of industry, conservation groups and the union described how the interest groups they represented were contributing to the assessment.
While providing information on RACAC's work, these sessions also provided a forum to listen to and address queries raised by members of the community. Following the sessions, an issue of the newsletter published answers given in response to concerns and queries raised.
This report presents alternative outcomes from the negotiation on proposed deferred forest areas resulting from the interim assessment (see Chapter 6). Comment on these alternative outcomes is now invited from the community before they are finalised as part of the report on the interim assessment to the Government (see Chapter 7 for details of how to make submissions and how the assessment will be finalised).
As described in this report, it is anticipated that the areas examined in the interim assessment will be reviewed again during the CRAs which will commence after the conclusion of the IAP.
The CRA process will take into consideration a range of matters important to indigenous peoples. Specific consultation arrangements will need to be put in place to accomplish this. The IAP has not specifically dealt with these issues.