Australia's ten Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) are long-term agreements for the sustainable management and conservation of Australia's forests. There are 10 RFAs across New South Wales, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia, signed between 1997 and 2001 as 20-year agreements between Australian and state governments. The RFAs in New South Wales, Tasmania and Western Australia have since been extended as 20-year rolling agreements, and the Victorian RFAs have been extended until 2030.
The RFAs resulted in substantial areas of forest being reserved through establishment of a Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative (CAR) reserve system, as well as substantial reduction in the access to forest resources by forest industries, and agreement to sustainable yields of forest resources.
Data on the reservation and resource availability outcomes from regional forest agreements
The ABARES report Regional forest agreements: compilation of reservation and resource availability outcomes presents a compilation of data on changes in reserve areas and forest resource availability in RFA regions, both at their signing and subsequently. Figures summarising the outcomes of the RFAs are available via the publication page. Data tables and figures from this publication are available for download:
- Figure summarising the outcomes of the RFAs are available in MS Excel workbook format [131 KB]
- Detailed data tables of all reservation and resource availability outcomes from the RFAs are available in MS Excel workbook format [148 KB].