Tasmania has a landmass of 6,852,000 hectares[1], of which approximately 3,389,200 hectares (49.5% of the state’s landmass) is covered by forest. The forest estate can be broadly split into two categories – native forest and plantation forest.
Tasmania’s native forest estate totals 3,135,000 hectares and the plantation estate 217,407 hectares.
Tasmania’s forest estate can be classified into the following broad categories:
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Table 1 – Tasmania’s Forest Estate |
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| Forest Category | Total area (hectares) | % of total forest cover | % of total landmass |
| Publicly owned multiple-use forests | 1,128,000 | 33.3 | 16.5 |
| Publicly owned native forests in reserves | 1,122,000 | 33.1 | 16.4 |
| Privately owned native forest | 885,000 | 26.1 | 12.9 |
| Plantation forests on state forest | 102,000 | 3.0 | 1.5 |
| Plantations on other public land | 1,800 | 0.1 | 0.0 |
| Plantation forests on private land | 150,407 | 4.4 | 2.2 |
| Total | 3,389,207 | 100 | 49.5 |
Sources: Australia’s forests at a glance 2007 (Bureau of Rural Sciences, 2007) and Sustainability Indicators for Tasmanian Forests 2001 – 2006 (www.dpac.tas.gov.au) except the figure for plantation forests on private land which is produced by Private Forests Tasmania based on area update information from industrial plantation companies and GIS analysis of the plantations on private property undertaken in the period March - May 2007.
[1] The actual figure derived from Private Forests Tasmania’s own modified municipality data set is 6,851,969 hectares, utilising an accurate cadastral coastline excluding all cadastre units which included estuarine water bodies. The Australian Government Geoscience Australia website gives a figure of 6,840,100 hectares based on 1993 data. (Website checked on 23 May 2007 and information was last updated on 31 August 2005).
