Operating Efficiently and Sustainably within Forest Water Licence Rules

Lead researchers: Professor Jeff Connor

Forest water licencing is unique to the Lower Limestone Coast of South Australia. This project provides forest licence holders with the opportunity to work within the water licencing rules to establish agreed options for ensuring more flexible forest management within State Government management plans. The project evaluated financial and profit implications of alternative strategies to manage forest assets within water licence requirements including options to buy/sell/lease water rights when required or are excess to requirements.

Benefits include:

• Higher productivity forest industry for increased economic value and employment for SA.
• More efficient use of the Lower Limestone Coast water resources.
• More adaptive forest management strategies that better align with SA Government water policy and legislation under the Natural Resource Management Act 2004.
• Tools developed made available to the forest water licensees to be incorporated into forest management companies own planning, business and analysis systems.

Our team: Jeff Connor, Courtney Regan, Jim O'Hehir, Will McKay, Sayed Iftekhar (Griffith University).