A strategic forest inventory for public land in Victoria, Australia

The aim of this paper is to present a strategic forest inventory approach that has been applied on public land in Victoria, Australia. The Victorian Forest Monitoring System is an integral component of a monitoring and reporting program that enables Victoria to critically assess and evaluate its progress towards achieving its sustainable forest management objectives and targets. The inventory approach utilises field measurements in combination with remote sensing data. The approach is novel in that it utilises a relatively small sample size with a stratification scheme designed to examine questions around tenure and land management options. The small sample was dictated by limited resources (capacity, time and budget). The stratification scheme was designed to explore different land management approaches (e.g. National Parks versus State forest), as a more consistent and balanced approach to the management of public forests is currently being considered by most State Governments in Australia. The resultant accuracy of estimates for management and bioregion strata and associated characteristics, like above ground biomass from this small sample size were found to be sufficient for the regional monitoring goals of this study.