In 1996, Government directives began a transition to conform logging in Western Australia's State forests to principles of ecologically sustainable forest management (ESFM). To place this in a historical context, we reviewed the history of the logging of jarrah Eucalyptus marginata forests to determine whether the volume of timber extracted and the main forest management practices employed were consistent with components of ESFM. While quantitative assessment proved difficult, usually the timber cut considerably exceeded the estimated annual increment of timber trees on forested lands. Overcutting often distressed professionals, who strove to regulate logging despite social, political and economic pressures. Furthermore, despite recent major reductions in permissible timber cut, areas of productive State forest have declined after conversion to alternative purposes. Thus it is important to prevent overcutting continuing in the remaining production forests. Too few data exist on the health or condition of forest ecosystems before logging to document subtle impacts. However, overcutting has interacted with broad-scale threatening processes in their impacts on forest fauna. These changes are all associated with reluctance to invoke effective adaptive management in association with the precautionary principle. The historical survey suggests that ESFM cannot be achieved without a socio-political will to assert long-term sustainable practice in the face of short-term goals. This could be achieved in the current preparation of a new forest management plan for Western Australia.

The spatial patterns of Sooty Owl Tyto tenebricosa and Barking Owl Ninox connivens records, obtained from large owl surveys in the Victorian Central Highlands and the Pilliga Scrub in New South Wales respectively, allow the suggestion to be made that these species select territories with particular sets of habitat attributes. Estimated Sooty and Barking Owl territories in the Mountain Ash Eucalyptus regnans forests of the Central Highlands and the cypress pine Callitris spp-ironbark Eucalyptus spp forests and woodlands of the Pilliga Scrub were concentrated in areas with abundant tree hollows and other old-growth attributes and less frequent fires. Higher soil nutrients and plant productivity also appeared to be important attributes in the Pilliga Scrub. Territories of the large owls in both survey areas contained most of the sites where the highest nocturnal bird and arboreal marsupial species richness and abundance were recorded, enabling the proposal to be advanced that Sooty and Barking Owls could serve as indicators of high quality habitat for a range of forest and woodlanddependent vertebrates. In particular, they appear able to function as indicators for hollow-dependent and other specialised species disadvantaged by disturbances such as intensive logging and frequent fire. Territories of these large owls form a pattern that provides a natural planning template ideal for mapbased reserve selection aimed at maximising biodiversity conservation in the forests and woodlands of eastern Australia.

Genetic analysis can be a powerful tool in species conservation and management, but it has perhaps not been embraced as wholeheartedly in Australia as in other parts of the world. Its many applications in fauna management include: 1/ Clarification of taxonomic and evolutionary relationships, thus enabling separate management and conservation of evolutionarily divergent groups, and informing reintroduction/translocation planning. 2/ Identification of population structure to enable conservation management plans to be targeted at local populations. 3/ Examination of the effects of landscape modification on dispersal patterns to provide an understanding of potential threats to populations. 4/ Identification of populations, species and regions important for the conservation of evolutionary biodiversity. 5/ Detection, abundance estimation and population monitoring of rare or cryptic species via genetic analysis of field signs such as hair and faeces. In this chapter we describe and provide examples of them, and suggest ways to facilitate their increased use in Australian fauna conservation.

This paper gives an account of the development of fauna conservation as a positive requirement of forest management in the State Forests of New South Wales from the 1970s to the present time. Wildlife management was not part of the forestry curriculum in the 1950s and it was assumed that if the botanical composition of the forest was maintained then the fauna would also be conserved. As the intensity of forest operations increased, particularly with respect to woodchip operations and the establishment of large areas of pine plantation, serious environmental questions began to be raised. The general absence of knowledge about forest fauna and their habitat requirements led to the appointment of a Forestry Commission wildlife ecologist in 1975 and a dramatic increase in research in collaboration with the Australian Museum, National Parks and Wildlife Service, CSIRO and the universities. There has been a steady accumulation of knowledge to the present time and some of the difficulties in the implementation of this information are discussed. The increase in knowledge has led to a variety of interpretations some of which seem to be based more on values than science. During this period, there were many conflicts over forest practices which obscured the great progress that had been made. There have been recent developments with government inquiries and political innovations resulting in the National Forest Policy Statement, the development of Regional Forest Agreements, and new forest legislation, including the regulation of forestry on private lands. With the Comprehensive, Representative and Adequate reserve system now in place, and sophisticated fauna protocols in use in forest operations, we can be optimistic about the conservation of the forest fauna providing long-term research and monitoring are continued. However, the pendulum may have swung too far and questions about regeneration techniques, fire exclusion policies and the viability of the native forest timber industry are also raised.

Strips of retained forest are used to aid fauna conservation in State Forests in several mainland states. Their use has often been justified in terms of maintenance of animal movement and they are thus referred to as wildlife corridors. I argue that it is unlikely that strips of retained forest will be important for movement in large tracts of production forest However, if these retained strips are set out so as to fully sample fauna habitat, I believe that, when used in conjunction with other measures, they will play an important role for fauna conservation. Research into the value of retained strips 100 m in width in Tasmania has commenced.

The most recent round of the forestry reform process in north-east NSW began in 1995 and resulted in the direct reservation of 737,602 hectares of forest as National Parks estate in north-east NSW, the exclusion of logging from all mapped oldgrowth forest (greater than 25 hectares) and rainforest in remaining State Forests, and the provision of 20 year, binding wood supply agreements to the timber industry in the region at 50% of 1995 levels. The forestry reform process is reviewed and a qualitative assessment of its impact on forest fauna conducted. The process was successful in using comprehensive spatial information on fauna distributions in the form of quantitative habitat models, in applying a rigorous method to set fauna reservation targets, and in employing recognised conservation planning software in reserve selection with fauna as one of the key parameters that determined reserve placement. These all represented important positive developments for the conservation of forest fauna in north-east NSW, which ensured that many of the areas identified for reservation were high priority areas for fauna conservation. However, the forestry reform process also included aspects that resulted in significant negative outcomes for forest fauna including; the use of timber commitments rather than fauna needs to determine the overall scale of reserves, the provision of long-term wood supply agreements to the timber industry at demonstrably unsustainable levels, the development of a substandard set of requirements for management on remaining State Forest areas, and the drastic weakening of legislative controls on logging operations which allow for increased intensification over time. Reservation targets set during the forestry reform process were used to provide an empirical assessment of reserve adequacy for fauna in the region. The assessment indicates that only 29% of priority fauna populations have fully achieved reservation targets in north-east NSW, and that across all populations, mean target achievement is only 49%. Therefore, the scale of the reserve outcome does not satisfy the national reserve criteria for forests and is considered to be inadequate to ensure the survival of priority species in north-east NSW. The target assessment indicates that the most poorly reserved habitats are dry coastal and dry tablelands sclerophyll forests, and habitat for species with large home ranges and species most vulnerable to threatening processes. While additional gains in reservation target achievement can still be made through the reservation of public lands, the large gains in habitat protection now required will have to be made on private land in the region. Future conservation efforts for fauna in the region should include; making full use of the current knowledge of fauna distributions and reservation status through appropriate publication and distribution of existing information; improving and refining the priority fauna habitat models, reservation targets and conservation requirements; and providing strong legislative protection for priority fauna habitat, as depicted by quantitative fauna models, across all land tenures. A clear lesson from the forestry reform process in north-east NSW is that independent ( i.e. non-Government) scientific involvement is crucial to the scientific integrity of conservation outcomes and assessments conducted by Governments via bureaucratic processes. Increased involvement by independent scientists in an active and direct way into the political process is also required to lessen the divide between science and politics into the future.