Tools
A variety of tools to assist farmers and forester in establishing and managing new and existing forests
FREE tools to assist farmers and foresters
Tools are provided to assist landowners and foresters manage forests and woodlots by increasing productivity gains and assisting with sustainable land management through farm forestry. Tools are FREE of charge and include whole farm planning app's, carbon calculator, wind risk calculator and more.
See below for full details of available tools.
Farm and Forest Mapper (TreeMapper)
Running a small to medium farming and forestry enterprise can involve highly complex processes, especially when it comes to planning and decision-making.
A new digital tool, developed by Esk Mapping & GIS, in consultation with Private Forests Tasmania and the Forest Practices Authority has been designed to help transform the farm-planning process for landowners, consultants, planners, contractors and land agents.
Users will be able to easily plan, map and manage properties to expand their plantation estate and leverage the multiple benefits that trees on farms can provide.
Compatible with all web-enabled desktops, tablets and phones, with some tools having the ability for offline usage, Farm and Forest Mapper is currently in testing stage to ensure usability of its current tools, calculators, instructions and features prior to its release coming soon.
Farm Forestry Carbon Tool
Are you a net emitter? Climate change is one the greatest challenges of our time and many farmers are already seeing the impacts of global climate change on their local climate. Trees and farm forestry are key solutions for farmers looking to offset their emissions and achieve carbon neutrality.
The Farm Forestry Carbon Tool is available to support landowners quickly gain a picture of their carbon impact and their potential tree offset opportunities on farm. The tool is designed to provide estimates rather than in-depth carbon calculator, and in less that two minutes, farmers can estimate two important factors:
what your current emissions profile looks like; and
if you are a net carbon emitter, how many trees would be required to bring you back to neutral.
Created by the Tasmanian Forestry Hub in collaboration with Private Forests Tasmania, the tool is now available for beta testing.
Check before you Chop
The Forest Practices Authority (FPA) have released a tool to assist you establish if a Forest Practices Plan (FPP) is required on your property or not.
Do you need a Forest Practices Plan? Check Before You Chop is a new interactive decision tool to help you find out if you will require an FPP for your forest operations. Most forest practices will need an FPP but there are a few exemptions.
Follow the prompts in the tool to find out.
Wind Risk Calculator
Private Forests Tasmania has produced ‘Forests and wind risk in Tasmania: a guidebook for foresters, landowners and planners’ and a ‘Wind risk calculator’ to assist in the collation of data and determination of the forest wind risk.
View the Forest and wind risk in Tasmania guidelines book HERE.
CLICK HERE to view the Wind Risk Calculator.
Farm Forestry Toolbox
The Farm Forestry Toolbox is a collection of computer programs (called tools) designed to assist owners and managers of small to medium sized forests to map, measure and manage their estates.
* Hand tools are mostly simple, stand-alone programs;
* Power tools are sophisticated inter-related programs requiring data from various EDITORS;
* Editors change system-wide settings and prepare data for use by the POWER tools; and
* The Health tool is a visual disease identification key for blue gum and radiata pine in southern Australia.
CLICK HERE to be taken to the Farm Forestry Toolbox download page.
AFORA's Practical Tools
Australian Forest Operations Research Alliance (AFORA) develops practical tools to improve:
- the understanding, management and control of forest operational costs for existing, evolving and new harvest systems;
- the planning and management of value recovery within harvest operations; and
- the application of optimisation to supply chain efficiency planning and management.
In particular;
- the ALPACA tool allows modelling of single forestry machines or entire harvest systems; and
- the Machine Costs tool is a single machine analysis to evaluate the machine’s hourly cost.
CLICK HERE to be taken to the AFORA's website for additional information.
CLICK HERE to be taken to AFORA's website for industry tool downloads.
The LIST
Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania's LIST (Land Information System Tasmania) is a whole of government online infrastructure that helps you find and use information about land and property in Tasmania. Some key components are listed below:
LISTmap is a free, easy to use, online map application that allows people to view, create and share their own customised maps of Tasmania combining multiple layers of information.
Properties and Titles can be searched via the online search facility for folio text, plans, schedules of easements, survey notes, property information reports and property sales.
LISTdata is a free online data portal to help you discover and use Tasmanian location-based information and provides a central access point connected to authoritative government data.
In the primary industries - farming section the Enterprise Suitability – Pinus radiata aims to classify land suitable for growing farm tree species (E.nitens and E.globulus will be added). CLICK HERE to be taken to Enterprise Suitability Toolkit information.
CLICK HERE to be taken to the LIST
Regional Investment Corporation
The Regional Investment Corporation (RIC) is an Australian Government-backed specialist finance provider for farmers and farm-related small business.
Their loan programs encourage the long-term strength, resilience and profitability of Australian farm business.
RIC offer a variety of loans including the Plantation Loan to encourage new plantations and replanting of bushfire damaged plantations to sustainably increase domestic wood supply and support the regional economies and communities that depend on the industry.
The RIC also provide low interest loans for farmers to buy or establish a new farm business.
For additional information on the Plantation Loan CLICK HERE or phone RIC on 1800 875 675.
Yearly rainfall calendar
Understand the climate and climatic change in your area by recording your rainfall for the season.
Record daily fall, compare average yearly records and be reminded of key commercial tree plantation establishment and management dates with Private Forests Tasmania’s easy download and print calendar.
Forest Glossary
Australia's forests and forestry glossary is a stand-alone publication produced by Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences.
It is intended to serve as a comprehensive and authoritative reference for the interpretation and use of forest and forestry terms at the national level in Australia by bringing together a common set of terms with consistent definitions. The glossary is suitable for use by the public, educators, students and those working in forests, forest management and forestry.
