The Forest Act (1907) contained some important definitions.
State Forest, or Forest, included both Reserved Forest and Protected Forest.
Reserved Forest[1] was land over which the Forests Department essentially had full administrative control. It had two major components –
- Permanent Forest was dedicated and could only be excised by an Act of Parliament or for specific public purposes, or by exchange for private or unoccupied Crown land. Leases or licenses could be issued.
- Timber Reserves[2] were also dedicated and could only be alienated by a resolution of Parliament or by exchange. No lease or licence (other than for mining purposes) could be granted or issued over any timber reserve.
Protected Forest was virtually all the remaining balance of the Unoccupied Crown lands of the State for which the Lands Department had administrative control, and the Forests Department had forest utilisation, fire protection and some minor forest produce licensing authority. It included some unused roads and unlicensed water frontages.
Protected Forests were, by far, the largest Crown land area and remained available for selection and sale.
The 1907 Forest Act legislation excluded many other categories of land, such as –
- Alienated (sold) / freehold land.
- Land reserved for government purposes such as government buildings, schools, roads, railways and police stations.
- Crown land which was licensed or leased such as water frontages.
- Crown land under a Crown Grant, Permissive Occupancy or a Committee of Management.
- National Parks like Mt Buffalo which were deemed “occupied” and under a Committee of Management.[3]
- Crown land for services and utilities such reservoirs or power stations.
- Land “vested” in the MMBW as water catchments.
- Mallee lands.
The total area of Victoria is about 56 million acres but only about 3.8 million acres (6%) was set aside in 1907 for forestry purposes.
Some of the State forests (i.e. timber reserves) which existed in the 1800s were re-reserved, but others probably weren’t such as water reserves, commons, stone reserves etc. With all the ins-and-outs over forest reserves over the previous decades it’s a knot that’s impossible to untangle.
The two categories of Permanent Forests (3,071,181 acres) and Timber Reserves (754,146 acres) were included as Schedules in the 1907 legislation and on this map.
The legislation also contained a special provision to allow five years to finalise the schedules.
The Lands Act was completely overhauled in 1901 to replace all the previous accumulated legislation, and a separate Crown Land (Reserves) Act came into force later in 1915.
[1] Excision of Reserved Forest required agreement between the three Ministers for Forests, Lands and Mines, and to be ratified by Parliament. It was intended that the overall area did to reduce. However, during the five-year transitional period provided by the 1907 Act, 191,000 acres was excised from the reserves and only 680 acres was added.
[2] An amendment to the Forest Act in 1962 abolished the terms “timber reserve” and “permanent forest” and designated them both as “reserved forest”.
[3] This arrangement changed after the 1939 Stretton Royal Commission and the Parks legislation in 1956.
Victoria’s Forests & Bushfire Heritage 