Sustainability, profitability and resilience in focus

Posted 24 June 2024

The Perennial Prosperity Project is making significant strides in transforming the agricultural landscape of Tasmania.

The project, led by CSIRO, aimed to increase the area of trees on farms in southern Australia in a way that would improve farm enterprise sustainability, profitability and resilience.

Private Forests Tasmania was a partner in the project by establishing seven demonstration sites across Tasmania that integrated commercial trees into their landscape.

A field day, held at Logan at Evandale, showcased some of the initial findings from three years of study.

CSIRO shared findings in relation to:

the improved value proposition for planting trees on farms
demonstrating the optimum planting configurations for commercial and environmental plantings
researching and quantifying a specific set of natural capital benefits of trees including biodiversity, agricultural production, carbon, pollination and cultural.

Private Forests Tasmania will continue to work with CSIRO to share information from this research including relevant case studies, fact sheets and tools.

The field day featured talks from CSIRO Senior Principal Research Scientist Anthony O'Grady, Logan Livestock Manager Clare Peltzer, Greening Australia Program Specialist Jo Lynch, CSIRO's Danny O'Brien and Stephen Stewart, PFT's Agriforester Molly Marshall and ecologist Dr Tom Baker.

To read more about Logan and the demonstrations sites click here.

PFT will host a webinar with CSIRO in early-August as an extension of this field day. The date and more details on the webinar will be shared shortly.

PFT sincerely thanks Clare Peltzer, of Logan, for her generosity in hosting us at her property, and the Evandale Primary School’s Parents and Friends Association for the delicious lunch with proceeds going towards the upgrade of their early childhood learning playground equipment.