Forest Practices Code 2020.

Forest Practices Code 2020 (the Code) applies to all land tenures, including permanent timber production zone land, future potential production forest land, other public land and privately owned land. The Forest Practices Act 1985 (the Act) under section 31 provides that this Code shall prescribe the manner in which the following forest practices shall be conducted so as to provide reasonable protection to the environment: the establishment and maintenance of forests including the standards to be complied with in the restocking of land with trees; the harvesting of timber or the clearing of trees; the construction of roads and other works connected with the establishment of forests, the, clearing of trees or the growing or harvesting of timber. The provision of reasonable protection to the environment includes landscape management and the control of soil erosion.
This Code contains both ‘general principles’ and an ‘operational approach’ for particular aspects of forest practices, and an ‘outcome’ to be achieved. General principles provide guidance about how specific aspects of forest practices should be approached. The operational approach provides specific prescriptions and requirement. There are also two types of statements in this Code: ‘will’ statements and ‘should’ statements: The ‘will’ statements must be applied in a practical manner to forest practices (‘Must’ statements are considered equivalent to ‘will’ statements). The ‘should’ statements show the desirable practice for most situations and are to be interpreted by a person taking account of local conditions (‘May’ statements are considered equivalent to ‘should’ statements).
In most cases, this Code provides the minimum standards that must be achieved.