Socio-economic impacts of plantation forestry in the Great Southern Region of WA, 1991 to 2004

A rapid expansion of plantations occurred over 1991 to 2001 in the Great Southern region of Western Australia. From an estate of only 6,150 hectares in 1991, the total area of plantations expanded to just under 127,500 hectares by the start of 2001. Most plantations are located in three local government areas in the region - Albany, Plantagenet and Cranbrook. This represents a significant land use change over a relatively short time. This study examined the socio-economic impacts of this change over 1991 to 2004 by analysing trends in key agricultural industries, employment and investment by the plantation sector, population living in rural areas and towns, socio-demographic characteristics of the population, provision of key services including education, retail, government, health, community groups and rural fire fighting services, and rural land prices. The study found that the pattern of socio-economic change occurring across 'plantation' and 'non plantation' regions of the Great Southern has been a result of a number of underlying drivers particularly increasing input costs, and stable or falling real prices for many agricultural products requiring farmers across the region to 'get big or get out', few young people entering farming with a rapidly ageing farming population, increasing shift of population towards coastal areas and onto 'lifestyle' rural residential blocks, particularly in higher rainfall areas, introduction of new land uses in high rainfall areas, particularly plantations and viticulture and withdrawal of services from smaller rural areas into regional centres, leading to a pattern of growth in larger towns and decline in surrounding smaller population centres. These drivers have led to different types of land use change in different parts of the Great Southern, with a shift to plantations and viticulture in areas suitable for development of these enterprises, while in other areas individual farm enterprises have tended to become larger through processes of farm amalgamation. Opportunities for diversification of land uses have generally occurred in high rainfall areas. As a result, land use change in these areas has tended to be from traditional agriculture to new land uses. These areas have also been attractive to 'lifestyle' rural residents. As a result, high rainfall areas have experienced more growth in population and associated services than the lower rainfall areas with higher dependence on broadacre agriculture. Plantation expansion has not led to higher rates of rural decline at the local government area scale.