What do private forest owners get for their levy?
Each year, over 850 people contact Private Forests Tasmania (PFT) for assistance and advice on a range of matters relating to their forests or forestry in general.
The type of assistance provided varies - ranging from verbal advice over the phone to field inspections that may take half a day, or more, often with further follow up required.
Any (current or intending) forest owner can avail themselves of this service and we provide it free of charge - but it has to be funded somehow.
Most of the funding for this comes from the Government but income from the Levy, charged when a private forest owner engages in commercial harvesting operations, helps underpin our capacity to provide this service among many others.
Apart from the type of service outlined above much of PFT’s support for private forest owners goes unnoticed as the activities often occur largely ‘behind the scenes’.
It should not be underestimated how much of our limited resources are directed towards these activities. Broadly, they are activities that directly or indirectly benefit all private forest owners who choose to actively manage their forests, such as: