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Introduction
a GIS for East Gippsland's forest
By Tony Hastings 5/11/04

This website is part of a Geographic Information System, GIS, created at Friends of the Earth, funded by the Reichstien Foundation. The GIS provides information on the Errinundra Plateau in East Gippsland, and includes as components; maps, webpages, guided bushwalks, surveys, DVDs, artworks, PowerPoint presentations, talks and slideshows.
The GIS project aims to both create and present the system, which has included presentations to the Students of Sustainability conference, the Melbourne Environment Art Festival, Spring Fling (part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival), Eco-fest (at Rye), presentations at Swinburne University, and GIS workshops at GECO & at Computerbank.
Putting a GIS together has required sourcing existing data, in the form of "shapefiles", photographs and video footage, plus conducting surveys to collect new data & verify the datasets.
Case studies were conducted to use & verify the GIS, investigating the areas of Dingo Creek, H ensleigh Creek, Hammonds Road and Goolengook.
The Department of Sustainability and Environment, DSE, have a massive existing GIS system, which includes aerial photograph interpreted data, the "State Forest Resource Inventory", SFRI, the "Flora Information System", FIS, and more. As an example of the size of the system, the FIS contains records of just about every flora survey ever conducted in Victoria, enabling suer to draw a region on the map & see a list of all flora kown to occur there. A public version is called "Wild PLants of Victoria", from Viridans Pty Ltd.
The DSE are making available interactive maps, which have been studied as part of this anlayis. An on-line version of these can be access by clicking HERE.
Satellite imagery, of resoltuion 1pixel=30m, can be accessed via the DEH, click HERE

In summary, the DSE data requires a high level of background knowledge. Forestry technical terms, such as "relative age", "senescing", "stand height" etc are used extensively.
The data proved useful for determining the location of large tracts of relatively undisturbed forest, but was unreliable for any specific details. This is because the data was created from aerial photo interpretation, without ground-truthing surveys. Specifics such as tree height, species, Ecological Vegetation Class, even location of rainforest proved incorrect, although can be used a an indicator that the values described may occur at the site or nearby.

A GIS map of East Gippsland, showing disturbance history, old-growth, Sites of Significance and current reserves. A key is shown at right, generally brown=bad, green=good, blue=brilliant! The large white 'W' shape top centre is the Errinundra National Park. Data for inside the park is not available. The large amount of brown across the top & north-east of the Plateau shows the massive amount of clearfelling of old-growth forest that has ocurred since clearfelling for woodchips began in the1970's.

The Errinundra Plateau, at centre of the picture, in a corner of State Forest bounded by the white National Park, and below the word "queensborough", is Dingo Creek. This area is shaded as both Site of Significance and includes Special Management Zone and Special Protection Zone. Large blue shaded tracts of rainforest are seen adjacent to the south & east. This site has been the focus of surveys and mapping case study, discussed further below. At middle right of picture, recent brown coloured clearfelling can be seen adjacent to blue rainforest areas. This is the region of Hensliegh Creek. Previous and planned coupes in this region have inadequate buffers on rainforest and will destroy threatened species habitat.

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