dataset: MOG2009

MOG2009 is now OBSOLETE Please refer to FORESTS.MOG for updated extent. Old growth forest was defined under the Code of Practice 2007 as forest which contains significant amounts of its oldest growth stage in the upper stratum usually senescing trees and has not been subjected to any disturbance, and if so the effect of which is now negligible. This data layer contains modelled old-growth forest which was updated by the department in 2009 in consideration of historical timber harvesting and fire disturbances. Previous old growth base layers used different sources to establish MOG 2009. The base layer in the western part of the state was og100 and the base layer for the eastern Victoria, other than East Gippsland FMA was mog2003. The base layer for East Gippsland FMA was mog100-2007eg. In the process to develop MOG2009, the previous old growth base layers were updated where necessary with the following input datasets : Lastlog25 (current to Jun 2013-14), lastburnt100 (current to the end of the 2009-10 fire season), fire_sev2006, fire_sev2007ap, fire_sev2007sp and fire_sev2009_poly (in East Gippsland FMA only). The old growth forests in the base layers were identified to meet the Victorian definition of old growth forest based on a set of modelling criteria, rules and input datasets. The data is not considered to be reliable (definitive) at scales less than 1:100,000. The old growth polygons should be treated as modelled information and whilst care has been taken in developing this layer, there is no guarantee that the information has been confirmed through extensive field checking. While some limited validation of Old growth polygons has been carried out in most studies, significant levels of field checking were undertaken in the mapping of analysis input datasets.