Events leading to the World Heritage listing of north Queensland rainforests and subsequent ban on timber harvesting result from a number of factors including insufficient education of an increasingly articulate and environmentally aware public. Foresters should meet this challenge by renewing efforts to collect reliable information on the multi-resource values of forest areas. GIS has the potential to contribute to this process, particularly when applied as part of a multi-resource decision support system. Source data for multi-resource management could be collected in conjunction with timber inventory, provided additional funding is made available. Use of a GIS as a map overlaying tool can be prone to error unless its users are fully aware of limitations that can arise with this approach. Any multi-resource strategy should be phased into existing timber inventory programmes. Full scale adoption of a multi-resource decision support system in forest services is not likely to occur until the full cost of land use conflicts is included in the cost benefit equation
