NZ TIMBER

HEALTH BASED BUILDING’S NEW

Foreverbeech demonstration home, featuring a variety of red and silver beech products, has become a popular attraction according to on-site Managing Director, Casey Thomson.

The three-bedroom residence at the Christchurch company’s Colombo Street site features both exterior and interior Foreverbeech, cut from West Coast hardwood beech as well as flooring and decking manufactured at the firm’s Wigram timber processing facility.

Casey explains that the Colombo Street retail premises is stacked with the various timber products. The product is then picked and packed for collection or despatch countrywide via the company’s online marketplace. Clients include DIY, builders, joiners and furniture makers.

The beech is sourced under a partnership deal with Reefton-based Seymour Forestry which practices select stem removal under the Forestry Act, including sustainable logging of native timber. Casey says the way things are going the company is going to have to double the volume of beech to keep up with demand.

Through direct sales from milling to processing, Foreverbeech is proving to be cheaper than exported hardwoods which mostly come from unsustainable clear felling forests in Asia and South America.

Among Foreverbeech products in the Health Based Building’s new Foreverbeech demonstration home at its Colombo Street premises in Christchurch.

show home are laminated beams and veneers which are outsourced from other manufacturers. Other products include a range of window and door frames, and panelling to provide an attractive backdrop to many parts of a residence.

A range of colours can be achieved through the various cuts of the logs, from heartwood to sapwood. Extra colours can also be added as part of a plant-based oil coating process, Casey points out.

The firm also includes other timbers such as radiata pine which is treated with eco-friendly solutions other than toxic arsenic and chromium. The firm now stocks Magnum Board for both internal and external cladding, which Casey says is carbon negative. NZL Above: Health Based Building's timber processing plant in Christchurch.

West Coast native beech timber in demand

WHILE STRICTLY STICKING TO

research on the benefits of select stem logging, Seymour Forestry continues to carefully recover red and silver beech logs under recommended sustainable management systems as part of the Forestry Act.

Owner, Jon Dronfield, says the company is currently milling beech logs extracted from private forests in the Buller at its Reefton mill. Now in a partnership with Health Based Building in Christchurch, he supplies kiln-dried timber for processing and sales to the company.

Jon says the company now employs four full-time staff to cut red and silver beech which is legally sourced from sustainably regulated forests.

“I do all the felling and logging and my three staff mill and dry the timber,” he explains. And he is extremely fussy as to how this is achieved – heli-lifting out between 3-4 tonnes per hectare on a rotational basis.

The Dronfield family bought the Reefton-based mill from previous owners, Sustainable Forest Products, in August 2018, decommissioned the main sawmill and installed a new electric powered Mahoe 12x8 electric sawmill. “This enables us to produce lower volumes of timber but with much reduced operating, labour and maintenance costs,” he says.

The company now processes kiln dried timber, fillet and dry product which is trucked to Health Based Buildings in Christchurch.

“We sell everything we cut exclusively to Health Based Building who purchase it in green sawn state,” Jon explains. “It is then air-dried before we finish it in the Fogarty chip-fed kilns. We are installing a second bandsaw to split 58mm boards and therefore effectively double our sawn throughput.”

The company sources its wood from about 6000 hectares of mostly privately-owned forests in the Buller region – selectively felled and each site recorded for regenerating growth levels. The heli-lifting leaves no tracking or damage affecting biodiversity. A percentage of royalties are earmarked for pest control and forestry management. NZL

Select-logging beech not new

HEALTH BASED BUILDING’S NEW FOREVERBEECH DEMONSTRATION

home, featuring a variety of red and silver beech products, has become a popular attraction according to on-site Managing Director, Casey Thomson.

Native beech was select-logged as far back as the 1920s near the confluence of the Dart and Routeburn rivers east of Lake Sylvan, now part of Mount Aspiring National Park.

The Cook brothers managed to cart their mill across the turbulent Dart River and set it up on site handy to the Sylvan flats back in 1927, where they operated for nearly 10 years. The evidence is still there today on the popular Routeburn/Sylvan Lake walkway.

Back in 1990 I measured stump remnants which were roughly one meter in diameter, estimated at 20-30 stems per hectare. A later interview with one surviving Cook brother, retired in Mosgiel, confirmed that trees were selected on specific form to cut 22-foot bridge beams for creek and river crossings needed for parts of the Western Southland/Te Anau area at the time.

Trees were felled and carted on wooden rails by bullock teams to the mill. The cut board was then bound and floated down-river to Kinloch wharf where it was picked up by the steamships Earnslaw, Ben Lomond and Antrim.

Many of these hardwood beams still prop up bridges to this day. The area where timber was extracted is a scenic parkland with easy access and regenerated beech. Many aged canopy trees still remain, matching some of the 500-year-old beech on the Routeburn track.

A walk through the park still features remnants of wooden rails and bogies which carted the logs. The site is a great example of the regenerating capability of our red beech hardwood species –something foresters on the West Coast continue to research. NZL

Research into beech regeneration continues.

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Comment: Coast logging – an ongoing scenario

IS SELECT STEM LOGGING OF

permanent forests a potential answer for continued local hardwood products? Particularly in these times of climate crisis and Global Warming, many countries in Europe have adapted this system for parkland forests.

On the plus side it creates jobs, cuts down on the $1b plus imports of mostly unsustainable logged hardwoods from sources such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Brazil and mitigates carbon transport emissions. Also, it is competitive across a wide range of products and provides extra funding for pest control and biodiversity.

Back in 1991 I interviewed Kit Richards, forestry scientist with Timberlands West Coast, who was researching natural regenerative capabilities of native podocarp and beech forests after logging operations. This was about the time native logging had been canned on the Coast. Since then I have reported on and written numerous articles on progress for forestry journals and general media.

Richard’s findings, accepted by the industry and stakeholders in general, were that select stem extraction could benefit forests by encouraging new growth due to a canopy break plus increased CO2 uptake. Red beech, which can live for hundreds of years, will sit for decades as seedlings under full canopy – a break in the canopy and the seedlings shoot upwards, in some cases beating P. radiata growth rates.

Under the then Forestry Act, limited removal of native wood was acceptable. With that in mind a plant was set up at Blue Spur in Hokitika to mill and process timber into products. Then in 2015, the Government, under pressure from Coast loggers, passed the Coast Blown Timber (Conservation Land) Act that allowed selected harvesting of trees blown down by Cyclone Ida in 2014 on DoC lands.

This was carefully monitored by the DoC’s Tim Smith and Forestry Ministry researchers where only the base of the stem was removed with all residue to lie in situ on selected sites. However it was to be a brief respite for the Coastal forestry industry with up to eight independent crews salvaging podocarp and beech logs employing over 50 people. The Act concluded in 2019.

Select stem logging continues mainly in the Buller area and in part of western Southland, although the demand for beech products is reported to be escalating.

Extreme wind damage between Harihari and Whataroa in 2014. Some logs were salavaged to make up a nearly one million dollar royalty for the DoC West Coast.

MPI has given token approval under the tenets of the Forestry Act to continue this system but avoids making too much of a song and dance about it. Particularly with the new significant natural area (SNA) rules currently under scrutiny.

Kit suggested that under select stem removal only the butt of the tree was taken out. The rest including branches, tops, offcuts and residue remained in situ providing the humus for regrowth. Stumps were marked and dated with average age, recorded usually between 80 to 100 years old.

What the general public, political leaders and lobbyists need to know is that, in my opinion, this would be the most practical and common-sense way to not only preserve our native forests but also to earn an income to keep up our management systems including biodiversity enhancement and pest control. In a small way it would also help many coasters into an alternative industry rather than relying solely on tourism.

However the industry has suffered a setback in that a select committee Bill before Parliament by MP Maureen Pugh which proposed a move titled Adverse Rimu board from McGrath's Kumara yard destined for a North Island buyer at the conclusion of the Salvaging Act 2018.

Weather Affected Timber Recovery on Selected Department of Conservation Lands was turned down flat by the Government on March 25. This was introduced July 30 last year but was held up due to the elections.

It seems obvious parliamentarians have little knowledge of research into management systems of native forests. Or are just sticking to government policy.

The bet is on that importers of hardwood timber will be popping champagne corks. NZL

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Story: Hayley Leibowitz