AUGUST 2012 Issue 5, Vol. 21 • P: (03) 9888 4834 • F: (03) 9888 4840 • E: lmartin@forestsandtimber.com.au • www.timberbiz.com.au
To the point Queensland Forestry Minister John McVeigh plans to revive the lagging fortunes of Queensland’s timber industry. He said his department and Timber Queensland would jointly develop an industry plan to provide a road map for the future. Timber Queensland is not surprised by a report that shows a rapid decline in the number of sawmills. The report by the ABARES shows log processing mills have declined 70% over the past decade to just 332. The decline is due to a move towards larger mills producing more timber and the locking-up of stands has also played a part. Tasmania’s forest industry has welcomed new research funding, saying it will complement the state’s forest peace agreement. The Federal Government announced $5 million in research funding for the forestry and aquaculture industries. The money will be used to set up an Experimental Aquaculture Facility and National Institute for Future Forest Industries, both in Hobart. TWENTY-four more jobs will be lost across NSW as the Government attempts to restructure and corporatise Forests NSW. The job cuts include closing five workshops in Wauchope, Eden, Batemans Bay, Toronto, and Grafton with a total of 11 job losses. Thirteen jobs will also be cut in the Brigalow Region.
Woodchip facility Portland.
Hammer set to fall on woodchip port facility A
USTRALIAN BLUEGUM Plantations, a subsidiary of US-based firm Global Forest Partners, has been touted as the likely buyer of Gunns Portland site. As this edition of AFTN went to press there had been no official move on the sale for a reported $60 million. Gunns, which has a 25-year lease on a 4ha site at Portland, had been seeking to finalise the transaction before June 30 but several factors, including an investigation by the ACCC, delayed the completion. Gunns built a stockpiling and ship loading facility at the Port of Portland over 2009/10 at a cost of $24 million to support its plantation operations in the
Green Triangle, on the border of South Australia and Victoria. It had also planned to use the facility to load up to 1.5 million tonnes of woodchips to be used as feedstock in the $2.3 billion Bell Bay pulp mill. However, a need to liquidate assets forced the Portland sale as Gunns focuses on progressing its $2.5 billion pulp mill project at Bell Bay in Tasmania. According to a Gunns spokesperson, “there’s an orderly (sales) process happening”. A spokesperson said Gunns had originally expected the Portland facility would be used as a transit point for woodchips from the “Green Triangle” in Victoria and South Australia to
Labor plan sounds death knell for WA native forest logging STATE LABOR is planning a new forest policy that could include a halt to all native logging or ban the felling of jarrah in West Australia. Shadow environment minister Sally Talbot said the final policy was yet to be determined but Labor was taking “very seriously” two Environmental Protection Authority reports since 2010 that noted the northern jarrah forest was unlikely to sustain current logging levels. “There are a whole series of policies being worked on and certainly we are interested in native forests, I mean Labor’s got the runs on the board as far as ending the logging of old growth goes,” Dr Talbot said. David Gosatti, group manager of fabricated timber manufacturer Inglewood Products, said a ban on
native logging would sound the death knell for his 50-year-old family business. “There’s no alternative timbers for us to mill,” he said. “We’ve done a lot of work with the Forest Products Commission on plantation timber. “But for using them in products that we produce - which is joinery, flooring and other building products - none are suitable in that you can import cheaper timbers that are of better quality than we have access to here.” An estimated 3000 people were directly or indirectly employed by the native logging industry and a ban would result in mill closures and impact on regional communities. Old-growth forests are native forests that have never been logged.
be sent to feed the pulp mill in Tasmania, however, it is now believed there is a sufficient source of woodchips available in Tasmania.
“So, the strategic benefit of the port is now less,” the spokesperson said. “Also, Gunns is really going to be a pulp producer rather than a woodchip exporter.”