Latest news with #forestry
ABC News
18 hours ago
- Business
- ABC News
Forestry companies shift focus to pine to meet demand for housing timber
An increasing demand for timber to meet Australia's housing targets is set to drive a change in focus for one of Australia's largest forestry regions. The Green Triangle, situated across the southern South Australia-Victorian border, has about 334,000 hectares of plantations, representing 17 per cent of Australia's forestry industry. The region grows a mix of softwood timber, primarily used in domestic construction, and hardwood, which is often exported as wood chips and used in paper manufacturing. But as Australia looks to meet its goal of building 1.2 million new homes by 2029, investment in softwood is growing fast. "Both the state and the federal governments have incentives in place for industry and private investors to grow radiata pine," University of Melbourne forest ecologist Rod Keenan said. "We are seeing an increasing area of pine being established now, and that's aimed at meeting that future need for timber for housing construction." On Wednesday, Mount Gambier-based OneFortyOne announced it had purchased about 15,000ha of existing plantations in the Green Triangle and Western Australia. The land was previously owned by investment management firm New Forests. Hardwood blue gum plantations make up about 75 per cent of that new purchase. OneFortyOne chief executive Wendy Norris said the company planned to convert the majority into softwood radiata pine within the next five years. "The sawlog timber we're growing from our radiata pine is really high quality and the domestic market wants it," she said. OneFortyOne also owns one of the largest timber processing mills in the region, which processes softwood for construction timber. While housing demand is driving public and private investment in softwoods, Ms Norris said carbon credits played a role in planting more pine. "Bluegum grows for about seven years and when you convert to radiata pine you grow your growing cycle to about 30 years," she said. "You store a lot more carbon in the tree when you grow it for that long and you earn more carbon credits. "That's part of the economic decision when you convert from blue gum to long-term renewable pine plantations." Professor Keenan said climate change and drying conditions would play a role in forestry's future. "The blue gums are typically quite water-hungry and some of the sites they were planted on are probably not that suitable for blue gum these days and becoming less suitable as the climate becomes drier," he said. "The radiata pine is more tolerant of those dry conditions, so by replacing blue gum with pine, we're likely to see more resilient plantations to climate change." South Australian Forest Products Association chief executive Nathan Paine said OneFortyOne's purchase bucked a recent trend. "Over the past decade, when there have been large sales, we've seen that land revert to general agriculture and we've lost those forests," he said. "It's a shot in the arm for these 21,300 South Australians who work directly and indirectly in forest industries in Australia." Despite an industry trend towards timber for housing, Mr Paine said there was a future for blue gum in Australia. "There has been a view more generally that hardwood or blue gum doesn't yield the same job multiplier in terms of the jobs that go to processing the trees and producing the products we need," he said. "What industry is doing, though, is actually investing heavily in the alternatives to using blue gum domestically. "I don't think we should underestimate the importance of bluegum fibre in a lot of products we use."
CBC
2 days ago
- General
- CBC
Quebec's proposed forest management plan sparks tensions with Indigenous communities
Consultations are underway on Bill 97 at the National Assembly, and there's lots of anger. The legislation aims to modernize the way forests are managed in Quebec. But the Assembly of First Nations thinks the bond of trust with the natural resources minister is broken, and blockades of forest roads is probably the tip of the iceberg.
E&E News
3 days ago
- Business
- E&E News
Trump budget takes hatchet to farms and forestry
The Trump administration's budget request for the next fiscal year would curb help to farmers for conservation efforts and cut off forestry funds for state and privately owned lands, while boosting the fight against plant and livestock pests and diseases. Those are some of the themes emerging from the more detailed spending wish list the administration released late Friday for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. Presidential budget requests typically don't go very far in Congress, where lawmakers are less likely to embrace the most far-reaching spending reductions. But the Trump request reflects the administration's priorities and offers some hints about planned agency reorganizations. Advertisement Total discretionary spending would fall by about 22 percent, to $22.1 billion, at the Department of Agriculture, the administration said.
RNZ News
4 days ago
- Business
- RNZ News
Environmentalists see forestry changes as dangerous step for Tai Rāwhiti
A Gisborne beach covered in wood debris after Cyclone Gabrielle. Photo: Supplied / Manu Caddie Tai Rāwhiti environmentalists have called changes for commercial forestry under proposed Resource Management Act reforms "a slap in the face" and a return to weaker forestry regulations. Local groups are preparing to make submissions on proposed changes to the way forestry is managed after consultation on the Resource Management Act opened on Thursday. The proposals would make it harder for councils to have their own discretion in setting stricter rules to control tree planting. Gisborne District Council (GDC) said the proposed changes grant both "real opportunities" and "some challenges". The Eastland Wood Council (EWC) is still considering its options around submitting. Mana Taiao Tai Rāwhiti (MTT), the group behind a 12,000-signature petition that triggered the Ministerial Inquiry into Land Use (MILU) in Tai Rāwhiti and Wairoa, claimed the Government was relaxing "already permissive forestry rules". The inquiry, published in May 2023, followed the destruction caused by Cyclone Gabrielle and other major storms, when woody debris, forestry slash and sedimentation flooded the region's land, waterways and infrastructure. At the time of the inquiry's findings, the previous Government announced actions to reduce the risk of a Gabrielle repeat. MTT spokeswoman and Ruatōria resident Tui Warmenhoven said, "We were promised stronger protections - what we're getting is deregulation dressed as reform." The proposed changes were "a slap in the face to the hundreds of whānau who've already paid the price for poor forestry regulations", said Warmenhoven in a group statement. Another part of the proposed changes will require a Slash Mobilisation Risk Assessment as part of all harvest management plans. It would also consider refining requirements to remove all slash above a certain size from forest cutovers. MTT welcomed the proposed requirement for Slash Mobilisation Risk Assessments, however, it warned "this would be ineffective without enforceable planning requirements and local oversight". "A slash assessment without an afforestation plan is meaningless - it's a partial fix that ignores the root of the problem," said Warmenhoven. "We've already seen what happens when forestry is left to regulate itself and the problems with planting shallow-rooting pine on erosion-prone slopes. We are also concerned about the removal of references to woody debris, given that whole pine plantations collapsed during Cyclone Gabrielle and still line many waterways in the region." Last September, EWC chairman Julian Kohn said forestry firms were "bleeding money", with many companies finding Gisborne too costly to invest in. Speaking with Local Democracy Reporting, Kohn said EWC was still considering whether to submit its own response or work with other council members to make submissions. "We've been working closely with the minister and advocating for what we see needs to be real change in respect of some of the causes in the NES-CF [National Environmental Standards for Commercial Forestry]," said Kohn. "Our real concern is that the way the council is treating many of these consents and these enforcement orders are literally sending these forest companies to the wall." He said forestry companies would close if things continued the way they were, which would leave forests unmanaged and unharvested. "Next time we have a rain event, then some of those trees which have been locked up are going to come down the waterways, which is exactly what everybody wants to try to prevent." GDC's director of sustainable futures, Jocelyne Allen, said the consultation documents came "as no surprise" as they were broad and aligned with what the council had seen in the Cabinet paper and Expert Advisory Group report. "The packages cover infrastructure, the primary sector, freshwater, and urban growth, all areas that matter deeply to our region. "There are real opportunities here, but also some challenges, and we're taking the time to work through both carefully," she said. The council intends to submit a response and will be taking a strategic and collaborative approach to doing so, including engaging with tangata whenua, whānau, hapū and iwi across the region and working through its sector networks, particularly the Local Government Special Interest Groups and Te Uru Kahika, said Allen. Before the announcement of the proposed changes, in an email to Local Democracy Reporting on Monday, Primary Industries and Forestry Minister Todd McClay said forestry played an important role in the economy and provided many jobs on the East Coast. "The Government is working closely with the GDC and respected members of the forestry industry, farming and iwi to manage and reduce risk through better and more practical rules rather than blanket restrictions or bans." He said they are reviewing slash management practices and will amend the NES-CF so councils can focus on the most at-risk areas, lower costs and deliver better social and environmental outcomes. "We want them to focus on high-risk areas, which is what GDC is currently doing, rather than suggesting that there should no longer be any forestry in the Tai Rāwhiti region," he said. LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air. 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E&E News
28-05-2025
- General
- E&E News
Birthplace of US forestry faces long recovery
ASHEVILLE, North Carolina — Around the turn of the 20th century, George Vanderbilt turned tens of thousands of acres of tired farmland and tattered woods into one of the country's first experiments with professional forestry. Vanderbilt, a grandson of the shipping and railroad baron Cornelius Vanderbilt, first came to Asheville in 1888 with his mother, who sought out the mountainous area to recuperate from a long bout with malaria. George built a 125,000-acre summer estate here that was completed in 1895. Much of that land later became the Pisgah National Forest. What remains in the family is the 8,000-acre luxurious Biltmore Estate, now going through one of the tougher tests since Vanderbilt's time: remaking parts of the forest after Hurricane Helene flattened trees across entire hilltops. Advertisement Andy Tait, a consulting forester on the property, is mindful of the history.
