A3P and Timber Queensland sign MOU

12 March 2007
LEADING industry councils the Australian Plantation Products and Paper Industry Council (A3P) and Timber Queensland Ltd (TQL) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) confirming their future partnership.
A3P CEO Neil Fisher said the MOU enhanced the existing cooperative relations between the two organisations.
“The A3P and Timber Queensland MOU formalises our joint position on a range of national policy issues such as climate change, emissions trading and structural timber,” Fisher said.
“Our objectives are similar – a strong, profitable and sustainable industry supported by sound government policy, so it makes sense to lock in our future partnership.”
TQL, CEO Rod McInnes said he was pleased to confirm the important alliance and looked forward to enhancing a close working relationship with A3P.

Arch Gears for Big Asia-Pacific Push

A NEW management team to lead the Arch Wood Protection business in the Asia-Pacific region has been announced by managing director Steve Wisnewski.
Arch acquired the Koppers’ share of the Koppers Arch business in July last year.
Graeme Rees, who has been associated with Arch’s wood protection division and its predecessor companies for 22 years, has been appointed managing director for Asia-Pacific. His responsibilities in the region will include Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Malaysia, China and Japan.
Most recently, Rees was general manager for Australia and acting general manager New Zealand.
Rees will lead a management team comprising Kenny Kong, Peter Carruthers, Angelo Hrastov, Ron Moon, David Humphrey and the position of group finance manager.
Kenny Kong as general manager Asia has direct responsibility for operations in Malaysia, China and Japan and retains his current group supply chain role.
Kong was group manager, finance and supply chain. He will be transitioning many of the group finance activities to a group finance manager, yet to be appointed. He has been in wood protection for Arch and its predecessor companies for more than 11 years and will be supported by Kenny Lai, Chithra Subramanian and Ken Yahara.
Peter Carruthers will continue as group market development manager.
Angelo Hrastov has been appointed general manager Australia, responsible for the Australian business unit staff. Previously customer manager Australia, he has 12 years’ service with the company and its predecessors.
Graeme Rees will be directly responsible for the New Zealand business until a general manger is appointed.
Ron Moon fills the new position of international sales manager located in Auckland. He will be responsible for strategic sales growth and maximising market opportunities for customers throughout the region. He has been a contract employee for the past nine years and will join Arch full time.
David Humphrey, previously group science manager, has been appointed group R&D manager with support from Brett Skewes.
In other appointments, Peter Cobham is manager of business development and technology planning. In this new role, Cobham will be responsible for identifying business development opportunities both global and those specific to Asia Pacific; understanding the changes in the global use of timber (solid wood, engineered wood products, composites, etc.), ensuring technology programs match those changes; ensuring that technology innovations are shared across the regions; and developing comprehensive competitive technology profiles.
Cobham will be based in Australia and will report to Ken Christy. He has been with Arch Wood Protection and its predecessor companies for 12 years and most recently was group R&D manager.
“Recognising that China will be a critical growth area for our business in the future, Kenny Lai has been appointed general manager China,” Steve Wisnewski said.
“Kenny will now be devoting his efforts full time to positioning our business in China in order to achieve maximum growth and profitability.”

Measuring Carbon in Forests at the Speed of Light

CSIRO is collaborating in a NASA-funded project, using a CSIRO-designed instrument, to help develop new methods of measuring forest carbon stores on a large scale.
Forests are the world's main above-ground carbon store and are therefore critical in controlling the global carbon cycle. But estimating the amount of carbon stored in forests over a large scale is difficult.
An American project is using the CSIRO-designed ECHIDNA instrument, together with airborne sensors, to provide a practical technique for broad-scale structural mapping of forests.
CSIRO carbon accounting expert Dr Phil Polglase says the project is important to international research efforts to provide improved estimates of carbon stored in forests.
"Australia, along with other countries, reports on its greenhouse gas emissions from the land-use sector and this research offers a new method to improve our carbon estimates across large scales," Polglase says.
The ECHIDNA is a patented ground-based light detection and ranging (LiDAR) instrument which CSIRO began developing in 2001. CSIRO later worked closely with Forest and Wood Products Australia during development and validation. The ECHIDNA has been used extensively to assess the three-dimensional structure of tree trunks, branches and leaves. These forest structural variables can be used to help estimate forest biomass.
The NASA project is extending this work by integrating the ECHIDNA with other LiDAR technologies, says CSIRO remote sensing scientist Dr Glenn Newnham.
"We're meeting the challenge of providing reliable biomass estimates over large areas by combining the detail from the ECHIDNA on the ground with the broad-scale airborne LiDAR data," Newnham says.
"We're expecting that this method will lead to more accurate and efficient mapping and monitoring of forest biomass and, as a result, a better understanding of the influence of forest carbon stores on the global carbon cycle."

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