Revised New Zealand standards for structural lumber and new procedures for the verification of timber grading mean forest owners need to be more certain than ever their output will be strong enough to make the grade.
The mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae, has been chewing its way through British Columbia’s forests for the past five years. Last year an area over half the size of New Zealand’s North Island was infested and now there are fears that some forestry-based rural communities will be knocked right off the map. Bill Dyck reports.
Delegates at the annual Forest Industry Engineering Association’s conference in Auckland last month were treated to a topical programme focused on the impending changes, in Australian and New Zealand, to the regulations involving visual and machine stress graded timber.
As generic wood promotions go, there may be none better than those of the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC). As Tony Neilson discovered on a recent visit to China, the formula could be heading Down Under.
It was a red letter day for the New Zealand forestry and wood products industry when the pan-industry organisation WoodCo persuaded the June meeting of growers, processors, manufacturers and contractors to come up with the cash necessary to clinch Forest Industry Development Association (FIDA) funding for a generic wood promotion campaign aimed at the domestic market.
The Australian plantation business is booming – the past few years have returned planting rates of 70-90,000 ha and the national target is to achieve 3 million ha by 2020. But there is concern about the amount of land being turned over to trees and the Government is under pressure to change a tax regime that has encouraged forestry investment. John Halkett reports.
In the New Zealand market scaled down harvesting has brought a steadier balance of supply while returns on log exports continue to improve with demand strong in the major markets
Radiata pine exporters to Korea are not a happy lot these days – on top of increasing freight rates and poor returns, volumes are down, largely because the Korean Government is taking active measures to discourage speculative investment in real estate and dampen the construction sector.
Most of New Zealand’s log exports now exit through the hands of ‘log traders’. But some suggest this outsourcing of sales and marketing runs counter to the forest industry’s supposed commitment to structured overseas market development and the aspiration to identify more closely with customer requirements. Vivienne McLean talks to some of the key ‘traders’.
