The headline in a respected shipping monthly screamed: ‘Fasten your seatbelts!’ That seems to sum up the current helter-skelter state of the international dry bulk market in which log exporters like New Zealand must peddle their commodities in compeition with heavyweights like China and India.

Biomass is emerging as a vital component in the sustainable energy armoury of the Australasian forest industry and beyond, as John Halkett reports.

Following tough political talk in Australia about a crackdown against black market wood, the New Zealand Government recently announced a ‘timber procurement policy’ to ensure its departments use wood products from legally and sustainably managed forests. But Greenpeace has labelled the plan ‘toothless’.

More than 75% of Australia’s old forests are locked up in reserves and still state governments want more. But, as Jim Bowden reports, the politicians have got a real fight on their hands.

Australian plantation pine processors have moved on from the aborted SP (structural pine) grading system. But they believe the costly project will help produce a line of innovative machine stress graded (MGP) material that is more reliable and cost competitive than the current crop of products.

Carbon accounting schemes worldwide fail to recognise the fact that wood continues to store carbon long after the trees it comes from are felled.

The massively improved Russian economy has far-reaching implications for the global forest products industry.