A multi-agency taskforce set up to conserve and rebuild the iconic timber bridges of New South Wales has hit a major snag – most of the suitable logs are locked away in nature reserves.

While the Government allows the booming New Zealand dairy industry to continue seriously polluting inland waterways and adversely affect other aspects of the environment, carbon-storing forestry is about to be clobbered. Michael Dover tries to make some sense of the situation.

New Zealand forestry minister Jim Anderton went to Bali in December with a new strategy to save the world from illegal logging and add value to ‘legitimate’ forestry, as Tony Neilson reports.

A ‘demonstration’ of sorts is being planned by the New Zealand Government to show Green Building Council and others that wood should be receiving a better deal.

Research into carbon-enriched dark soil such as the Amazon's ‘dark earths’ in Brazil has found that ‘biochar’ could be a solution to some of New Zealand’s more difficult environmental challenges, as Michael Dover reports.

New South Wales sawmiller Australian Solar Timbers (AST) at Kempsey on the north coast has become mainland Australia’s first hardwood flooring company to achieve accreditation under the Australian Forestry Standard (AFS) Chain of Custody Certification Scheme.

The following backgrounder on the achievements and goals of the Australian Plantation Products and Paper Industry Council (A3P) is based on information supplied by the council following our article in issue #77, Natural Selection – more upheaval among Aussie bodies, in which Jim Bowden reported on the possible future of A3P in the context of changes among Australian wood industry organisations. – Editor.

The possible sale of New South Wales state plantations is back in the spotlight, fuelled by widely reported speculation that more asset sales to finance growth are in the pipeline – as John Halkett reports.