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 Our Native Hardwood Industry >
Environmental Concerns
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Woodchipping contracts in native forest timber create too many pressures on the resource. Without this imperative, the sawlogging industry will yield a smaller supply of woodchip as a by-product of milling
- but not to demand-determined supply contracts. Industrial volumes are better supplied from plantation
resource if real economies can be found in this trade.
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Plantation softwoods, steel and engineered wood structural products should totally replace native hardwoods in the specification of wall, floor and roof framing. A higher value of native hardwoods would mandate this trend.
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New technologies such as radial sawing should be used for B-grade log that is currently being used for low-value millings or is
woodchipped.
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Production values in sawmills should be subject to accreditation
to encourage innovation and investment. Maximising log yields and minimising waste should be recognised at the consumer end of timber manufacturing.
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The Appearance Grading Standards (AS 2796) should be modified to give greater validation to the definitive appearance of native hardwoods. It is currently structured to applaud uniformity, lack of feature, and blandness
- none of which typify any native hardwood species. We support a reduction in grades from three to two and a phasing out of Select grade.
1.
Low to moderate feature grade - a combination of Select
& Standard grades / Std & Better
2. Moderate to high feature grade - a combination of Standard & Natural Feature Grade
The sawmilling industry will achieve better yields with such changes and a levelling of the current declining value-slope in timber products such as flooring.
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Logging and sawmilling are old-fashioned or frontier industries that are only released from this condition by innovation
- and by intervention. Native forests have been, in the recent past, poorly served by political action. Policy is often last-minute, on-the-run or the result of wedge positions. Political intervention that is productive and focused is desirable for industries like sawlogging and sawmilling if you regard their survival as a good outcome. We do.
Native hardwood sales should carry an impost that deems a replacement
planting of native sawlog species for every log felled.
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Native
hardwood sales should carry an impost that deems a replacement
planting of native sawlog species for every log felled. This can be
extended to cover imported log or sawn board – else the problem is
exported. Investment in native sawlog plantation requires a
structured approach which is industry-specific, because the cycle of
growth of native hardwoods is 40-50 years to production - even with
developed fast-growth hybrids. Investment in hardwood pulplog
plantations has only a 15 year growth cycle. Why, given this
relativity, would the market invest in sawlog plantations without
encouragement?
Holding an opinion formed by or borrowed from an interest group may
not lead to change or reform in forest practices.
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Native
hardwoods specifying needs to be effective - not idealistic. Not, at
least, in a whimsical way. Holding an opinion formed by or borrowed
from an interest group may not lead to change or reform in forest
practices. It may also lead specifiers to believe alternatives exist
when they clearly do not. Recycled timbers have limited
availability. Plantation hardwood availability in 2009 is even less.
An impetus in planting in the early 1990s put many hectares of
private land under a sawlog planting regime. None of this is
currently available for timber - as you'd expect. The fiction of
plantation hardwood availability is usually expressed in hectares or
tonnes and is read from annual pulplog yields – not sawlog. Of
course, nothing will stop magazine and newspaper articles breezily
reminding you to make sure your timber is ethically-sourced from
plantations or recycled. But then, our pliant media will believe any
comforting fiction until they find confidence in yet another
orthodoxy.
Nothing
is perfect.
Nothing can return our continent to the purely notional pristine
state that existed before man arrived.
Can we then just live in the least-worst world?
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Consider this. Nothing is perfect. Nothing can return our continent to the purely notional pristine state that existed before man arrived. Can we then just live in the least-worst world? Can we look at a few least-worst options in timber-specifying?
Recycled options are not always green. Elites do not fuss about the
road miles and diesel used getting their board of choice trucked
across the country. Regional supply is often overlooked on whim and
never promoted as green by the same media that extols regional
product in food. There is a case for a more measured view of
recycled timbers in comparison with say - Feature Grade floorboards
from an efficient mill with a minimal waste stream that uses all
off-cuts for parquetry and overlays, and kiln-dries with solar
technology.
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