Northern Rivers Private Forestry Development Committee Web Site

A PROFILE OF THE NORTHERN NSW PRIVATE FOREST RESOURCE AND THE PRIVATE NATIVE FOREST INDUSTRY

3. The Existing Private Hardwood Resource

3.1 Historical Aspects

Historically, private property has been a major source of timber to the north coast forest industry since the second part of the 19th century.

For many years about one third of the annual input to the timber industry in northern NSW has been supplied from private property. Many of the larger sawmills and processing plants in obtain some proportion of their log supply from private property and for the Crown sawmills this supply supplements their allocation from Forests NSW (formerly State Forests of NSW). Most of the smaller sawmills rely totally on the private forest resource.

There has been a decline in sawmilling activity on the New England Tablelands since the mid 1990’s, with the closure of large mills at Tenterfield, Glen Innes and Drake. Smaller sawmills are now the main processors of private resource on the tablelands, although some resource from the northern area (Tenterfield) and eastern area (around Walcha) is still sold to sawmills on the coast.

Increasingly the larger Crown sawmills and processors are becoming more reliant on the private native forest resource. Since the late 1970’s, and more significantly over the last 10 years, large areas of State Forest have been converted to National Park as a result of NSW Government forest policy. With the reduction in the resource base annual allocations have been reduced, with the result that almost all of the Crown sawmills and processors now seek supplementary resource from private property. For some mills the change in the Crown/private intake has been dramatic, with up to 40-50% of their resource now coming from private property. Prior to the major forestry decisions of the last decade some of these mills had little if any reliance on private resource.

Two other developments have occurred as a result of the reduction in Crown resource. The first is a significant increase in the stumpage value of private native hardwoods. This can be attributed to an increase in demand and hence competition for the private resource (particularly from larger mills used to paying Government stumpage rates), as well as a growing awareness amongst private forest owners of the value (and increasing scarcity) of good quality hardwood logs. The other notable development has been the increasing interest from the NSW Government (Forests NSW) in either land purchase or the acquisition of management rights over private forests. Some properties in northern NSW have been purchased for their timber resource in the last 3-5 years, although any further significant purchases are likely be restricted by available funding. Private forests acquired either through purchase or management rights have been used to supplement supplies from State Forest and satisfy contractual arrangements Forests NSW has with its Crown customers. There is little doubt that, given a workable regulatory climate under which landowners are encouraged to sustainably manage their resource, private native forests and plantations will continue to support many small mills that are totally reliant on the resource, as well as many larger mills for which the resource has become an essential supplementary feedstock for their businesses.

The importance of the private native forest and plantation resource to the timber industry in northern NSW is discussed in Section 7. Regulation of private native forest and plantation management is discussed in Section 8.

3.2 Hardwood Timber Yields from Private Forests

The private native hardwood forests of northern NSW yield the same range of products as Crown forests. Whilst most of the smaller sawmills purchase mainly sawlogs and salvage logs, the larger mills and processing plants are increasingly relying on private forests for high quality sawlogs, poles, girders and veneer logs. Products sourced from private forests include:

Sawlogs, generally with a minimum centre diameter under bark (cdub) of about 30 centimetres and within specified internal and external defect limits. Sawlogs produce a wide range of sawn timber products, including heavy construction and general building timbers, flooring, internal and external feature and lining timbers and furniture components.

Salvage sawlogs, logs that do not meet the quality specifications for sawlogs but have recoverable timber in them. They are in demand for the production of lower grade timber such as pallets and palings, although the better quality salvage logs do produce building grade timber and other products.

Veneer or Peeler Logs are high quality logs that meet strict species, defect and size specifications for veneer or ply manufacture. Veneers and plywood are used for a wide range of industrial, commercial and domestic applications, from formwork to external and internal linings and furniture components.

Poles, Piles and Girders are logs that meet the strength, durability, species and defect specifications for electricity and communications transmission in the case of poles, driven wharf and bridge timber in the case of piles, and round and hewn wharf, culvert and bridge timber in the case of girders.

Pulpwood refers to logs that do not meet the specifications of any of the above categories, although there would generally be minimum diameter requirements and some species may not be acceptable. In a native forest situation pulpwood would also include residues from the head of felled trees and in a plantation early thinnings that are too small to satisfy other log grade specifications.

Although the term pulpwood implies paper production, it also refers to logs suitable for the manufacture of reconstituted wood products such as medium density fibreboard. A major consideration is often the amount of useable fibre, and other things being equal young thinnings type timber (from either plantations or regrowth native forest) is sought after because of its relatively high fibre yield.

Pulpwood has never been produced in any significant quantity from private property in northern NSW, originally because of the regulatory controls on exports of woodchip sourced from private property and the limited markets. More recently the Regional Forest Agreement for north eastern NSW allows pulpwood production from private forest, however distance from ports and fluctuating markets limits the economic viability of pulpwood operations from a large part of the northern NSW private forest resource. There are however several private plantation development companies that are growing hardwood plantations for the export woodchip market.

3.3 Management of Private Native Forests and Plantations

3.3.1 Native Forests

Most of the native forest on private property in northern NSW is owned by landholders for which income from timber production is secondary to agricultural pursuits (grazing, cropping or a combination of both). There is wide variation in the proportion of native forest on individual land holdings, ranging from less than 5% of a property to properties that are entirely forested. Areas on individual holdings vary from less than 10 hectares (eg, areas retained as “cattle camps”) to in excess of 5,000 hectares. There are properties that are maintained solely for timber production, some of which are owned by sawmilling companies and managed as part of their long term resource. The forest on these properties often occupies the entire area.

In recent years there has seen a significant increase in demand for the private native forest resource, as more of the traditional Crown sawmillers enter the private resource market. With this increase in demand has come a noticeable increase in the value of the private native forest resource.

Generally the private forest areas in northern NSW have a long logging history. By and large there has been a pattern of initial exploitation of the resource many years ago, followed by a number of subsequent selective loggings. The primary aim of forest management on these properties has been to periodically sell timber when the demand arises, either as a result of industry interest in the resource or as an owner driven decision to realise additional income, and to then wait a period of time until a further commercial cut is available. On many properties with larger forest areas there is also a fairly consistent pattern of late winter and spring burning to control undergrowth and promote native pasture for cattle grazing.

Sometimes logging operations have been contractor managed rather than landowner managed and the result has been the removal of most if not all merchantable timber, rather than retaining a range of growth stages for future logging events. However this approach is by no means universal and many properties have been well managed despite the landholder having little knowledge of silviculture.

The end result of this management history is that the private timber resource is often characterised by stands that are typically dominated by young to semi-mature regrowth timber and area more open than those commonly seen on State Forest. Because of age and stand structure individual stems are probably growing faster on many private properties than is the average on State Forests. However because of such factors as the retention of higher numbers of unmerchantable stems, low stocking rates, site factors and the limited protection provided, volume production would be lower than might be expected.

3.3.2 Plantations

The development of plantations on private land in northern NSW is a relatively recent phenomenon. Although there were some small softwood plantations and even smaller hardwood plantation areas on private land prior to 1994, the real impetus for hardwood plantation development commenced in that year when Forests NSW (then State Forests of NSW) introduced their Joint Venture program. Within a few years private companies had also started to establish plantations and more than 30,000 hectares have been established since 1994, most of which is on private land. More information is provided in Section 6.

As at 2005 most of this plantation area is still sub-merchantable. To date management of the bulk of the private plantation area established since the early 1990’s has focused on weed, pest and fire management as well as some non-commercial thinning and pruning. Nevertheless some of the private plantations being grown specifically for pulpwood production will soon come on line for a first harvest.

Forests NSW and others have been conducting some thinning and wood utilisation trials. With funding from the Forest and Wood Products Research and Development Corporation, the Northern Rivers Private Forest Development Committee, in partnership with Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries and Forest NSW and in collaboration with the industry, are midway through a commercial utilisation of plantation thinnings project.

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