Plantation Forestry in the South West Slopes Region NSW

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Plantation Forestry in the South West Slopes
Region (NSW)

• Presentation by
• Christopher Adams
• General Manager
• Tumut Shire Council

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Tumut Shire Statistics

• Area 4600sq km
• Population 11500
• Towns are Tumut, Batlow, Adelong, Talbingo,
  Cabramurra, Brungle
• Council budget in 2006/07 30M.
• Economy based on plantation timber, power, water,
  horticulture, tourism, sheep/cattle
• 62.3 of the Shire is non rateable

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Overview of the Plantation Industry

• Mainly Pinus Radiata
• 116,300 hectares on SW Slopes
• 62,500ha Murray region of Victoria
• 74 publicly owned, 26 privately owned
• Plantations in Tumut, Tumbarumba, Greater Hume
  and Gundagai Shires
• Processing centres in Tumut, Wagga Wagga,
  Tumbarumba, Albury. Only fully integrated timber
  industry in Australia.
• Direct employment 1680 jobs
• Indirect jobs 3,250

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Processors

• Tumut Visy (paper), Weyerhaeuser (sawn timber),
  Carter Holt Harvey (panels)
• Tumbarumba Hyne (sawn timber)
• Wagga Wagga Ausply (ply and laminated beams)
• Albury Norske Skog (newsprint)

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Areas of Softwood Plantation in 2004
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Volume of timber transported in the SWS (000
tonnes or cubic metres)
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Employment

• Has remained relatively steady, despite increases
  in production
• Over 95 full time employment
• 5 part time or casual
• 2003 2004, 66 direct employment
• 90 of direct jobs in the region
• Tumut over 900 jobs
• Tumbarumba over 200 jobs
• One new job in region for every 63ha of new
  plantation

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Socioeconomic Change and the Plantation Industry
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Socio-Demographic Change and the Plantation
Industry

• Small towns with strong timber presence had
  higher population growth
• Stronger growth in working age population
• More consistent growth in household income
• Communities were becoming more highly qualified

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Forest Production Vs other Agricultural Production

• Plantation Pine 20
  t/ha/a
• Plantation hardwood 22 t/ha/a
• Rice (irrigated) 9
  t/ha/a
• Wheat (dryland) 5
  t/ha/a
• Apples
  25 t/ha/a
• Grapes
  15 t/ha/a
• Milk
  14 t/ha/a
• Sheep
  0.7t/ha/a
• Cattle
  0.75t/ha/a

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Production from hypothetical 1000 ha plantation

• First thinning, age 13 years 132,000t all
  pulpwood
• Second thinning, age 23 years, 165,000t mix of
  pulp wood and sawlog
• Harvest, age 33 years, 363,000t, mainly sawlog
• Total production from plantation 660,000t

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Forest Resources in the South West Slopes
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Forest Product Processing in the South West
Slopes Region
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Resource Utilisation (present)

• South West Slopes
• Total of 1.87 million m3 forest resources
• 964,450 m3 of sawlogs
• 907,000 m3 pulpwood
• Outside Region
• 266,750 m3 of sawlogs and pulpwood and
• 87,250 m3 of sawmill residues

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Current and Planned Investment in Wood Processing
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Regional Plantation Development

• Availability of softwood resources expected to be
  inadequate to meet the demand for wood resources
• New plantings required of 2,500 3,500 ha over
  the next 10 15 years across public and
  privately owned plantations
• Plantation owners Forests NSW, Willmotts,
  Gunns, Hume Forests

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Future Timber Demand

• Vision 2020 trebling of Australias plantation
  timber resource by 2020
• Current softwood supply 8M cu m rising to 10 M cu
  m by 2020
• Domestic demand is expected to be 12 M cu m by
  2020.
• Shortfall met by imports

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Asia/Pacific Demand for Timber Products

• Paper products increasing at 3.8 pa
• Panels increasing at 3.1 pa
• Sawn timber increasing at 1 pa

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Asia/Pacific Supply

• Currently a 21M cu m shortfall in production
• Deforestation occurring at 3.9 to 4.5 M ha pa

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Australian Softwood Sawlog Availability
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Projected Softwood Timber Consumption
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Other Future Changes?

• Climate change
• Carbon trading/sequestration
• Salt credits
• Mass limits on transport vehicles
• Configurations of transport vehicles

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Strategic Road Network
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Detailed Road Network
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Transport Impact of Visys Expansion Plans
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Actions to Date

• Softwoods Working Party been going for over 20
  years log haul strategies, socio economic
  studies, economic studies of transport routes.
• Roads to Recovery applications for projects
  across the region
• Lobbying - 5M from Feds in 1999 4M from State
  in 2003
• Auslink application for reopening of Rail
• Seats membership?

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