The Role of Eucalypt Plantations in Timber Supply and Forest Conservation in Australia

1990

S. 299-310

2 Tab., 30 Lit. Ang.

Unselbständiges Werk

200085854

Supplies of timber in Australia will increase rapidly over the next 20 years as trees in existing softwood plantations reach harvestable size. Demand for sawlogs is expected to be almost satisfied from domestic supply by the year 2010, despite reduced supplies from native forests. Supply of pulplogs is expected to substantially exceed demand over the next 40 years but existing capacity to produce pulp and paper in Australia is well below domestic consumption. Softwood plantations that were established despite major opposition from conservation organisations, now play a major role in wood supply and have reduced our dependence on native forests. There is strong pressure from conservation organisations to cease logging in old-growth forests and a conservation oriented forest strategy has been proposed that includes increased establishment of eucalypt plantations for sawlogs and pulpwood. Relatively small areas of eucalypt plantation have been established to date but the rate of new planting has recently increased. Results of recent research demonstrate that growth rates of eucalyptus in Australia can match the best achieved overseas. Investment in plantations to produce pulpwood on short rotations would provide a good return but growing sawlogs on longer rotations would be less profitable and optimum management regimes have not been defined. However, application of more intensive management regimes in existing regrowth forests can reduce expected rotation lengths, improve productivity and produce both sawlogs and pulpwood. A conservation oriented timber stratefy that relies on production of sawlogs from plantations and is not seed as feasible at this point in time. A strategy based on pulpwood plantations at strategic locations near mulpmill sites is proposed, combined with more intensive management of regrowth forests to provide both sawlogs and pulpwood for industrial development. A substantial increase in research and development is required to improve productivity and wood quality of trees grown in plantations. In locations where insufficient private land is available for plantations to support a mill, areas of native forest should be leased to industry for plantations development. These plantations would provide experimental sites for research to define optimum management regimes required to produce sawlogs from plantation-grown trees so that areas of high conservation value can be removed from timber production in the future.