Forest Products Industry

The final fire tower on the Limestone Coast at Penola has gone fully operational in time for the 2024-25 bushfire season. Source: Timberbiz This is the final leg of a partnership between the State Government and the forest industry which has seen an investment of almost $5 million in landscape level fire detection. This will help protect the forest estate and over 21,300 direct and indirect jobs it supports, and importantly, the community and landscape in the South East. To celebrate the occasion, Minister for Forest Industries Clare Scriven travelled up the 13-storey tower to formally declare the fire tower open. The Penola tower completes the State Government’s $2.346 million election commitment, including 8 new fire detection camera systems and an upgrade of the Green Triangle’s fire tower network to provide a landscape level fire detection program. The new tower, which has been constructed using local businesses, has been delivered in collaboration with the Green Triangle Forest Industries Hub (GTFIH) and OneFortyOne Plantations, with a total cost of $1.1 million. It follows upgrade works and repairs undertaken in the lead up to the 2023-24 bushfire danger season at Comaum, Mount Burr, Mount Edward, Furner, and Mount Benson. The staffed Penola tower will complement the eight new AI-powered bushfire detection and monitoring cameras located at Comaum, Mount Benson, The Bluff, Furner, Mount Burr, Carpenter Rocks, Lucindale South, and Cave Range, installed to work in conjunction with the upgraded fire tower network. Powered by Pano AI, the monitoring system is Australia’s first fully integrated bushfire detection platform utilising ultra-HD 360-degree panoramic cameras and aimed at improving the early detection of fires. The initial cameras commenced operations in the Green Triangle during the 2023-24 fire danger season, with the system detecting 25 unplanned fires in the region, along with providing real time intelligence to aid fire suppression activities. The Limestone Coast network of eight cameras, overseen by the Green Triangle Fire Alliance (GTFA), strengthens the region’s extensive fire management and surveillance measures in place, ensuring ongoing protection of the Green Triangle’s forestry assets and communities. With the additional government investment in aerial appliances, fires can be detected earlier, with locations pinpointed more accurately, and responded to swiftly, helping reduce the risk of small fires escalating into catastrophic events. The Limestone Coast system contributes to a broader 15-camera station detection network managed by the forestry industries throughout the wider Green Triangle region into Victoria.  

Ministers responsible for Climate Change, Forestry, Conservation and Land Information in New Zealand have announced that Cabinet has agreed to explore public-private partnerships to plant trees on Crown land, supporting New Zealand’s climate change targets and creating more jobs. Source: Timberbiz Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says that nature-based solutions are a key part to the Government’s climate strategy and represents a significant step forward in achieving our climate targets including Net Zero by 2050. “New Zealand is well positioned to leverage its natural assets to drive progress in both climate action and economic growth. Partnerships to plant native and exotic trees on Crown-owned land represents a cost-effective approach to reducing net emissions while also delivering tangible benefits to local communities.” Forestry Minister Todd McClay says forestry is critical to New Zealand’s economic future. “These partnerships would drive economic growth by creating more forestry jobs in our regions, provide more wood for domestic processing and over time boost the value of exports,” Minister McClay said. “This policy strikes the right balance between planting more production and native forests and making better use of Crown assets without impacting productive farmland or compromising high value conservation land.” Conservation Minister Tama Potaka says potential partnerships could help improve biodiversity and water quality. “While native forests store carbon and support a low emissions future for our whenua, they’re also important for biodiversity and can strengthen environmental resilience to floods, droughts, and storms,” Minister Potaka said. “We will ensure commitments are upheld where land is subject to Treaty of Waitangi settlement obligations or being held for potential future Treaty settlement redress. “We are also keen to explore potential Iwi collaboration through public-private partnerships.” Land Information Minister Chris Penk says the Government is focused on getting good value from Crown land. “The Crown holds significant land across New Zealand, and we have a responsibility to use it productively. Whether it’s contributing to climate goals, generating returns, or improving environmental and conservation efforts, our focus is on delivering value to the public,” Minister Penk said. “We are excluding National Parks, high value farming land and high value conservation land and only focusing on land which is not otherwise in use. Making full use of your assets is good commonsense.” The Government will soon release a request for information (RFI) that will help clarify the conditions under which potential partners could work with the Crown. This will help the Government understand what land may be suitable to offer for partnership. The RFI will be publicly released on 18 December on the Ministry for Primary Industry’s website (www.mpi.govt.nz) alongside information on how people can participate in the process.

A Tasmanian carbon forestry initiative has marked a major milestone, with more than one million trees planted on almost 1,000 hectares of land across the state, estimated to sequester more than 300,000 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere. Source: Timberbiz The ActivAcre program, delivered by Tasmanian plantation and natural asset management company SFM, collaborates with farmers to identify opportunities for them to lease land for tree planting. SFM Managing Director Andrew Morgan said the local initiative allowed farmers to optimise their land and diversify their on-farm revenue, providing them with a reliable source of income. “But of course the benefits of ActivAcre flow well beyond the farmer – plantation forestry is recognised globally as a key tool to mitigate climate change, capturing carbon in soil and vegetation,” Mr Morgan said. “Further to this, Australia currently has a $4 billion trade deficit in wood products, yet we have a skilled workforce with world-class infrastructure and high-quality governance, so we have a real opportunity to turn the situation around.” Mr Morgan said across Australia, sourcing larger parcels of suitable land was becoming harder, making aggregation essential, where multiple smaller land holdings are classed together to make one asset. “With the successful completion of our first full year of planting and our 2025 program nearing capacity, we are now seeking expressions of interest from landowners for our 2026 planting” he said. “Today we held an open ‘field’ day on the Bloomfield property in Gretna for interested landowners and farmers to learn more, ask questions and see a plantation carbon project first-hand.” Bloomfield owners Susie and Michael Parsons signed up to the ActivAcre program earlier this year. Susie Parsons said the seven-generation farming family was already benefiting from the financial return of leasing their land and could see the future opportunities it presented, both for their own property and for the environment. “The additional value proposition of planting trees is the creation of shade and shelter belts, which can increase pasture production as well as improving water efficiency, soil quality and reducing salinity, waterlogging and erosion,” Mrs Parsons said. Mr Morgan said the future-focused land management program worked closely with farmers to create unique and flexible agreements to maximises their land’s potential and ensure an ongoing, reliable income every year from planting to harvesting. “ActivAcre is unique in that every aspect of the project, from initial enquiry to carbon project registration to final plantation harvesting, is managed by SFM’s local team of highly experienced foresters, land management professionals and carbon project experts, all of whom have a deep understanding of the Tasmanian agricultural landscape,” he said. Tasmanian farmers and landowners can find out more at: www.activacre.com.au

Local contractors in Eastern Victoria who undertake important pre-summer fire preparation work have been shunned by the Labor State Government. Source: Timberbiz The panel of workers undertakes such tasks as vegetation clearing, hazardous tree removal, and maintaining fire tracks, but this year have not been engaged to anywhere near the level of past years and in some cases, not at all. Gippsland East Nationals MP, Tim Bull, said that apart from leaving us more vulnerable to the upcoming fire season, these families rely on this income and have now been left struggling after regular work volumes have failed to materialise. “There was concern that the timber industry harvest and haulage contractors who were employed by the government would push the contractor panel out of work, but the government emphatically stated several months ago it had a separate funding pool and contractors would receive ‘similar volumes of forest and fire management works’,” said Mr Bull “However, that simply hasn’t occurred. Some who have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts for major works over recent years, have simply not been engaged as their machines sits idle. “Several have raised with my office their alarm about the significant discrepancy between DEECA’s promises and the actual allocation of work. “Many are too scared to speak out as they know how vindictive this government can be. “Not only has this government shut down our timber industry, but they are now forcing these contractors out of work, at the same time our fire access tracks are overgrown and there is so much pre-fire season work to be done. “I suspect this is simply yet another case of Labor running out of money and making cutbacks to country services we rely on, to service their debt, which is headed to $187 billion by 2026 with interest repayments of $26 million per day. “I have asked Minister Dimopoulos in parliament several questions around the allocation of work compared to previous years and I look forward to his responses,” said Mr Bull.