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The Hyne Group has welcomed news of His Majesty King Charles III, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and NSW Premier Chris Minns’ visit to the Homes NSW Cowper Street development to talk about sustainable housing. Source: Timberbiz The Hyne Group proudly supplied the Cross Laminated Timber manufactured at its XLam plant in Wodonga, Victoria, and the Glue Laminated Timber, manufactured at its Maryborough plant in Queensland for this social housing development in Glebe, Sydney. The Homes NSW Cowper Street, Sydney development is in collaboration with the King’s Trust Australia and once completed, will deliver 75 much needed, sustainable social housing apartments and terrace houses. Specifically, 2,590m3 of engineered timber has been delivered to the site, which sequesters approximately 1,860 tonnes of carbon. This is the equivalent of 934 fewer cars on the road in a year. “We are very proud to have supplied our mass timber solutions to Homes NSW in collaboration with the Kings Trust Australia,” Chair of Hyne Group, Tom Bruce-Jones, said. “As a Group, we actively promote the environmental advantages of structural timber as a renewable, low carbon resource material and we are very grateful that our products were chosen by the NSW Government and Homes NSW to construct this building comprising of 75 units in Sydney. “We are absolutely delighted to learn of his Majesty King Charles III, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and NSW Premier Chris Minns’ visit to this development as part of the King’s Australian schedule.” The timber is entirely locally grown in local pine plantation estates, much of which is owned by the NSW Government and Responsible Wood certified. The pine trees are approximately 30 years old at the time of harvest before being replanted. Based on this age class and the Australian pine plantation estate, the timber volume supplied for the Cowper Street Development will be regrown in approximately seven hours. For the Cross Laminated Timber, the logs are processed at Hyne Timber’s Tumbarumba sawmill before being transported to the XLam plant in Wodonga for secondary manufacturing into CLT panels. For the Glue Laminated Timber, the logs are processed at Hyne’s Tuan Mill near Maryborough before being processed into GLT at the Maryborough Glulam plant. These manufacturing plants support local, regional jobs and ensure that low carbon, sustainable building products are manufactured in Australia, for Australia. The Hyne Group is the Australian subsidiary of James Jones and Sons in the UK. His Majesty King Charles III visited James Jones & Sons’ Aboyne sawmill just 12 months ago, in October 2023. Details of the visit can be viewed at https://twitter.com/i/status/1848536865860948319

His Majesty King Charles III visited CSIRO’s National Bushfire Behaviour Research Laboratory in Canberra, “fuelled” by his passion for the environment and interest in climate change impacts. Source: Timberbiz As the increasing impact of wildfires are being felt around the globe, The King gained insight into how Australian scientists work collaboratively to understand and predict bushfire behaviour, as well as help protect communities and fire crews during outbreaks. The visit to Australia’s national science agency was part of The King’s sustainability-themed visit to Australia and his second visit to a CSIRO Canberra site. In February 1966, a young Prince Charles visited the CSIRO Division of Wildlife Research Division at Gungahlin. CSIRO chief executive, Doug Hilton, said he was proud to show how CSIRO’s bushfire research was not just helping Australians solve a significant national challenge but aiding an international community who are sharing learnings and building resilience to these extreme events. “The rising threat of extraordinary landscape fires has shown that uncontrollable and devastating wildfires are becoming an expected part of our seasonal calendars. Not just in Australia, but across the globe,” Dr Hilton said. Under climate change, countries are likely to see a greater frequency of conditions conducive to the outbreak of wildfires, even in places that haven’t historically experienced the impacts of these un-planned large fire events. This has been exemplified by events such as the Wennington wildfire that took place in east London, on 19 July 2022, during the 2022 United Kingdom heatwave. This luckily did not cause loss of life but still destroyed close to 20 houses. During his visit to the CSIRO bushfire lab, The King witnessed two bushfire demonstrations. The first involved him igniting an experimental fire in the ‘Pyrotron’ – a 29-metre-long combustion wind tunnel that enables the study of fires in a safe and controlled environment. He then met with CSIRO researchers, ACT Rural Fire Service Chief, Rohan Scott, and members of the Tidbinbilla volunteer brigade, to witness a ‘burnover‘ drill using an ACT Rural Fire Service heavy tanker. CSIRO Senior Research Scientist, Dr Matt Plucinski, who conducted the Pyrotron demonstration, said the apparatus was used to better understand bushfire behaviour and the factors that influence bushfires, such as wind and fuel types. It is also used to improve understanding of suppression effective-ness and bushfire emissions. “Understanding changing weather patterns due to climate change and the likelihood and behaviour of bushfire outbreaks helps to increase resilience in Australia and overseas, especially in regions that previously haven’t been that prone to bushfires,” Dr Plucinski said. “This research and the predictive models of bushfire spread we develop are used by fire agencies for planning suppression strategies and warning communities in the likely path of the fire.” CSIRO’s research into understanding bushfire behaviour and the weather that impacts the fires – as demonstrated by the Pyrotron, in turn helps scientists and fire agencies work out what protection fire-fighters may need in the field. CSIRO helped develop the world-leading burnover protection systems for crew-cabins in fire trucks with fire agencies including the Victorian Country Fire Authority (CFA) and the New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSW RFS). In the ’burnover’ drill, The King was shown how these systems feature spray nozzles over the cabin, heat shields for windows and fire-resistant covers for electrical components, pumps and air hoses. The effectiveness of these crew protection systems was first put to the test in a major way during the 2009 Black Saturday fires in Victoria. Eight fire trucks were impacted by fire and all their crews emerged safely with no loss of life. These protection systems continued to provide crews with increased safety in subsequent fires including the more recent Black Summer 2019–2020 bushfires. CSIRO Bushfire Adaptation Research Leader, Justin Leonard, said the burnover protection system has now been rolled out in nearly every state and territory in Australia and his team is now sharing their knowledge with fire agencies in France and America. “We are sharing the research, both in terms of the designs for trucks and the way we validate and test the systems through the use of a purpose-built bushfire burnover simulator situated in Mogo NSW,” Mr Leonard said. “The opportunity to present this collaborative work to The King helps us amplify the important message of how we tackle bushfire in Australia and the impact of what we do. “Protecting lives and the environment as we deal with more severe and frequent bushfires is an important process for us to get right under climate change.”

The ABARES National Wood Processing Survey 2021–22 shows that in 2021-22 there were a total of 252 mills operating. This is a fall of 47 mills since 2016-17, continuing a downward trend in the number of sawmills operating over the past 30 years. Source: Timberbiz ABARES Executive Director Dr Jared Greenville said ABARES estimated that of the 252 mills operating in 2021-22, 146 were hardwood sawmills, 48 softwood sawmills, 13 cypress sawmills, 20 post and pole mills, and 25 wood-based panel mills. “The falling mill numbers have predominately been driven by consolidation, with a number of the remaining mills increasing their input capacity,” Dr Greenville said. “Compared to 2016-17, sawnwood production fell by 8% to 4.3 million cubic metres, with softwood production down by 5%, hardwood production down by 21% and cypress pine down by 30%. “Sawnwood revenue for the sector was estimated to be $3 billion in 2021-22, up 8% in real terms from 2016-17. “Higher product prices have been outweighing falls in sawnwood timber production, contributing to the real increase in production value for the sector. “Survey results also show that sawmills and post and pole mills remain a strong employer in the forestry industry, with more than 7,500 employees.” In 2021-22, compared with 2016-17 Total input fell by 7% to 9.9 million cubic meters of sawlogs (including post and pole logs) being processed in Australian sawmills. This comprised of 1.6 million cubic metres of hardwood (down 16%), 8.2 million cubic metres of softwood (down 5%) and 139,000 cubic metres of cypress (down 5%). Sawnwood production fell by 8% to 4.3 million cubic metres, comprised of 561,000 cubic metres of hardwood (down 24%), 3.7 million cubic metres of softwood (down 5%), and 40,000 cubic metres of cypress pine (down 30%). An additional 317,000 of hard and softwood posts and poles were also produced. 4.4 million cubic metres of residues were also produced, comprising of 616,000 cubic metres of hardwood residues and 3.9 million cubic metres of softwood residues. This resulted in recovery rates of 39% for hardwood sawmills, 47% for softwood mills and 79% for post and pole mills. Revenue from sawnwood sales increased by 20% to $3.0 billion. This comprised of over $700 million in revenue from hardwood sales (down 24%) and $2.3 billion from softwood and cypress sawnwood sales (up 47%). The number of workers employed by sawmills and post and pole mills fell by 7% to 7,506, 85% of whom are classified as full-time workers. In addition, in 2021-22 it was noted that, the largest cost for sawmills was revealed to be logs, followed by wages. Respondents lacked a common view on the demand outlook for the next 12 months with 88% of hardwood mill respondents raised log supply as an issue, while softwood sawmills raised additional issues including product demand and access to skilled labour. Read the full report here.