Forest products

Paper and pulp producer Mondi expects to report considerably higher interim earnings, saying that its headline earnings a share for the six months ended June 30, 2010, were likely to be between 22c a share and 27c a share, compared with a 0,8c a share headline loss the year before.

Basic earnings a share were expected to be between 18c and 23c a share, compared with an earnings loss of 7,1c a share for the six months ended June 2009.

Ten-year figures for the Brazilian timber industry show that production in the Amazon has fallen by 50 per cent.

The figures were published in a study carried out by the Brazilian Forest Service (SFB) and the Institute of Man and Environment (Imazon), entitled 'Logging Activities in the Brazilian Amazon.'

They show that in 1998, roundwood production in the region was 28.3 million cubic metres while the figures for 2009 show total production to be only 14.2 million cubic metres.

Every flush of your loo affects our environment and while low-flush toilets have helped some households save 35000 litres of water a year, it took an Eastern Suburbs man to tackle the toilet-paper dilemma.

Saved A Tree co-founder Damien Scarf, a Vaucluse resident, said global toilet-paper use destroys 27,000 trees every day but his company had found a way to make a loo roll without it costing the earth.

The AU$2 billion Penola Pulp Mill project in South Australia, shelved during the global recession, has been revitalized since The Commonwealth Bank recently came on board to help raise capital costs for the 750,000 tonnes/year mill, The Advertiser reported on 5 July.

The bank is also helping Greg Boulton, chairman of the company behind the project, and CEO Don Matthews to raise AU$20 million to finalize the design and lock down contracts, the paper reports.