Sammlung von Newsfeeds

Forestry Corporation firefighters have stepped up preparations for the approaching bushfire season through a five-day intensive training camp on the Mid North Coast. Source: Timberbiz Held at Mount Seaview near Wauchope, the camp brought together 45 staff members completing nationally recognised qualifications in Fire Fighter, Advanced Fire Fighter and Crew Leader roles. Forestry Corporation Fire Training and Operations Coordinator Nathan Fischer said the fire camps play an important role in ensuring firefighters are prepared to protect communities, forests and assets during the fire season. “Forestry Corporation has a responsibility as a firefighting authority to ensure our people are trained, capable and ready to respond to fires in the landscape,” Mr Fischer said. “With two million hectares of State forests across NSW, it’s essential we maintain a skilled workforce that can respond safely and effectively wherever they’re needed. “The training combines classroom learning with practical field exercises, helping firefighters build confidence and capability in fire behaviour, tactics, leadership, communications and equipment operation.” The camp included a live fire scenario, providing participants with hands-on experience in a realistic fire situation. Among those undertaking training was Tamworth-based Production Supervisor Mat Newberry, who completed a Crew Leader course having previously gaining qualifications as a Firefighter and Advanced Firefighter. Mr Newberry joined Forestry Corporation as a seasonal firefighter after serving 16 years with Fire and Rescue NSW and said the Crew Leader course provided valuable insight into the responsibilities of leading a team of firefighters. “The biggest shift as a Crew Leader is moving from being on the tools to looking at the broader operation,” Mr Newberry said. “You’re responsible for the safety and wellbeing of your crew, identifying hazards and risks, monitoring changing fire conditions and making sure critical information is communicated from your position on the fireground to those managing the operation.” Having worked in both structural and forest firefighting environments, Mr Newberry said the experience had broadened his understanding of fire management. “Forest firefighting is vastly different to structural firefighting, and it presents a unique set of challenges as we often see across the state over spring and summer,” he said. “Since joining Forestry Corporation, I’ve had the opportunity to expand my knowledge and experience through wildfire operations and specialist training, including working as a Planning Officer within Incident Management Teams during major incidents. “These training camps are beneficial to our staff, the instructors bring a huge amount of experience and knowledge to the training, and it’s a great chance to learn from people who have worked on fires in different forest types across NSW and beyond,” he said. “It also helps build relationships with other Forestry Corporation firefighters, which is important when you’re working together during major incidents.” Forestry Corporation currently has around 500 staff members trained as forest firefighters. The organisation also maintains a statewide fleet of fire tankers, light vehicles fitted with firefighting equipment, contracted aircraft and more than 100 drones operated by trained pilots. Heavy plant machinery used in forest operations, including bulldozers, is also made available through the broader forest and timber industry to support firefighting efforts across NSW. Forestry Corporation is currently planning further fire training camps at Wallerawang near Lithgow in September and at Bondi Forest Lodge near Bombala in October. For more information about Forestry Corporation’s firefighting operations, visit www.forestrycorporation.com.au

The post Preparations begin for Australia’s next bushfire season appeared first on Timberbiz.

Industry personnel and students are invited to apply for the 2026 round of The Gottstein Trust Skill Development Grants, Fellowships and Scholarships. Source: Timberbiz Individuals working, or training to work, in the forest products value chain are encouraged to apply before 19 October 2026. Grants are open to anyone in the Australian sector. They could be a saw doctor, mill or machine operator, GIS analyst, forest ecologist, harvest planner, farm forester, tree geneticist, timber product engineer, marketer, tree nursery expert or a forest scientist, PhD researcher, TAFE student, architect. Each grant category has an online application and a competitive selection process. Then grant funds are provided to a small number of successful applicants. People can use those funds for agreed activities that will build their skills, knowledge and network. The employer of a grant recipient can also benefit from their staff member’s commitment to their own skill development. Funding helps an individual to pursue activities to match their ambition. Applications close at midnight Monday, October 19, 2026. More information, and online application forms are at  https://gottsteintrust.org/grants-courses Enquiries to Helen Murray on 0419-991-424 or email: team@gottsteintrust.org

The post Gottstein Trust Skill Development Grants appeared first on Timberbiz.

Building approvals for new homes declined by 3.6% in July, led by a 4.5% fall in houses, with a 2.4% fall in multi-units. Source: Timberbiz The Australian Bureau of Statistics yesterday released its monthly building approvals data for July 2026 for detached houses and multi-units covering all states and territories. HIA Senior Economist Tom Devitt said that despite these monthly declines, approvals in the last three months remained materially higher than a year earlier (+8.3%), led by houses (+12.4%), with multi-units up by 2.5%. “There are long lags between changes in market conditions, building approvals and construction activity,” he said. “New home building activity had good momentum heading into 2026, on the back of strong population growth, low unemployment and ongoing shortages of housing across the country. “This year, the Australian government has increased taxes on housing investors, while restricting the ability of SMSFs to invest in housing. “Combined with rising interest rates, global conflict and surging fuel costs, this has interrupted an expansion in home building that was already underway,” Mr Devitt said. “The effect is already visible in a number of leading indicators across the economy. “As expected, the increase in taxes on investors in the established market will have a short-term adverse impact on established home prices, further reduce the supply of new homes, and lead to a worsening in affordability.” He said that lending in the established housing market had tumbled, with loans to investors, in particular, dropping almost 20% in the first half the year. Dwelling prices were declining across the country, especially in Melbourne and Sydney. “This is predictably filtering into the new construction pipeline, with new home sales declining for the three consecutive months to July,” Mr Devitt said. “This adverse shock to new housing supply is yet to emerge in building approvals data. “Increasing the supply of housing and sustainably improving affordability requires the cost of construction to be reduced,” he said. In seasonally adjusted terms, Tasmania saw the largest increase in building approvals in the three months to July compared to the same period a year earlier, to be 44.9% higher. This was followed by Queensland (+24.0%), Western Australia (+15.3%), South Australia (+9.5%) and Victoria (+2.8%), while New South Wales was down by 1.3%. In original terms, building approvals increased by 60.8% in the Northern Territory, while declining by 15.6% in the Australian Capital Territory.

The post Building approvals down for houses and units appeared first on Timberbiz.

The Australian government’s announcement of an additional funding stream under the Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) to build 1,000 social and affordable homes proves the importance of sustained Commonwealth leadership in housing. Source: Timberbiz The new Stream 5 release will support up to 1,000 social and affordable homes through ready-to-go projects, while encouraging greater diversity in housing typologies, including detached and semi-detached homes, and creating opportunities for community housing providers to partner with builders to deliver housing more quickly. National Shelter CEO Jackson Hills said the stream directly addresses the lag between funding decisions and highlights the value of the HAFF as a long-term national mechanism for social and affordable housing. “National Shelter welcomes this additional funding stream, which recognises the need to get more social and affordable homes built quickly while supporting a broader range of housing types and locations,” Mr Hills said. “For the hundreds of thousands of people in Australia on social housing waitlists, the difference between a home in 2027 and a home five years later is life changing. “The Housing Australia Future Fund has made clear its value as a long-term national mechanism for increasing social and affordable housing, with this additional stream showing how it can respond to opportunities in the market and help bring forward projects that are ready to be delivered. “Backing low-density homes broadens the scope of social housing in this country, and it opens up regional centres and outer suburbs where medium density is harder to deliver. These homes will connect people to work, schools and healthcare rather than isolating them. “At this pivotal moment in Australia’s housing history, Commonwealth leadership has never been more important. The scale of Australia’s housing challenges requires sustained national investment, coordination and partnership across all levels of government, community housing providers and industry. “The Commonwealth’s leadership through the Housing Australia Future Fund is helping rebuild Australia’s pipeline of social and affordable housing and demonstrating the value of a long-term national commitment to housing supply.” Mr Hills said the announcement reinforces the need for long-term national housing targets that extends beyond individual funding rounds and election cycles. “The fact that the Fund has opened a new stream in response to what the market can deliver makes the clearest case for making it permanent. Round 3 is currently the final round, and Australia faces a shortfall of 640,000 social and affordable homes by 2041, a gap no single program with an end date can close,” he said. “National Shelter believes future National Housing Accord targets should explicitly include social and affordable housing outcomes alongside broader housing supply goals. Establishing long-term targets across the next 20 to 30 years would give governments, community housing providers and investors greater certainty about the scale of housing Australia needs to build. “We also welcome the Senate’s recent focus on examining the nation’s social housing needs. Programs such as the Housing Australia Future Fund are an essential delivery mechanism, but we must also maintain a clear picture of future need so that housing investment can keep pace with Australia’s growing population and changing communities.” National Shelter said the focus on shovel-ready projects and accelerated delivery demonstrated how targeted Commonwealth investment could bring desperately needed social and affordable housing online sooner while strengthening Australia’s long-term housing system.

The post HAFF funding to build 1000 more homes appeared first on Timberbiz.

New Zealand Institute of Forestry says it rejects a blanket forestry moratorium in the country. The NZIF says proposals to halt new forestry registrations or progressively remove forestry from the scheme are premature and risk further undermining investor confidence. Source: Timberbiz NZIF President Adrian Loo says that the Adrift: What future does the Emissions Trading Scheme have? report released by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment raises legitimate questions about the balance between reducing gross emissions and removing carbon through forests. “New Zealand needs faster reductions in gross emissions, but this does not diminish the importance of carbon removals,” Mr Loo said. “We need both. The challenge is to design a system which recognises their different roles and provides credible incentives for each.” NZIF is concerned the report’s media release presents modelled scenarios as settled outcomes. The report itself acknowledges its results are projections rather than predictions and depend heavily on assumptions about future carbon prices, planting rates and forest owner behaviour. “A model looking ahead to 2075 can help us understand possible risks, but it cannot tell us with certainty how markets, technology, landowners or governments will behave over the next 50 years. Major policy decisions should not be based on one set of modelled scenarios,” Mr Loo said. NZIF also says an important distinction is being overlooked between Government auction units and forestry units. “Government auction units are permissions to emit. Forestry units recognise carbon which forests have actually removed from the atmosphere. Treating both forms of supply as though they have the same climate effect overlooks a fundamental difference,” Mr Loo said. NZIF agrees biological carbon storage carries risks from fire, pests, disease and extreme weather. However, it says these risks should be addressed through professional forest management, monitoring, enforceable standards and appropriate financial provision. Descriptions of “vast new plantations of highly flammable, storm prone pine” are unhelpfully emotive and do not reflect the diversity or reality of modern forestry. “Forestry is not a single land use. A managed production forest, a permanent exotic carbon forest, an indigenous forest and a planned transition forest have different purposes, benefits and risks. Sound policy must distinguish between them,” he said. “Broad descriptions of pine forests as inherently dangerous show insufficient recognition of forest management, fire planning, engineering, harvesting controls and the regulatory improvements made across the sector.” NZIF says a blanket moratorium on new forestry registrations would not simply pause the present system. It would be a significant policy intervention which could affect production forestry, farm forestry, indigenous regeneration and transition projects. It could also strand investments made in good faith under rules established by successive governments. “Foresters did not design the ETS. Landowners and investors have responded to the incentives created by government policy. They should not be blamed or retrospectively penalised for following those rules,” Mr Loo said. He said forestry was a long-term investment and unnecessary changes to ETS settings would seriously erode investor confidence and would result in significant reductions in planting rates across all forest types. New Zealand did not need to face a choice between reducing emissions and growing forests. “We need faster reductions at source alongside the right trees, in the right places, managed for the right purposes,” Mr Loo said. “Foresters must be part of the discussion and forestry part of the solution.”

The post NZIF rejects blanket forestry moratorium appeared first on Timberbiz.

Tree Breeding Australia has officially opened its new $1.2 million National Genetics Research Centre in Mount Gambier, South Australia. Located on Kilsby Road, the research facility will accommodate up to 12 staff – mostly technical specialists – to provide better infrastructure for TBA’s national tree breeding and genetic improvement programs across both hardwood and softwood plantation species. Source: Timberbiz Key capabilities at the site include the storage and management of genetic material used in seed and pollination programs, with plans to progressively undertake DNA sequencing and analysis on-site, reducing the need to send samples interstate or overseas. The new TBA research facility represents another jewel in South Australia’s crown as a national leader in research and innovation and builds on the State Government’s investment in the recently opened $16 million Forestry Centre of Excellence. South Australia’s Primary Industries and Regional Development Minister Clare Scriven, who officially opened the building, said the State Government’s investment in the research facility would strengthen the State’s role in forestry research and help secure the future of South Australia’s timber plantation industry. “Tree breeding and genetic improvements are critical to developing productive and resilient plantations, and this facility will support the research, skills, and innovation required to meet the industry’s future challenges and opportunities,” she said. “Through this partnership between the Malinauskas Government and the forestry sector, we are supporting skilled technical roles and strengthening Mount Gambier’s position as a centre for forestry research and innovation.” Built by Parham Construction, the facility was delivered by an entirely local trade base comprising more than 15 businesses. TBA purchased the Kilsby Road site in 2005, building on an organisational history dating back to 1983 when it began operating locally as a cooperative focused on the genetic improvement of plantation timber species. Today, it is the premier breeding organisation in Australia for plantation softwood and hardwood species. The chairman of Tree Breeding Australia, Dr Andrew Jacobs, said the project represented a significant investment in the future of Australian plantations. “The new research facility will enable us to better protect and manage valuable genetic material, improve the efficiency of our breeding programs, and develop the skills and technology we need for the next generation of tree improvement,” Dr Jacobs said. “Our goal is to develop trees that grow faster, produce better-quality timber, and are increasingly resilient to the conditions in which they are grown, including adapting to more challenging environments. This facility is a long-term investment in the people, science, and genetic resources that will underpin Australia’s future timber supply.” Forest & Wood Products Australia Acting Chief Executive Officer Craig Taylor said the opening of the new facility – known as “The Shed” – marked an important milestone for Australia’s plantation forestry sector and the researchers, growers and industry organisations working to improve the productivity, value and resilience of Australia’s plantation resource. “We recognise the vision and commitment of all those involved in bringing this important facility to life,” he said. “FWPA has a focus on helping our plantation grower members increase their profitability by growing more fibre on every hectare of land they manage, while also increasing the value of that fibre through improvements in wood characteristics that better meet the needs of downstream manufacturers. “We are also helping plantation growers increase their resilience through the development of genetics that will be best suited to a changing climate. Increasing the volume, quality and resilience of Australia’s plantations benefits participants right across the supply chain.” FWPA has been a major investor in plantation genetics research and development delivered in partnership with TBA, focused on tree improvement, genomics, plantation productivity, disease resistance and climate adaptation. Since 2020, the $11.5 million investment, leveraged through Australian Government matched funding, significantly expands the impact of industry research funds. An independent assessment of one recent research project found that for every $1 invested the research is likely to deliver $6.70 of direct economic benefit, plus other environmental and public good benefits. FWPA Head of Forest Research Jodie Mason said sustained investment in genetics and breeding was critical to the long-term success of Australia’s plantation estate. “Tree breeding and genetics underpin the future productivity, quality and resilience of Australia’s plantation forests. The Shed provides an important platform to accelerate the research and collaboration needed to deliver benefits to growers and processors for decades to come.” The projects supported by FWPA and its funding partners include research to increase and sustain productivity gains in national tree improvement programs, accelerate genetic gain through advanced genomics, optimise tree survival and resource quality, design genetically improved pine varieties, develop more productive trees adapted to changing environments, and future-proof plantations through disease-resistance screening. Mr Taylor said the opening of the Centre demonstrates the value of long-term collaboration between industry, government and researchers. “Facility investments such as this, combined with continued investment in research and development, help ensure Australia’s plantation sector remains internationally competitive and capable of meeting future demand for sustainable, renewable forest products.” TBA’s longer-term plans include a purpose-built glasshouse at the site to assist quarantine measures for the introduction of plants interstate and to fast-track the propagation of elite genetics.

The post National Genetic Research Centre opens in Mt Gambier appeared first on Timberbiz.