The potential availability of plantation roundwood

Abstract

Summary The history of plantation establishment in Australia is briefly reviewed, highlighting the rapid increase in establishment of hardwood plantations by the private sector over the past decade and the privatisation of some publicly owned softwood plantations. Data collected regionally for the National Plantation Inventory were used to prepare forecasts of future availability for two species groups (hardwood and softwood) and two product groups (pulpwood and sawlog), both groups being broadly defined. The paper draws on these detailed forecasts. The forecasts represent an amalgam of grower-supplied forecasts of availability and estimates based on average yield tables applied to the annual areas planted for the remaining growers. Two alternative scenarios were used to model future planting. ‘No New Planting’ assumed no additional area was planted after 2001. ‘New Planting’ assumed that additional areas were planted on cleared agricultural land until 2019, but not thereafter. The latter forecasts were based on Bureau of Rural Sciences medium projections of future planting rates. An irregular pattern of availability resulted, due to the fluctuations in past planting rates, and required smoothing to achieve a practicable pattern over time. The forecasts of availability represent approximations of future supply, assuming that all costs and technologies remain unchanged and that all volumes available will be sold at that time. Hardwood pulpwood availability will increase from 2.4 to 15.8 million m3 y−1 by 2015. The ‘New Planting’ scenario will provide even larger impacts after 2015. Australian exports of pulpwood products are likely to increase substantially. Most of the hardwoods are fast-growing eucalypts established for pulpwood production under short rotations (12–15 y). There is increasing interest in their potential to produce sawlogs and other high value products, but considerable uncertainty as to the outcomes and economics. While progressive modest increases in softwood sawlog availability will assist domestic industry to replace imports of sawn timber and ease the demands on native forests, they will not replace all imported and native appearance and specialty timbers, nor will they supplant entirely those native timbers with geographic advantages relative to local and regional markets. Hence exports of softwood sawlogs and/or timber are expected to increase. Softwood pulpwood availability changes little, but domestic processing is likely to utilise some present exports.