Print this page | Return to IRIS site
Private Forests Tasmania (PFT)
Forest Practices Authority (FPA)
National Association of Forest Industries (NAFI)
Tasmanian Forest Contractors Association (TFCA)
Approximately 3.35 million hectares of Tasmania's land area is forest, of which 3.1 million hectares are native forest. Tasmanian native forest species include blackwood, myrtle, sassafras, celery top pine, silver wattle, Huon pine, eucalypt and King Billy pine.
Eucalypt species dominate the wood supply from native forests, and of these, the three most valuable are:
The sawn timber from these species collectively form the wood product marketed as 'Tasmanian Oak'.
Our forest areas are formed of a wide variety of forest types, each with unique characteristics. Even though Tasmania is a fairly small island there are a number of quite different forest types within the State. Tasmania's forests fall into the temperate climate zone, and are then categorised into five main forest types:
The State forest managed by Forestry Tasmania includes approximately 0.6 million hectares of native forest that is available for wood production. The main categories are tall native eucalypt forest (trees over 34 metres high), low native eucalypt forest (under 34 metres) and temperate rainforest.
At June 2007 there was some 103,000 hectares of plantations on State forest comprising:
The main species planted are Pinus radiata (softwood) and Eucalyptus globulus (blue gum) and Eucalyptus nitens, commonly known as shining gum.
A portion of the plantation estate is in joint venture with private investors including buyers of finished forest products.
Around 2.5 million tonnes of pulp logs and .809 million cubic metres of sawlog, veneer and peeler logs were produced in 2006 / 07.
Pine plantations supply sawn timber primarily for house construction, woodchips for pulp, paper and medium density fibreboard and some grades of furniture.
Tasmania's forests are the source of a variety of wood products including sawlogs, veneer logs, export logs and pulpwood from both hardwood and softwood forests.
Tasmania's State forests are managed to produce around 300,000 cubic metres of high quality saw and veneer logs annually. This yield is set in legislation. Lower quality logs are sold as pulwood and special species timbers are gathered to supply the craft industry.
The dominant silvicultural regime is some form of partial logging. In wetter forests clearfall burn is the principal regime as this mimics natural process and gives the best success rate for regeneration. To minimise smoke from the regeneration burning phase, it is proposed to use a proportion of the unutilised wood to power a biofuel plant in the State's south to generate renewable energy.
Tasmania's forest products comprise:
A review conducted in 2007 by Forestry Tasmania found Tasmania's State forest is capable of sustaining current wood production levels over the next 90 years, providing around 300,000 cubic metres of saw and veneer logs for the foreseeable future.
The ratio of mature eucalypt forest over 110 years of age compared to regrowth and plantations on State forest will remain roughly the same over the next 90 years.
Over the next 20 years, the amount of pulp wood generated, or arising, from the sawlog harvest will remain constant at around two to hree million tonnes a year. However, in 2027 the amount of available pulp wood from State forest will fall to less than 1.5 million tonnes per annum as the transition to regrowth and plantations is achieved. This fall will be offset by an increase in pulp wood available from the private sector, as plantations mature.
Every coupe on State forest is regenerated using techniques that mimic nature. These areas are re-sown using seeds gathered from trees harvested from the site and are re-grown to provide habitat, store carbon and maintain biodiversity.
From about 2020, an increasing supply of regrowth and planation wood will become available, thereby increasing the volume of wood available from these forests.
The private forest harvest in 2007/08 was 2.8 million tonnes, which accounted for approximately 42.5% of total timber production in Tasmania during that period and is slightly higher than the 2006/07 results.
The private plantation harvest in 2007 / 08 was close to 1.7 million tonnes, which accounted for approximately 63% of total plantation timber production during the period.
The expansion in the domestic market and an improvement in the international woodchip market have meant a significant increase in the total private native forest harvest. Forest harvesting on the private forest estate is largely integrated with the harvest of sawlog and pullpwood undertaken at the same time.
An increase in the native hardwood sawlog, veneer and ply log harvest of some 3,200 tonnes has reversed the declining trend of production from the private forest estate over the past three years.
There was an increase in the harvest of plantation softwood sawlogs from the private forest estate of some 5,000 tonnes and an increase in the harvest of softwood plantation pulpwood of some 225,000 tonnes mainly due to domestic processing.