70 | Brighter outlook for forestry In Tasman Pine Forests Sumitomo runs an estate of 36,800ha of which 28,000ha is productive plantation forest and the rest are areas of native forest conservation. Tasman Pine Forests T T Hugh de Lacy FORESTRY The forestry industry’s mid-term outlook may have brightened with last year’s election of a right-of-centre National Party-led coalition that may be more welcoming of foreign capital investment, the recently appointed Executive Director of Tasman Pine Forests, Steve Chandler says. The former chief executive of the Nelson-based forestry company says that under the previous Labour-led Government, New Zealand was not seen as a particularly attractive destination for investment in further processing of the country’s exotic log output, and its distance from the markets remains a major handicap. “Yes, there is great potential for large-scale processing of the lower value export logs into value-added wood products,” Steve says. “The first step in the past has been sawn timber, but that faces the same uncertain demand as logs. “But there’s global demand emerging for specialty products such as high-strength plywoods, and reconstituted wood products like laminated wood and MDF, not to mention the bio-economy turning wood fibres into resins, pharmaceuticals and bio-fuel. “So it’s not all gloom and doom, but the trouble is that these new ideas take five years or longer to come to fruition, and we’ve got to box on in the meantime. “The new government may be more welcoming of foreign investment, which is probably the key to getting the industry away from exporting raw logs.” Tasman Pine Forests is owned by the international conglomerate Sumitomo Forestry Co of Japan which made its first major investment here in 1986 with the setting up of the Nelson Pine Industries MDF plant. Sumitomo Forestry Co, whose roots go back to 1691, is a major player in the global timber and housing industries, being the eighth largest company in the United States and the third largest in Japan. In Tasman Pine Forests Sumitomo runs an estate of 36,800ha of which 28,000ha is productive plantation forest and the rest are areas of native forest conservation. “We try and sell everything we produce onto the domestic market and export what’s left over – around 45%,” Steve says. “New Zealand’s distance from global markets puts us at a big disadvantage with other timber exporters, and on the face of it further processing may not necessarily make much of a difference: whatever we process our logs into here still has to be shipped to a distant market. “That means that the value we add here has to more than compensate for the shipping costs.” The cyclones in the Gisborne area last year introduced the country to the menace of woody debris and harvesting slash, but Steve is at pains to point out that, though the whole national industry has been stigmatised by it, it’s mostly a problem confined to the fragile soils, steep slopes and log market access issues facing the east coast of the North Island. “It’s not a problem down here: Tasman Pine Forests has long been a leader in slash management and the ability to utilise all the harvested logs, and it shouldn’t be seen as reflective of the industry nationally,” he says. Trimble Forestry Delivering the Connected Forest Logistics systems and services for timber haulage operations
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