The dominance of plantation forestry is also manifested in the wood processing sector.
Government statistics, by referring only to the generic ‘forest products’ or ‘wood products’, mask the plantation sector’s substantial contribution to wood manufacturing investment, income and employment in Australia.[3] The gaps in government reporting can, however, be filled using industry data and assumptions (Ajani 2008). Today, 80 per cent of the wood processed in Australia to make sawn timber, wood-based panels, pulp and paper comes from plantations (Table 2).
|
Unit |
Plantation |
Native forest |
% plantation |
|
|
Wood production |
million m3 roundwooda |
18.3 |
8.8 |
68 |
|
Sawn timber & wood-based panels |
million m3 finished product |
5.6 |
1.3 |
81 |
|
Wood for domestic pulp production (2004/05) |
million m3 roundwood |
2.4 |
0.7 |
77 |
|
Other wood products |
million m3 finished product |
0.5 |
0.3 |
63 |
|
Unprocessed wood — chips & logs |
million m3 roundwood |
7.2 |
5.7 |
56 |
a. Roundwood here means the volume of wood in (round) log form required to make the product and therefore includes processing residues.
Source: Ajani 2008
[3] Whilst Federal Government statistics disaggregate almost all the wood Australia produces into distinct regimes — plantations (agriculture) and native forests (self-regenerating ecosystems) — processing industry data are not similarly disaggregated.