https://www.facebook.com/malenywoodexpo
I was invited to be a speaker at the 2023 Maleny Wood Expo (MWE), an invitation which I readily accepted. The MWE is one of the very few businesses/organisations in Australia that expresses an interest in where their wood comes.
The other thousands of Australian businesses/organisations continue to expect wood to just fall from the sky as it has in the past. None of them take any responsibility for the future supply of timber. But everyone knows those days are coming to an end. We are in the last days of forest (and taxpayer) plunder.
So here is a brief summary of my experience at the MWE.
The basis of my talk at the Expo was “the failure of timber markets in Australia”.
The MWE is huge!!
Maleny is a small town and the MWE utterly dominates the town over the Queensland Labor Day long weekend. The Expo is held at the local showground (a breathtakingly beautiful site) where thousands upon thousands of people come.
The Expo is run by the local Barung Landcare Group, which is why it has its unique focus.
The Expo is also the home of the Wootha Woodcraft Prize, Australia’s richest woodcraft prize which is sponsored by the local Sunshine Coast Council.
The current focus of the Expo is timber sales, woodcraft workshops, sales and display; woodcraft tool sales, food and entertainment. There was also a display of wooden boats.
So I arrived at the Expo to wander around and see if it really did live up to its values. With the mind of a farmer I was also on the lookout for technical and market information and support that might indicate that planting and growing trees really was a viable commercial opportunity.
Sadly I was disappointed with both of my expectations.
Despite its good intentions it seems that none of the Expo stallholders share or support those values. I can’t say I visited every stall, but I saw absolutely no expression of support for the Expo values.
Any farmer visiting the Expo would leave with absolutely no interest in planting and growing tomorrows timber.
For me the Maleny Wood Expo represents one of the few (the ONLY!) opportunities in Australia to rebuild the forest industry and start the slow process of building a proper functioning timber market, where the sale of timber directly results in the planting of more trees by the farming community (just like every other farm product market eg. bananas).
The MWE could help build the bridge between the market and the farming community.
There is an enormous amount of passion, energy and enthusiasm at the MWE and a large existing audience. But the Expo is only doing half the job. If anything it is currently supporting the last days of plunder. In its current form the MWE is undermining its own future!
Where does the wood come from? Who is growing it? Who is planting trees for tomorrow? Is growing tomorrows timber a commercial opportunity? Who is helping to build a proper functioning timber market?
I saw no answers to any of these questions at the MWE.
Not even any of the Wootha Prize winners cared to share any of this information and help generate farming community interest!!
The MWE committee members I spoke to were certainly aware of the shortfalls of the Expo and were interested in my message. But past failures and current timber industry and farming community attitudes have blunted their enthusiasm.
To help drive the change that is needed I think the MWE needs to have a vision. It needs to publically express its values and have a vision of where it wants to be in 10, 20 years. It then needs to ask its stallholders and prize entrants to publically state how they support those values and the vision.
I have plenty of other ideas as well.
I ran my talk at the Expo as a Q&A. I set the context for my talk and let the audience questions and comments flow. There was plenty of interest in what I had to say.
Overall I had a great time in Maleny. Thanks to the MWE Committee for the invitation. I will happily return next year should the invitation be repeated.
So how do we turn this thing around and drive the changes needed?
You can comment below if you wish!
Tasmanian Blackwood Growers Cooperative 