It’s been five years since I checked the prices of conflict-driven, welfare-dependent Tasmanian oak timber at Bunnings Hardware, Australia’s largest timber retailer. Given my previous post about timber prices after the shutdown of welfare forestry in West Australia and Victoria, I thought I should do an update.
It seems that as welfare public forestry is shut down in Australia, the price of hardwood timber has increased dramatically. Small sizes are now over $22,000 per cubic metre and the cheapest at $9,500 per cubic metre. These are massive price increases from 5 years ago!
These massive hardwood timber price increases should be sending ripples through the Australian farming community. So far I’ve seen no evidence that is happening! Why??
The future of the forest industry in Australia is with farm forestry. Surely these hardwood prices now make growing quality hardwood in private plantations a viable and profitable agricultural activity.
I’ve just come back from a holiday in south west Western Australia, where I was reminded once again what great potential the region has for farmers to grow quality hardwoods, and I find this article in the news media!!
Hallelujah!!
Is this the beginning of a REAL forest industry in Australia??
Having put an end to public native WELFARE forestry, are we about to see farmers and the marketplace finally wake up and plant trees for our future wood supply?
I sincerely hope so!
Farm forestry has never really succeeded in Australia whilst State governments have been dominant growers and manipulators of the log marketplace. No farmer wants to grow trees in competition with politicians that’s for sure!
But now with public native welfare forestry in decline around Australia, the marketplace is starting to wake up and realise it is prepared to pay much higher prices for quality hardwood logs.
This powerful message needs to spread far and wide throughout the farming community in Australia.
If Australian sawmillers, log merchants and timber traders want Australian farmers to plant trees then they had better start pumping the market!!!
And instead of perpetually whinging all the time, the orthodox forest industry should instead get on board and focus on profitable farm forestry.
Good luck to Mr North from Walpole, WA! May his trees (and his bank balance) continue to grow!!
It is so good (and rare) to have a positive news story in the forest industry.
The latest statistics from the Federal department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry show Australia’s plantation estate continuing to decline.
Soon that Federal department will have to be renamed the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.
And therein lies part of the industry’s problem. Growing wood should be regarded by the rural community as standard agricultural practice, but Australia is a million miles from that cultural and economic change.
It should not be Agriculture and Forestry! It should just be Agriculture!!
But a declining forest industry sends a very loud and clear signal to the rural community that growing wood is not commercially viable.
As such the industry decline will only snowball, unless the industry can demonstrate commercial credibility. To date the forest industry has refused to do so!
This is a very clear message to the Tasmanian farming community!
Plant trees at your peril!!
This is further to my previous blog, and tells us how utterly broken and corrupt is the forest industry in Tasmania, not to mention our political system.
Government forest policy in Tasmania (and the rest of Australia) has always been about subsidising sawmillers.
It has never been about profitable tree growing.
So here we are in the 21st century still implementing 19th century policy.
And if there is any challenge to that welfare policy the forest industry will scream bloody murder from the mountain tops!
The above link to the Tasmanian Times website provides all the blood-soaked details of the current forestry drama.
As I said in my previous blog, this drama could well end up in the High Court of Australia, with the Tasmanian government facing various commercial and trade practices charges, never mind a blatant breach of the Australian Constitution, which guarantees free trade between States.
As I stated previously, the Tasmanian forest industry does not want a transparent, competitive market for forest products in Tasmania.
The Tasmanian forest industry is demanding market manipulation and price controls to ensure Tasmanian businesses continue to enjoy unfettered access to forest welfare.
The letter from the Tasmanian Forest Products Association to the Tasmanian Premier is clearly and openly demanding that the State government deliberately breach Australia’s consumer and competition laws.
The fact that the State Labor opposition openly supports market manipulation and price control tells us that the forest industry probably does not have a future in Tasmania.
Anyone who is a forest grower will be horrified by this.
Someone needs to write a letter to the Tasmanian Premier threatening to take the Government to the High Court over this whole fiasco.
In fact a Royal Commission into trade practices within the forest industry is long overdue.
This article appeared in The Mercury newspaper last Saturday the 15th July.
It’s a monster!
Terry Edwards is the old Tasmanian forest industry warhorse now retired. But old warhorses never really retire.
And here is Terry back beating the war drums once again.
This time it’s not “The Greenies” he is raging against but the State government!
How dare the Tasmanian State government not continue to subsidise the very welfare dependent forest industry.
How dare the Tasmanian State government sell it’s forest products onto the open commercial market, and not give them to local sawmillers.
It’s an outrage!!!
No! It’s the forest welfare industry doing what it has always done – cry poor and play politics!
It doesn’t say but I assume the sawlogs being discussed are the first harvest of Regional Forest Agreement pruned hardwood plantation sawlogs, that the local sawmillers said they weren’t interested in 25 years ago when they were planted.
My how times change! And old behaviours and attitudes don’t!
What Terry Edwards is saying is that the Tasmanian sawmillers don’t want to operate in a competitive commercial marketplace. They haven’t for 200+ years and they certainly are in no position to be competitive now. Two hundred years living on forest welfare has left the Tasmanian industry a complete basket case.
Subsidizing sawmillers has been government policy in Australia since 1788, which is why our forest industry today is now at deaths door.
The other message from Mr Edwards is about sawlog price control and manipulation. The forest industry does not want an open competitive market operating in Tasmania.
That is a very clear message to Tasmanian farmers to never plant a tree for the forest industry because you will never ever get a fair market price!
Terry Edwards wants the forest industry to wither and die.
I could also point out that what Mr Edwards is proposing is in breach of numerous commercial and trade practice laws. Those cashed up Victorian sawmillers may very well take the Tasmanian government to the High Court, and bring the whole facade crashing down.
Now that would be fun to watch!
Until we get all the welfare recipients and their supporters (like Mr. Edwards) out of the forest industry there will no future.
Farm grown blackwood timber at Ceres Fair Wood, Melbourne. $10,000 per cubic metre. Ceres Fair Wood is one of the few businesses in Australia that cares about the future of quality wood.
The Past/Present
For thousands of years humans have been using wood for all sorts of reasons – to hunt, cook, stay warm, build shelter and wage war. And for all that time we have had natural forests to plunder. Whatever wood we could find we used, mostly with plenty of contempt and waste.
But the days of plundering natural forests are just about over.
One of the problems this history has created is dysfunctional wood markets.
Cheap plentiful wood from natural forests has meant no one has ever taken responsibility for the future. Cutting down and sawing up trees is simple. Getting trees planted and managed for the future is the real challenge.
There are thousands of businesses in Australia that rely on wood (harvesting, transport, milling, retail, manufacture, craft, music, art, etc.), and 99.99% of them take no interest or responsibility in the future supply of wood.
There is no relationship in the market between using and consuming wood and a tree being planted and managed.
Third party certification schemes such as Responsible Wood/PEFC and FSC are not building the forest industry and growing more wood for the future. Their goal is to save and better manage existing natural forests, not to grow more new wood resources.
The fact that the forest industry in Australia has never established any commercial credibility hasn’t helped the situation.
There must be a credible, transparent relationship between the price of wood and the cost of planting, growing and managing trees; and that relationship must encourage and support more tree planting to meet future demand.
My focus here is especially the premium solid wood market.
Until we build proper functioning wood markets in Australia most of these Australian businesses will disappear. Some will switch to imported wood when public native welfare forestry is shut down, but many will close. All for the want of a proper functioning wood market.
The Future
There are plenty of challenges that need to be addressed in order to build proper functioning wood markets but they are not insurmountable.
Possibly the first and greatest challenge is market (and consumer) recognition and responsibility.
Proper functioning wood markets in Australia must be driven by the market and consumers.
Recent comments in the media by furniture makers and builders in Western Australia (in response to the shutting down of public native forestry) do not provide encouragement. Can you believe they would rather import timber from Indonesia than support local farm forestry?
How the thousands of wood-dependent businesses in Australia will come together to coordinate and plan their future is part of this challenge. Most of these businesses are too small to achieve much by themselves. The Australian Furniture Association could take on this role for furniture makers. Builders, cabinet makers and retailers could possibly join the AFA in this.
2. The second challenge is getting the farming community on board to plant, grow and manage the trees that the market wants.
I personally think this second challenge is by far the easier of the two.
Once farmers see the market change to being responsible and supportive they will quickly get on board.
There will need to be some serious talking and building trust, and careful management of risk.
Unlike the past where the market could pick and choose from a wide variety of natural forest woods, the market must now decide on which species it wishes to promote and support in farm forestry. Species must be fast growing and command sufficient market price to allow farmers to grow them commercially. Given we are talking 30+ years between investment/planting and harvest/revenue/profit, this will require careful consideration, coordination and planning.
The idea that farmers just randomly plant hundreds of different tree species in the hope of finding a buyer in the future just wont work. Farm forestry for the growing of high quality premium solid wood will require coordination and planning, driven by the market.
This is where organisations like the AFA must play a central role.
Final some discussion about markets.
Will there still be demand for premium quality solid wood in 30+ years time?
Certainly over my 40+ year career as a forester I have seen premium quality solid wood go from a being a common cheap product to a scarce expensive product, with all indications leading to its eventual disappearance from the Australian market entirely.
I think this is primarily a supply issue, rather than one of demand.
I see sufficient evidence that the market is prepared to pay very high prices for quality solid wood.
The problem is that in a dysfunctional wood market, these price/demand signals don’t trigger a supply response as they should. If we had a strong farm forestry culture in Australia and proper functioning wood markets, these price/demand signals would be making front page news. That is where we need to get too!
This is the conversation we should have been having 50 years ago when the forestry wars began!
These are the important questions that will determine the future of the forest industry in Australia.
The end of Public Native Welfare Forestry in Australia has been coming for decades. But so many people dependent on it have chosen to ignore this fact.
Most furniture makers and builders just expect quality timber to be in the marketplace ready to buy. They have no interest in securing their own future.
How do furniture makers support farm forestry? Will furniture makers and builders support farm forestry??
New Zealand farmers have been happily growing quality timbers including lots of different eucalypt species, and blackwood, for decades. Why can’t Australian farmers?
Why don’t Australian furniture makers support New Zealand farmers and buy New Zealand grown quality wood? New Zealand farmers would love to sell their quality wood to Australian furniture makers.
If New Zealand wants timber, New Zealand farmers grow it!!
Why can’t Australian farmers grow timber for Australia??
Australia has never had a proper forest industry. Nor has it ever had proper functioning wood markets.
It has all been welfare, ideological and political!!
Not an ounce of commercial reality anywhere!!
Imagine if Australian furniture makers got behind and supported farm forestry in Australia. Just imagine the huge transformation that would initiate!!
The argument that you can’t make quality furniture out of plantation timber is of course utter bullshit. It is part of the bullshit the forest industry says to justify plundering taxpayers and our public native forests.
“We’ve never been able to grow jarrah or karri well in plantations,” Mr de Fégely said.
That is true for Jarrah, but not true for Karri. Karri is a very fast growing eucalypt species. It has been grown in plantations in South Africa for almost a century.
When it comes to defending public native welfare forestry, the forest industry will completely disparage farm forestry.
The final comments from forestry head Rob de Fégely are utterly stupid.
Growing trees for wood production is NOT welfare, it is business!!
Mr de Fégely wants to keep defending the welfare forestry model.
It’s time we gave welfare forestry the flick!!
It is time to support farm forestry in Australia!!
I finally got around to reading this book by Chris Gibson and Andrew Warren.
It will never make the Best Seller List, which is a shame because every person who owns a guitar should read it. That small piece of wooden magic in your hands has a very uncertain future.
Which is why every music festival should have a focus on encouraging farmers to grow tonewoods. Before the magic disappears!
The Table of Contents gives a good idea of how the story goes.
Introduction
Part 1 Guitar Worlds
1 * The Guitar
2 * The Factory
3 * The Sawmill
Part 2 Into the Forest
4 * Rosewood
5 * Sitka
6 * Koa
7 * Guitar Futures
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
The book is more a social/spiritual than a economic/resource oriented journey, which may appeal to guitar players.
Unfortunately the book does peddle some of the myths of the guitar world, such as
guitars can only be made from large, old, slow-growing trees; and
guitars can only be made from a small range of tree species.
Neither of these myths is true!
Cole Clark Guitars is just one example that breaks both of these myths.
What is obvious from reading the book is that the guitar industry is in serious trouble.
The book focuses strongly on what was historically, and is no more.
Having plundered the best of the best of the worlds forests, the guitar industry is running out of resource. At least a resource that they have been accustomed too = large, big, old trees!
If solid wood acoustic guitars are to have a future, makers (and consumers/artists) must shift from 2 piece backs and soundboards, to 3 and 4 piece. Big old trees will no longer be available in any volume.
Secondly, the guitar industry and tonewood suppliers must actively encourage, support and reward the planting and growing of tonewoods. Taylor Guitars and Pacific Rim Tonewoods are the only examples I know of who are doing this. Others must follow!
Thirdly, as I said, every music festival should have a focus on encouraging farmers to grow tonewoods.
I particularly enjoyed the chapter on Koa, recognising the many parallels between Koa and its Tasmanian cousin Blackwood. The one exception is that whilst Koa has turned the corner to a brighter future, Blackwood remains bound to its colonial past of plunder and waste.
The book finishes on a bright note, giving us the impression that the entire global guitar industry has experienced an environmental epiphany. If this is so there is little evidence of it on the guitar company web pages; Taylor and CF Martin being two exceptions. This is true even here in Australia.
A big part of the problem is that most guitar companies (and more so tonewood suppliers) are small businesses that do not have the resources to put into securing their future tonewood supplies. The very existence of these guitar/tonewood companies is premised on the ready availability of plundered cheap tonewoods. The idea of Maton or Cole Clark engaging with farmers to plant tonewoods is completely off the radar!
So the key question is – how will the global guitar industry secure its future supply of tonewoods? Will only the big companies survive the resource Armageddon?
This question is not asked in the book, nor is it answered! Not directly anyway!!
The answer will be in using smaller wood sizes and a larger range of different tree species.
But who will grow these trees, where and at what price?
I see no evidence as yet to link the guitar markets with landowners.
The same problem is equally true of wood furniture makers. They have no future!!
One gets the impression from the book that the only way the guitar industry will survive is if we suspend standard western economic theory. If that is the case the guitar industry has no hope.
One aspect of the book I found difficult was the very strong anti-monoculture rant. Never mind that all our food is grown in industrial monocultures. How else do we feed 7.8 billion humans?? Native forests are ecosystems that should be managed as such, but trees as commercial crops are just that. They are no different to apple orchards or cow ranches or corn farms. A blackwood plantation that covers 5-10 hectares or even 50 ha is a commercial decision made by the landowner.
The book provides no discussion of forest certification systems (eg. FSC, PEFC). Will certification guarantee future supplies of quality tonewoods? Absolutely not!!
Will the book change the global tonewood market or the guitar industry?
It’s a shame that the book was not launched by the Musicwood Alliance – assuming the Musicwood Alliance still exists. Beside Bob Taylor and Taylor Guitars, no one is telling the marketplace what the situation is.
Right now guitar players everywhere should be mobilising and marching in the streets demanding action.
Ultimately it is consumers and artists who will determine the future of the guitar industry. The more they know and understand what is happening the better it will be for everyone.
Does anyone remember the Managed Investment Scheme (MIS) disaster of the 1990s?
It was the biggest corporate fraud in Australia’s history.
There was no Royal Commission and no one went to jail.
Billions of investor and taxpayer dollars disappeared, and thousands of Australian lives were ruined.
And the forest industry, which started the MIS schemes, refused to accept any responsibility for their actions!
It was a complete disaster!
And it had its beginnings in much the same way as the Tree Alliance is now starting off.
The forest industry has been very quiet the past 10 years as it has rebuilt from the ashes of the MIS disaster.
The MIS was a near-death experience for the forest industry. A few people made extraordinary wealth, but left the industry a smoking ruin.
Below is a list of those who support the Tree Alliance:
Supporters of the Tree Alliance:
The Tree Alliance aims to bring together a range of organisations to collaborate to achieve the tree planting and communication objectives. Current supporters include:
Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association
Tasmanian Agricultural Productivity Group
Tasmanian Timber
Tasmanian Forests and Forests Product Network
We Act
Climate Friendly
The Centre For Sustainable Architecture With Wood (University of Tasmania)
CSIRO
NRM South
Note that the above list contains no sawmillers, wood processors, log merchants, exporters, or retailers. No one in the real forest industry supports the Tree Alliance!
Does that make you suspicious?
It should!!!
I wander through the Tree Alliance website and I see history repeating itself.
I see the forest industry (or at least public servants, scientists, NGOs and politicians) big-talking! Lots of promises and potential, just like the start of the MIS disaster.
BEWARE!
As I tell all my clients and those who make enquiries about growing blackwood:
“No one wants you to grow trees for future wood production!”
The real forest industry (including the marketplace) has not the slightest interest in your tree-growing dreams!
I get phone calls and hear stories of people who are bulldozing their trees they once planted and can now find no markets for!!
The Tree Alliance has all the features, promises and rhetoric of a giant fraud, just like the Managed Investment Scheme disaster.
BEWARE!
I support a real forest industry! New Zealand has a real forest industry; Australia does not!
In New Zealand the forest industry talks about prices, costs, supply, demand, markets, etc.; all those things that farmers understand and deal with every single day.
No one in the forest industry in Australia talks about such matters!
Looking at the Tree Alliance is like watching Dorothy and the Tin Man skipping down the Yellow Brick Road.
BEWARE!
Until the real forest industry (including the wider marketplace) WANTS a future I would steer clear of any hyper-marketing “forest industry” b***shit.
Tasmanian Blackwood Growers Cooperative 
An industry in decline and utterly clueless
The future of the forest industry in Australia is with profitable private plantations.
There is no other future!
But the forest industry remains utterly and completely clueless how to create that future.
Having never in its history demonstrated a cent of commercial credibility, Australia’s forest industry remains on track for an irrelevant future.
The latest statistics from the Federal department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry show Australia’s plantation estate continuing to decline.
Soon that Federal department will have to be renamed the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.
And therein lies part of the industry’s problem. Growing wood should be regarded by the rural community as standard agricultural practice, but Australia is a million miles from that cultural and economic change.
It should not be Agriculture and Forestry! It should just be Agriculture!!
But a declining forest industry sends a very loud and clear signal to the rural community that growing wood is not commercially viable.
As such the industry decline will only snowball, unless the industry can demonstrate commercial credibility. To date the forest industry has refused to do so!
https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/research-topics/forests/forest-economics/plantations-update
The future of the forest industry is NOT in the hands of politicians.
The forest industry is responsible for its own future.
So far there has been no evidence of this!
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