New Zealand’s wood supply chain is a NZ$1billion cost centre. Currently, it’s estimated that, as an industry, it is leaking around NZ$150m each year. Neither the forest owners nor service enterprises are capturing this loss. This declining level of industry financial performance is not sustainable with New Zealand forestry’s international competitiveness seriously at risk. Resin Forest Engineering Research Director Bruce Easton is bringing together a range of key issues and a group of international and local experts as part of an industry summit with the objective to move the industry forward with a common vision.

This event will engage New Zealand’s key forestry enterprises to consider adopting an industry coalition for applied & pure research coupled to technology transfer as a basis for real productivity growth. It will require a strategy of investment in forest engineering capability across the supply chain. Speakers at the July Summit will profile the case to establish R&D investment in the harvesting supply chain as a key input to economic growth and profitability. The 2008 Industry Summit will strive to educate participants on current practices in the supply chain, promote opportunities and quantify performance gaps. Speakers will be presenting examples of well executed outcomes in other leading forest products countries. They will demonstrate that a blend of applied and pure research is fundamental to sustained productivity growth. Further details on the July Summit can be found by contacting gordon.thomson@innovatek.co.nz

Tembec is imposing a temporary shutdown for a period of at least three months at its Béarn sawmill located in Quebec, Canada, effective March 31, 2008. The shutdown decision was based on the lack of reasonably priced logs in the region and the overall depressed lumber market. “This shutdown is a reflection of the severe decline in overall market conditions, driven primarily by the dramatic fall in the number of housing starts in the United States and the related impact on lumber pricing. The continued high value of the C$ against the US$ further aggravates these conditions,” said Dennis Rounsville, Executive VP and President of Tembec’s Forest Products Group.

The Béarn sawmill has an annual production capacity of 110,000 Mfbm of SPF lumber and employs approximately 150 people. Management has already met with employees to inform them of the decision. Tembec is a large, diversified and integrated forest products company, and a global leader in sustainable forest management practices. With operations principally located in North America and in France, the company employs approximately 8,000 people.

The Polish Forest Certification Scheme has been endorsed by the PEFC Council following a rigorous assessment process. The Polish system is the second new forest certification scheme to achieve PEFC endorsement this year after Estonia. Forest cover in Poland is 8.6 Mha, almost 28% of the country. About 82% of the forests belong to the State, while approximately 1,4 million forest owners own 16% of the forest land. An average private forest holding is about 1ha/owner.

Dr Jaroslav Oktaba, Secretary General of PEFC Polska said “We are delighted with the endorsement as it provides choice for our forest owners and also for the timber and paper sectors which play an important role in our national economy and our trade links with other countries. The international recognition of our national system means that companies can fully participate in the global trade of certified products.” Mr Ben Gunneberg, Secretary General of PEFC added “As with all national forest certification schemes endorsed by PEFC, the standards are publicly available on our website, as is the full independent assessment report which was used to guide PEFC’s decision. The evaluation report includes the now mandatory Panel of Experts peer review which provides an extra level of scrutiny, transparency and accountability which is unique in the assessment of forest certification schemes.”

Australia’s CSIRO is collaborating in a NASA-funded project, using a CSIRO-designed instrument, to help develop new methods of measuring forest carbon stores on a large scale. Forests are the world’s main above-ground carbon store and are therefore critical in controlling the global carbon cycle. But estimating the amount of carbon stored in forests over a large scale is difficult. An American project is using the CSIRO-designed ECHIDNAr instrument, together with airborne sensors, to provide a practical technique for broad-scale structural mapping of forests.

CSIRO carbon accounting expert, Dr Phil Polglase, says the project is important to international research efforts to provide improved estimates of carbon stored in forests. “Australia, along with other countries, reports on its greenhouse gas emissions from the land-use sector and this research offers a new method to improve our carbon estimates across large scales,” Polglase says. The ECHIDNA is a patented ground-based light detection and ranging (LiDAR) instrument which CSIRO began developing in 2001. CSIRO later worked closely with Forest and Wood Products Australia during development and validation. The ECHIDNA has been used extensively to assess the 3D structure of tree trunks, branches and leaves. These forest structural variables can be used to help estimate forest biomass. The NASA project is extending this work by integrating the ECHIDNA with other LiDAR technologies, says CSIRO Remote Sensing scientist, Dr Glenn Newnham. “We’re meeting the challenge of providing reliable biomass estimates over large areas by combining the detail from the ECHIDNA on the ground with the broad-scale airborne LiDAR data. We’re expecting that this method will lead to more accurate and efficient mapping and monitoring of forest biomass and, as a result, a better understanding of the influence of forest carbon stores on the global carbon cycle.” The project is a collaboration between CSIRO, Boston University and the City University of New York and is funded through NASA’s Remote Sensing Science for Climate and Carbon program. Researchers from Boston University are scaling up the ECHIDNAr data and will integrate it with information from the airborne and spaceborne LiDAR sensors. Researchers involved in the project include: Dr Glenn Newnham and Dr Darius Culvenor (CSIRO Forest Biosciences), Dr David Jupp and Dr Jenny Lovell (CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research) and Professor Alan Strahler (Boston University).

WWF published its WWF Paper Scorecard at the end of last year. The PEFC (Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes) Council has welcomed WWF’s acknowledgement that “several schemes have made contributions to improving forest management”. However, the PEFC says, “this is not reflected in the scorecard, and an opportunity to make the scorecard a really useful tool has been missed.”

WWF released The WWF Paper Scorecard on November 28, 2007. Its goal is to provide a tool for all paper buyers, producers and suppliers to help them choose paper products and grade with the smallest possible environmental footprint. There are seven categories, each weighted based on their relative impact giving a total of 100 points. 40% of the points are allocated to the sourcing of raw materials for which WWF recognises only FSC certified or post consumer recycled timber.

Although “WWF acknowledges that several schemes have made contributions to improving forest management”, this is not reflected in the scorecard. Rather it recommends that buyers ask specifically for FSC certification as, in its opinion, this scheme “best meets WWF’s key requirements of responsibility, international consistency and balanced multi-stakeholder governance”. PEFC feels that WWF has missed an opportunity to develop a truly useful tool through its scorecard by:

•Failing to recognise market realities – 10% of world’s forest is certified (equivalent to 25% of world’s industrial roundwood production) and only one third of that is to FSC. WWF’s scorecard should not differentiate within the 10% of the world’s best managed forests. Instead it should shift its focus to the remaining 90% of forest land that is not certified to any system.
•Refusing to differentiate between certified and non-certified wood – WWF’s premise is that several schemes have made contributions to improved forest management yet this is not reflected at all in the scorecard which does not award points for two-thirds of the world’s certified forests. Third-party, credible and internationally recognised forest certification systems are treated the same as non-certified forest products that could potentially be from illegal and unsustainable sources. WWF recognizes that “several schemes have contributions to improving forest management”, and states “your absolute priority should be to purchase papers based on fibres from well managed forests. The easiest way to do this is to ask for paper that is certified under a credible forest certification scheme”. Despite this statement, WWF has chosen to only reward FSC in itsscorecard, in its opinion the “best” scheme, implying that the all other schemes are not credible.

See http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/forests/what_you_can_do/business/paper_toolbox/tools_for_paper_buyers/the_wwf_guide_to_buying_paper/index.cfm

PEFC says “WWF is one of the original supporters of FSC and this tactic of WWF to recognise other systems but not to give them points calls the entire scorecard into question. PEFC is confident, and can demonstrate, through independent assessments carried out by governments and the private sector, that it meets customers’ expectations on responsibility, transparency, international consistency and balanced multi-stakeholder governance.”To assist in making the Scorecard a truly useful and objective tool, PEFC encourages WWF to consider:

• Giving PEFC and others the opportunity to work on ways to improve their Guide
• Inviting and considering other stakeholders’ views and values when defining its key requirements for credible certification schemes
• Carrying out independent and transparent assessments of various schemes
• Using thresholds which credible certifications can meet rather than going for the “best or bust” approach
• Actively engaging in other forest certification schemes other than FSC to address concerns they might have with the standards rather than a “FSC or bust” attitude.

“The PEFC Council hereby formally and publicly extends an invitation to work with WWF and to engage in an open dialogue to address the points above to improve the scorecard.”

An increasing number of construction firms around the world are committing to using Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified timber in their building projects. Royal BAM Group in the Netherlands and Even Construtora e Incorporadora in Brazil are two of the latest examples.

In Brazil, Even Construtora e Incorporadora is set to use more FSC for tropical timber in 2008. The decision follows from its first and successful large acquisition of FSC certified wooden doors. With over 60 projects planned for 2008, this commitment will directly contribute to improving forest management practices in the Amazon.

The company, Even, is the fourth largest construction firm in the populous state of São Paulo, Brazil. Whilst Brazil is the largest producer of tropical timber in the world, it is simultaneously the largest consumer, most of which ends up in the construction sector. 80% of the timber that arrives in São Paulo is used in the civil construction sector.

In The Netherlands, Royal BAM Group is set to use FSC wood in all its building projects developed in the Netherlands. The multinational company is one of the largest construction firms in the Netherlands and is looking to extend its commitment to its international activities.

With over 8,000 housing developments a year, offices and more, this commitment should support the growth of FSC certified forest area. Royal BAM will use FSC certified timber in existing and new building developments including FSC tropical wood, softwoods and plywood. The company will strive to use FSC in projects which are already planned, and push for the use of FSC wood in orders involving third parties. Additionally, the company will be changing over to FSC paper within a few years.

BAM signed an agreement with FSC Netherlands in December 2007 for its activities in the Netherlands. In 2007 the estimated market share for FSC products was over 17% in the Netherlands.

This paper gives an overview of the concerns, perceptions and reactions surrounding ‘Conversions’. Given the universal appreciation of the importance of forests, especially tropical forests, and concern at their potential demise the solution appears to be to simple – either leave them alone or replace the trees that we use. So why has the debate raged for decades? Well, it isn’t simple at all. Society depends on forests for so many things. They cleanse the air we breathe and help stabilise our climates. They also provide resources and shelter for indigenous peoples and raw materials for global industries. Everyone agrees that forests need to be managed sustainably but opinions differ as to how this can be achieved.

Deforestation is the term generally used to describe the destruction of forests. It is applied to forests where the land has been cleared and used for non forest purposes such as agriculture or building. It can also be used, often inaccurately, to describe forests that have been changed or “degraded” for example by the planting of non-native species, or increasing the density of planting. There is general acceptance of the generic use of deforestation in its strict sense, but there is often a major debate about the significance of change or degradation.

Climatic conditions determine forest types, for example tropical or boreal. They are further categorised by the way they are managed into two main groupings, natural, and planted. Natural, semi-natural and modified natural, are all terms used to describe forests that house native species where there may, or may not, have been human intervention. Planted forests encompass indigenous and introduced species, and plantations generally include just a few species of native and/or introduced species of even age and regular spacing.

Until quite recently the perceived wisdom was that as long as more trees were planted than were used, forests would last for ever. Once the issue of deforestation had been planted firmly on the political agenda and in the public psyche, environmental groups laboured hard to broaden the debate from a question of quantity to quality of forests. Thus issues such as biodiversity, indigenous peoples’ rights and conversions began to feature.

Forest conversions, especially the conversion of ‘natural forests’ to ‘plantations’ has emerged as an important issue. Basically ‘conversion’ means the changing of one thing into another and it can therefore be legitimately used to describe the conversion of non-forested land into forests, but unfortunately it is now generally used in a negative context.

As with so many debates surrounding forestry issues, definitions are crucial. A plethora of organisations have developed views and policies regarding conversions. At one end of the spectrum environmental groups such as WWF and Greenpeace tend to see conversions as a: “destructive practice whereby natural forests are chopped down to meet other land needs” (WWF). They are particularly anxious to protect High Conservation Value Forests (HCVFs) which they consider as forests that are deemed to be especially significant in terms of, for instance, providing critical natural habitats or housing very old and rare tree species and in recent times HCVFs and forest conversions have become inextricably linked.

Private companies, governments and some timber processing companies have developed purchasing policies that exclude the use of materials from converted forests and although the definition of “conversion” can vary the emphasis tends to be on conversion to non-forest use and of natural forests to plantations. Financial institutions, such as the World Bank also place quite detailed restrictions on funding forestry projects where conversion may have occurred.

Bearing in mind that the demands on forests to provide a myriad of benefits have never been greater it is logical to conclude that a variety of forest types and management techniques will be required to meet this demand. The over-simplification of very complicated issues can be dangerous. To be excluded from tendering for a contract, or applying for financial assistance or to be labeled as unsustainable by an all encompassing and inflexible definition can be devastating, especially for developing countries.

The decision to make changes to any forest can involve complex economic, social and environmental considerations. Sometimes there are more pressing land needs than forestry.

The prevalent assumption that conversions (and indeed plantations) are bad, tends to ignore these conundrums and the fact that without man’s intervention forests are constantly changing.

PEFC is committed to maintaining or enhancing biodiversity in ecosystems which implicitly means that valuable sites must be sustained. It is mindful of the genuine concern surrounding this issue and the emotions it can evoke and is committed to devoting as much time as is necessary to undertake a rational and detailed examination of the issue and to work with members and key stakeholders to develop a relevant action plan.

Wayne Keith has converted his pickup to run on scraps of wood from his Alabama (US) sawmill. The heart of the wood-powered vehicle is a gasifier, which basically converts solid fuels into gaseous ones. Though the fuel in their tanks is liquid, gasoline and diesel engines actually run on vapour. Thus, the wood gas produced in a gasifier (also known as ‘producer gas’ or ‘syngas’) will burn in a gasoline or diesel engine with only minor modifications to the motor itself.

When heated in the absence of oxygen, wood gives off a mixture of gases made up of about 20% hydrogen, 20% carbon monoxide, and small amounts of methane, with nitrogen accounting for the rest. The gasifier keeps the gas from combining with oxygen until it reaches the engine, where it combusts, giving off carbon dioxide and water vapour as waste products.

This technology is not new. Wood gas has been produced for heating since at least the late 1700s, and has been used to run engines since the 1880s. During WWII’s petroleum shortages, wood gasification for transportation fuel became rapidly and briefly widespread, both in the Europe and the US.

Keith’s converted pickup starts on gasoline. As a supercharger pulls air through the gasifier, he tosses a piece of burning newspaper into the bottom of the unit. The burning paper ignites the charcoal, and 45 seconds later, the engine is running on wood gas alone (though it takes longer to get to full power).

With two separate accelerators, Keith says, the pickup can switch from gasoline to wood fuel “in the blink of an eye.” The gasifier looks like a large drum standing upright in the bed of the pickup. Keith has added five layers of insulating material around the outside of the unit, so that even with temperatures reaching 2,500°F inside, he can stack bales of hay next to it without risking a fire.

Thus equipped, the pickup easily reaches cruising speeds of 100 km/h. A similarly modified truck pulls a trailer loaded with 17 round hay bales, weighing 500 kg apiece. “I’ve driven 30,000 miles (over 48,000 km) in the last three years,” Keith says. “I’ve done 90% of that on wood.” At 2 miles per lb (7 km per kg) burned, it takes 20 lb of wood to replace a gallon of gasoline. That works out to around 4,000 miles per cord of wood, says Keith, whose entire fuel supply comes from his sawmill’s leftovers.

“I’ve never cut a tree to run my truck or heat my house,” he says. Keith says he has no plans to develop his homemade gasifier unit for commercial production, since operating it requires more skill than a standard gasoline or diesel engine. “is whole system is kind of complicated to build and drive,” he explains. “The knowledge is a lot more important than the apparatus itself. It’s kind of like if somebody gave you an operating table and a knife and asked you to do heart surgery.”

A better use for the technology, he says, would be stationary wood gasifiers for generating electricity. Located throughout a county and staffed with trained operators, he says, such small units could be tied into the electrical grid to provide power from scrap wood, spoiled hay, and other unused biomass.

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Working Group in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is now accredited. This makes Papua New Guinea the first FSC accredited Working Group established in Oceania. The Working Group is developing national forest management standards for the country in line with FSC’s Principles and Criteria. Forests known for their rich biodiversity cover 65% of Papua New Guinea. The island of New Guinea holds the largest remaining intact block of tropical forests in the Asia-Pacific region.

The world’s second- largest papermaker, Stora Enso, posted a bigger-than-expected loss in the fourth quarter on rising wood prices and costs to close mills, according to a Bloomberg report.

The loss was 135.3 million euros ($197 million), compared with a year-earlier profit of 263 million euros. Analysts estimated a loss of 81 million euros. Sales from continuing operations gained 1.6% to 3.37 billion euros, less than the analyst estimate of 3.55 billion euros, the report stated.The company is closing pulp mills in Finland and Sweden after price of Finnish wood rose as much as 30% last year. Papermakers have struggled to pass on fiber expenses to customers even as global capacity is reduced. One-time costs including the closures amounted to 388.5 million euros in the quarter. Stora, based in Helsinki, said it may close more mills as it tries to eliminate its dependence on Russian wood imports before tariff increases that will double prices. Any measures will be announced in the next few months, Chief Executive Officer Jouko Karvinen said.