International efforts to combat climate change received a boost in mid September with consensus amongst a diverse group of global forest leaders on a new set of principles dealing with sustainable forestry.

A two-day meeting in Washington, organized by The Forests Dialogue (TFD) in conjunction with the World Bank, covered a wide range of issues. These included how to deal with the drivers of deforestation to supporting local processes that clarify and strengthen land tenure, property and carbon rights. Together, the six agreed principles help reinforce the message that sustainable forest management is central to combating climate change and needs to be reflected more fully in the on-going global climate change policy discussions. Participants recommended, however, sharpening the principles to make them more action-oriented and client-focused. A final statement which encapsulates the principles will be launched at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona in October 2008, and presented to the 14th session of the Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change Convention in Poznan, Poland, in December. “We know that if we are going to be successful in tackling climate change we have to do it in partnership and we must involve those who manage the forest resources on the ground,” said Stewart Maginnis, Head of the Forest Conservation Program at the International Union for Conservation of Nature, one of the co-leaders of TFD. “We need every sector represented in these discussions and that’s what we had here.” The Washington meeting was the culmination of seven months of global dialogue, led by TFD, with a wide range of stakeholder groups.
That dialogue refined a multi-stakeholder vision for the role forests should play in future climate change arrangements. The Washington meeting was called to obtain support of that vision from the leaders of organizations and groups active in the conservation and management of forests. The meeting was attended by over 100 leaders and participants from governments, international institutions, the conservation community, indigenous peoples’ groups, forest owners’ associations, research agencies, and the private sector. “In addressing climate change, business has an important role to play in spreading the practice of sustainable forest management to produce fiber for wood and timber products and bio-energy, and deliver crucial ecosystem services like water and carbon ,” said James Griffiths, Managing Director at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, TFD’s other co-leader. “This group is in the unique position to both reduce its carbon emissions and sequester more carbon in forests and harvested wood products.” Participants agreed that the world’s forests have immense potential to address the causes and consequences of climate change and help to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) if managed sustainably.

Forests store five times more carbon than what is in the atmosphere, and over one billion people depend on forests or agro-forestry for income, food, energy, medicines, or shelter.  Manufactured forest products contribute US$450 billion a year to the world economy.  Yet, despite their importance, 12-14 Mha/y of forests are being destroyed. “Despite the varied perspectives and interests of leaders from different sectors and from around the world, there was real and welcome agreement on the fundamental importance of several key principles of sustainable forest management in addressing climate change,” said Gerhard Dieterle, World Bank Forestry Advisor. “We have also received valuable feedback on how to further strengthen a consensus document on these principles,” he added. The Forest Dialogue was established as a result of the first CEO Forest Forum hosted by the World Bank in 1998.  The Dialogue seeks to support and reinforce existing efforts related to forest management.  Members participate as individuals, not organizational delegates, and reflect diverse perspectives.

For more information on the World Bank’s work in forestry visit http://www.worldbank.org/forestsand for more information on The Forests Dialogue visit http://theforestdialogue.org/.

Tembec has received Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification for its forestry practices over a 711,020-ha public forest in Senneterre, in Abitibi-East, Quebec. “Achieving FSC certification is the culmination of months of hard work and represents a well-deserved recognition of the efforts of our Senneterre team,” said Dennis Rounsville, Executive Vice President and President of Tembec’s Forest Products Group. “In addition to this significant certification achievement, the company has invested more than $4.5 million since 2003 for the development and improvement of our Senneterre operations.
Faced with a profound risk of a 50% cut in fibre supply for that mill, Tembec intends to stand firm to correct this inequity, to protect our investment and maintain jobs in the region.”The FSC is recognised worldwide as the Gold standard for well-managed forests for its unique regional, multi-stakeholder approach to the development of standards. Founded in 1993, the FSC is an international, NGO that has developed the only forest certification system recognised worldwide by native peoples, environmental groups, labour organisations and industry.
The certification system requires consultations with all forest users and stakeholders, and guarantees the independent evaluation of forest management practices used by companies. “This certification demonstrates our desire to expand Tembec’s 2001 commitment to seek third-party FSC certification for all its forest operations. After the Senneterre acquisition was made in 2003, we embarked on the stringent FSC certification process as a further demonstration of our continuous improvement of forest management and partnership development, including with local First Nations,” said James Lopez, President and CEO of Tembec. “With 11.1 Mha of FSC-certified forestland under our management, Tembec offers the largest range of FSC-certified products in the marketplace to support our clients in meeting market demand for environmentally friendly solutions.” Tembec received its certification from the Rainforest Alliance SmartWoodTM Program, a Forest Stewardship Council accredited certifier, following an in-depth audit process that found that the Company’s forest management practices comply with FSC’s rigorous standards for environmentally and socially responsible forestry practices.

The latest Research Note from the Forestry Commission provides an update on red band needle blight (RBNB), a serious disease that is increasingly affecting conifer trees in Britain’s forests. Written by Dr Anna Brown and Dr Joan Webber, scientists from the Tree Health Division of Forest Research, it presents the latest information to help foresters manage affected forests.
It provides information on the causal agents, the pathogen lifecycle, and the disease’s symptoms, distribution and impact. It also discusses the options for control and management, and considers the likely future of the disease in Britain.
Red band needle blight is caused by the fungus Dothistroma septosporum, which is a listed quarantine organism that causes economically important disease on a number of coniferous tree species, and particularly pines. The disease leads to premature needle defoliation, which results in a loss of timber yield and, in severe cases, tree mortality.
The disease has a world-wide distribution, but until recently it was mostly of concern in the Southern Hemisphere. However, over the past 10 to 15 years there has been an increase in the severity and geographical range of the disease, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere. Its incidence has increased dramatically in Britain since the late 1990s, particularly on Corsican pine, and recently there have also been reports of the pathogen causing damage to lodgepole pine and Scots pine.

Corsican pine has proved so susceptible to RBNB and the impact so severe that there is now a five-year moratorium on planting this species on Forestry Commission land. The reasons for the disease’s increased incidence are unclear, but could be due to increased rainfall in spring and summer coupled with a trend towards warmer springs, optimising conditions for spore dispersal and infection. Such conditions might become more prevalent in Britain over the next 20 years if current trends in climate change continue. Disease management in Britain is currently focused on silvicultural measures to reduce inoculum loads and make the microclimate less favourable, as well as the use of alternative, less-susceptible species in future rotations.

The Finnish forest industry managed to purchase a total of 5.3 million m3 of wood from privately owned domestic forests in August. The industry’s wood supply situation remains dire even though the August purchase amount increased almost threefold from July. The aggregate purchase volume for January-August, 17.4 million m3, is still substantially less than normal. If the forest industry’s raw material needs are to be satisfied with domestic wood, annual procurements from private forests must at least triple. The industry is still in need of large amounts of pulpwood in particular. The forest industry’s January-August pine pulpwood purchases were 24% and birch pulpwood purchases 39% higher than normal. Spruce pulpwood purchases stood at around 75% of the normal five-year average. Birch log purchases came to around 90% of the normal level, but purchases of pine and spruce logs were down by almost 50%.

Weak demand for sawn timber on the global markets and the high price of wood continue to slow down log sales. The tax-free status granted to income from first-thinning operations finished at the end of August and this livened up timber sales, especially during the last week of August.

Price of wood remains high Stumpage prices remained largely unchanged from July. The average stumpage price of pine and spruce logs was €58 per cubic metre and the average price of birch logs was €49/m3. Average pine and birch pulpwood stumpage prices were €16-17/m3 and the stumpage price of spruce pulpwood was €22/m3. Prices remain considerably higher than in 2006, the last normal year for timber sales.

Softwood logs are 17-21%, birch logs 14%, pine and birch pulpwood 25-27% and spruce pulpwood 3% dearer than in August 2006. One third of roundwood sales are purchases for delivery The market situation for delivery sales, i.e. timber harvested by forest owners themselves, remains good. Over one third of all procurements were purchases for delivery in January-August, when they accounted for only 14% of all sales in the corresponding period of 2007.

ConFor has set out its case to UK MEPs opposing the moves by the European Parliament to amend radically the plant protection directive. The EC propose to change the approvals systems for pesticides in Europe from one based on risk assessment to one based on hazard criteria. The effect of these proposed changes will be to remove most of the small number of pesticides currently used in forestry.  A transport analogy would be to move away from making cars and roads safer, to banning all hazardous (ie motorised vehicles) in favour of bicycle, barge and dray. Only some 0.3% of the UK’s plant protection product usage is by the tree sector and forestry is highly regulated. As with much of agriculture, the proposals would make forest nursery and Christmas tree production largely uneconomic and would substantially increase the cost and difficulty of forest establishment. The forestry and wood-using sector is growing in the UK and currently employs over 170 000 people directly and contributes over £7 billion to the economy. The result of these proposals would be to reduce the sector’s international competitiveness and to increase imports from those countries still using (many less responsibly) pesticides. So far there has been no EU-wide regulatory impact assessment on the revised proposals. The UK’s Pesticide Safety Directorate has undertaken such a study and concludes: “If the full potential impact of the current parliamentary proposals were realised, conventional commercial agriculture in the UK (and much of the EC) as it is currently practiced would not be achievable, with major impacts on crop yield and food quality”. Chris Inglis, ConFor’s Executive Director, said: “The implications have not been thought through.  It is quite simply outrageous.  Regulatory impact assessment, including public consultation, is widely acknowledged now as being a necessity before any such changes are made, so why has this not been done? It is vital that a comprehensive, EU-wide regulatory impact assessment is carried out before any further decisions are taken on the proposed replacement of Directive 91/414/EC.”

As just one product of the highly regulated sustainable active management of designated parts of Australia’s Native Forests, wood chips represent part of the solution to climate change and carbon management in Australia according to Timber Communities of Australia CEO, Jim Adams.

It should be remembered that any areas of native forest within Australia that are still available for active productive management are areas not considered to have high conservation value and set aside for timber production through the extensive and exhaustive Regional Forests Agreement processes of the 1980s. “This includes the areas scheduled for management in the Bermagui State Forest, that is why it’s called a State Forest not a National Park,” Adams said.
At the time of the RFA all aspects of management including water and biodiversity conservation were considered and significant areas were set aside in reserves to protect these values such that one way or another more that 88% of the native forests on the South Coast of NSW are within these reserves. With respect to carbon and the management of climate change in 2007, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported; “In the long term, a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest carbon stocks, while producing an annual sustained yield of timber, fibre or energy from the forest, will generate the largest sustained mitigation benefit.” Clearly this finding of more than 1000 of the world’s top scientist and experts in the field of climate change does not suit the purposes of the South Coast greens and they prefer to ignore it and seek to invent their own work to support their misguided objectives, Adams speculated. “TCA supports calls for a more sophisticated discussion on these issues as it will bring out the truth of the Intergovernmental Panels findings and debunk the findings of the partially green funded and self-serving work currently being cited by the Greens,” Adams concluded.

Tembec has announced limited production curtailments at two of its pulp mills in order to balance inventory levels. The company’s Temcell hardwood high-yield pulp mill located in Temiscaming, Quebec stopped production on August 31 for one week, while its softwood kraft pulp mill located in Tarascon, France will be idled for two weeks commencing September 10. These curtailments combined will reduce output by 16,500 t.”

The late summer period typically represents a period of lower demand for pulp. We are seeing this occurring in Europe and areas of Asia, driven in part by annual vacation shutdowns in pulp consuming businesses. Further, we are experiencing lower demand from our customers. The shutdowns announced today will allow Tembec to prudently manage both inventory levels and working capital,” said Yvon Pelletier, Executive Vice President and President of the Pulp Group. Management has informed employees at both sites of the Company’s decision. The Temcell operation produces 300,000 t/y of hardwood high-yield pulp and Tarascon’s yearly production amounts to 260,000 t of softwood kraft pulp.

Wood fibre costs, the major cost component when producing wood pulp, increased in practically all major pulp-producing regions around the world in the 2Q/08, according to the market report Wood Resource Quarterly (WRQ). This was both a result of a continued weakening of the US dollar against most major currencies and because of higher transport costs for both pulpwood and wood chips.

The wood costs, which typically account for almost 50% of the production costs for a pulp mill, often determine a region’s or company’s competitiveness. The average global conifer wood price reached a new all-time-high of $112.53/odmt (oven-dry metric tonne) in the second quarter of 2008. This was up 11% from 2007 and 26% higher than two years ago.

The only exception to this price trend was in North America, where softwood pulplog prices fell between 1-6% from the previous quarter, depending on region. The fall occurred secondary to increases in log supply combined with slightly lower demand for wood. The largest price increases came in Europe, Brazil, Russia and Australia, where supply of both roundwood and chips became tighter. With the slump in the lumber markets in North America and Europe, the supply of residual chips from sawmills continued to decline, resulting in increased competition and higher reliance on the more expensive wood fibre from roundwood.

The average non-conifer wood fiber costs were also up in the second quarter of 2008, reaching a record-high of $108.77/odmt, which was up 16% from a year ago and 23% higher than in 2006.

Some of the largest increases have occurred in Brazil where costs for pulpwood traded in the open market have increased over 300% in five years in US dollar terms, and more than 200 % as measured in the Brazilian Reais.

The Global Average Wood Fiber Price is a weighted average of delivered wood fibre prices for the pulp industry in 17 regions tracked by the publication WRQ. These regions together account for 85-90% of the world’s wood-based pulp production capacity.

The higher cost of producing pulp the past few years has to a large extent been passed on to wood pulp consumers. Market pulp prices have almost doubled since 2003 and are currently at the highest level in 13 years. www.woodprices.com

Wood Resource Quarterly reports that softwood sawlog prices increased in Russia during the second quarter, in contrast to the sharp decline noted during the first. Contrary to earlier price movements, this time it was the domestic market rather than the export market that was the main price driver as the housing market in western Russia strengthened substantially. As a result of the implemented and planned log export taxes in Russia, shipments of softwood logs from Russia have declined both to Europe and Asia in 2007 and 2008. In the first quarter of 2008, Russia shipped 44% less to Europe and 15% less to Asia. During the first quarter of 2008, Russia exported less to all of its major trading partners except China, which increased purchases by 14%. Softwood log exports are, so far in 2008, at the lowest level in four years.

The major consumers of exported pine and spruce logs from northwest Russia are sawmills and to a lesser extent Sweden. In 2007, Sweden and Finland alone imported 89% of Russia’s total shipments to Europe. Other importers included sawmills in Estonia and Latvia, which increasingly have become dependent on Russia for sawlogs.

The declining exports of softwood logs have benefited the domestic industry in Russia for two main reasons: increased availability and lower costs for sawlogs. This was particularly true in the first quarter this year, when raw material costs declined substantially in both northwest Russia and Siberia. In the second quarter, sawlog prices rebounded slightly as demand from domestic sawmills increased.

One key reason for the changing market conditions has been the ample supply of logs thanks to favourable logging and hauling conditions during the winter months. In the past, it was quite common that wood prices would fall early in the year due to good weather conditions, but then increase in the spring when bad road conditions limited the timber volumes that could be hauled out from the forests. Another reason for the reduction in prices has been the unusually high domestic sawlog supply as the result of declining log exports to Europe. In the first quarter European countries imported 43% less softwood roundwood from Russia than in the same quarter in 2007, while hardwood log exports were up by over 50%.

Despite the recent fall in prices, log costs in Russia have still not come down to the same level as a couple of years ago, according to WRQ. With the recent reduction in log costs, Russian sawmills currently have some of the lowest wood costs in the world. With the possibility of a plentiful supply of logs next year secondary to the log tax increase, log costs within Russia are likely to stay down during 2009.

Global pulpwood and sawlog market updates are included in the 50-page publication Wood Resource Quarterly. The report, established in 1988 and with readers in over 20 countries, tracks wood prices in most regions around the world and also includes regular updates of international pulp, lumber and biomass markets. www.woodprices.com

MagForestry recently commissioned wood chip plant located in the port of Pointe-Noire, Republic of Congo is operating successfully (IFI, February 2008, pp32-35). Production has achieved a target rate of about 2,000 t/d of eucalyptus chips with total production to date of approximately 70,000 t. The annual production target is 500,000 t of wood chips. De-barked eucalyptus logs are provided to the chip mill in 6 m lengths from the forestry operations of Eucalyptus Fibre Congo SA (EFC) which is 100% owned by MagForestry. In addition, MagForestry announced the successful delivery of its first FOB shipment of wood chips to a contract customer in Europe. The approximately 30,000 t shipment was successfully unloaded and payment received by MagForestry. A second 30,000 t ship is currently being loaded for delivery to a second customer in Europe on a delivered basis using a purpose-built Mitsiu ship, which has been contracted by MagForestry. Total contracted sales to large European pulp and paper customers are for 400,000 t/y with additional volumes planned for the spot market.

EFC is an established sustainable-renewable forestry operation based on the planting and harvesting of fast-growing clones of eucalyptus trees which reach 22 to 26 m in seven years, at which point they are harvested and the area replanted. EFC currently holds an exclusive concession agreement with the Government of The Republic of Congo which expires in 2076. The plantation concession covers 68,000 ha of which 42,000 ha are currently planted with the balance expected to be planted from EFC’s expanded tree nursery over the next 18 months. EFC shipped about 200,000 t of round logs to European customers in 2007 for proceeds of some $19 million. EFC has continued to ship logs through the first six months of 2008 after which the bulk of sales will be in wood-chips. Forestry operations continue to be streamlined through the acquisition of new equipment, ongoing training programs and competitive contract harvesting practices. EFC is now the largest private employer in the Republic of Congo.