Tag Archives: plantations

HVP Plantations

HVP Plantations appoints new COO

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HVP Plantations has announced that it has appointed a new Chief Operating Officer (COO). Rob Hescock (photo), who has held the position of General Manager Northern Region at HVP Plantations since 2010, has taken up the COO role. Prior to his time at HVP, Rob held a series of operational roles across forestry in Australia and the U.S. Additionally, the General Manager Northern Region role has also been filled, with Anne Partridge promoted to the leadership team in this role.

Stephen Ryan, HVP Plantations ’ Chief Executive Officer, commented “We couldn’t be happier to have appointed Rob for this important role. He has worked across a variety of HVP’s locations and operational functions, as well as served as a member of our leadership team for the past eight years. Each of these elements of his career has equipped him with skills and knowledge that will benefit HVP.”

Mr Ryan stated that “HVP also saw the value in appointing a person to the General Manager Northern Region position who has a strong understanding of the regions’ customer needs and forest operations”. Anne Partridge takes on this role with over twenty-five years’ experience in forestry, including fifteen years within HVP in harvest, haulage and customer management roles.

Note: HVP Plantations is a privately-owned plantation forestry company, managing over 240,000 hectares of land across Victoria. HVP supplies logs for sawn timber, paper manufacturing, treated panel board and other timber uses to domestic and export customers.

Abares

Australia’s plantations going backwards

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Federal Government figures released yesterday (Abares) showing a continuing decline in Australia’s plantation timber estate, should be a wakeup call for policy makers, according to Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA), Mr Ross Hampton.

The ABARES report graphically shows the decline in available timber for domestic processing and continues a troubling trajectory of several years. The Australian plantation statistics 2018 update released by ABARES shows that in 2016-17, Australia’s total commercial plantation area was 1,955,100 hectares, down 19,700 or 1 per cent.

“This is a crisis”, said Mr Hampton. “Nowhere in the world is there large-scale tree planting without government policy backing. We urgently need to grow to about 2.4 million hectares if we are to keep pace with housing growth and ensure the viability of our mills and processing plants and the towns they underpin”.

“We already import the timber used to frame about 60,000 houses a year. We have a constant deficit in wood products as a nation of about AU$2 billion. For a nation with ample land and expertise this is a travesty. Plantations use about half a per cent of agricultural land. Adding another 400,000 hectares would take that to about 0.6 per cent.”.

“AFPA welcomes the AU$20 million set out in last week’s Federal Budget towards the Federal Government’s National Forestry Industry Plan, but it is unclear yet just how the Government plans to generate a new round of tree planting. Industry presumes this will be addressed in the release of the full plan later this year.

“Without more trees to support our sawmilling, processing and pulp, paper and packaging businesses, and the jobs they provide, everything else we do is just skirting the real issue,” Mr Hampton concluded.

AFPA Media Release found here.

ABARES; Australian plantation statistics  2018 update can be found here.