MYPONITER ad Taswegian have already made excellent points. Several attempts have been made to value add and they have been scuttled.

We outsource because it;s too expensive or too difficult to do it here, that the commercial reality as Tommbee points out.

f the author sees clue adding as something he sees in a positive light, then perhaps advocating to allow industry to compete by making it simpler and cheaper for them to do so rather then simple "couchtivism" and move on.

I closed my small sawmilling business in Brisbane at the end of 2011 after 7 years in operation.

I was no longer able to cut and process logs for less than the value of the cut timber, despite having very low costs of feedlogs and a very low overhead operation and being able to selectively cut to maximise yield.

At the end I was getting less for my timber than I had at the start. I burnt over 100 tons of cut timber at the end, because the price I was offered was simply insulting.

Large mills with capital to invest in upgrading plant are given grants to assist, but a small operation has to stand or fall on its own.

Although such large mills are inefficient in terms of yield per log, they are very high turnover and even their waste is of sufficient volume to be attractive as a feed for other processes, including generating power for their own needs and conversion to manufactured boards, etc. A small mill like mine cannot do that, because there is not enough of anything to make it worth anybody's while to collect it, and because woodwaste is, believe or not, a noxious waste that must be strictly controlled to prevent off-site contamination, including the tannins that leach out when it is wet and dust when it is dry. Gasification to run small engines is a viable option, except that regulation makes it very hard.

The article didn't mention imports, but I know one firm here in brisbane that imports 20 containers of dressed Kwila/merbau from PNG monthly, with 20 cubic meters of first grade timber in each and is supply-side driven, so sells aggressively and competes hard on price.

It's a mug's game.

Not only is Russell Warman part of the problem, but he doesn't know one piece of wood from another. He thinks all wood is the same, and he is using statistics in a perverted manner to express a prejudice against the native forest timber industry from the position of an environmental zealot. I hope UTAS does not diminish its reputation by giving him a pass without subjecting his work to a real world evaluation.
His thrust is to suggest all timber requirements can be met from plantation timber, but that is not the case. He would like to suggest there is no need to harvest any native forest timber, but I strongly disagree. The fact is that no plantation can economically replicate the qualities of timber of particular species for particular purposes and give a viable return within a reasonable timeframe. This is particularly the case in Warman's adopted state of Tasmania, and among the particular uses to which the highly decorative species of Special Timbers are put for a high-value return. The same results could never be achieved with his preferred plantation species, and nor would they meet the specific requirements of the boat builders who have such iconic status in the state that hosts the second largest wooden boat festival on the planet every two years, and the one that has an iconic retailing sector catering for tourists that owes its existence to the fact that visitors instantly recognise the uniqueness and value of unusual decorative timbers in quality products, and are prepared to pay significantly more for them than similar products. His impoverished position deserves nothing but derision, especially for the fact that much government money has been spent redirecting the timber industry towards plantations at the insistence of organisations of the ones in which he has put much effort as an activist. Heaven forbid he gets a job as a political adviser.

Sorry MWPoynter, I didn't read your last before posting, but I see you've made many of the same points.

The best place to grow timber is in a natural forest, using sunlight (solar energy) to power a process that creates wood called photo synthesis turning carbon dioxide and water into trees that can provide timber for furniture, shelter, fibre and hygenic tissue. Timber stores the solar energy and carbon for the life of the product, the regenerated harvested forest starts the process again.

The next best place to grow timber is in plantations but as has been pointed out by the greens and foresters alike:

“Plantations are monoculture – the trees are planted in straight lines, there is limited biodiversity, and chemicals are applied to protect and fertilise the crop. They are typically planted on short rotations of 12 to 15 years to produce pulp and up to 25 years for sawlogs.

“Regenerated forests on the other hand are chemical free, regenerated using processes that mimic nature and have a suite of biodiversity values.

“They are managed to produce high quality sawlog and veneer, with longer rotations of between 80 and 90 years, and in the case of the Special Timber Zone, 200 years."

See video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP6XCailI-A it shows a clear felled burnt and sown regenerated forest that produced export woodchips, high and low quality sawlogs, and special species timber for craft and furniture designers, as well as jobs in the forest, in transport, in processing and value adding as well as retailing, house building and tourism!.

The forest was listed last week for its outstanding universal value as part of the pristine Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area!

Sorry, Russell, but you can't see the logs for the trees! Here in WA, the vast majority of hardwood plantation timber is used to produce woodchips for paper and cardboard. Conversely, it is only the native forest hardwood timbers of jarrah, marri, tuart, wandoo, blackbutt and karri that are turned into fine furniture and similar high value wood uses. The only true competition between timbers from plantations and native forest is in structural timbers, veneer and flooring/decking, with plantation pine (usually after treatment to prevent fungal rot and termite attack) competing with jarrah (untreated as it naturally resists fungi and termites).
Overall, therefore, your continual reference to 'logs' is largely irrelevant in the debate about native forest versus plantation timber harvesting. I suggest you make a clear distinction between the uses and hence values of logs rather than lumping them all into the same wood heap if you want your PhD thesis to be accepted as an accurate and relevant study of the causes and implications of transition of wood production from native forests to plantations.
By the way, in WA, it takes about 20 years to produce a hardwood plantation log for woodchip production but about 100 years for karri and 150 years for jarrah in our native forests. The economics of growing plantation timber is such that very few landowners have the patience or financial capacity to wait 40 or so years for plantation hardwoods to produce sawmill logs. If logging of native forests can be done sustainably (as they are at present), then the large areas of native forests in WA are well suited to this long rotation period and the production of unique native forest hardwood timbers for high value sawn timber uses.