Australasia's home for timber news and information

Finland pins hope on biofuel

It has created a modest 200 jobs in a Finnish forestry industry that has lost around 20,000 in the past decade, but UPM-Kymmene’s new biofuels plant offers long-awaited growth and hope. Sources: 7 News, Reuters The 180 million euro ($200 million) investment in wood-based renewab
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Poland approves logging last primeval forest

Poland has approved large-scale logging in Europe’s last primeval woodland in a bid to combat a beetle infestation despite protests from scientists, ecologists and the European Union. The action in the Białowieża forest is intended to fight the spread of the spruce bark beetle. “We’re
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Is there paranoia over pellets

Respected German newspaper, Die Welt, published an article under the title “The naive carelessness of the wood burner.” Source: Treehugger In fairness to the complexities of translation, the German word “Sorglosigkeit” might also be translated as “carefre
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NZ centre for fine woodworking keeps working

As it turns out, the old, dying tree from Queens Gardens that the council gave to the Centre for Fine Woodworking is in fact a particularly rare Cyprus cedar, the oldest of its type in Australasia. Source: Stuff NZ The tree, one of the first planted by European settlers in Nelson, New
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Wood chop comp revived in Kimbolton

A wood chopping competition Kimbolton, New Zealnd is gaining a reputation in just its second year following   a 14-year hiatus. Source: Manawatu Standard Colleen Gibbins and husband Julian own the Kimbolton Hotel, and said it was good to see the event back on the calendar. “It u
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Don’t pick up that stick

Victorians will be banned from collecting firewood from public land this year. Source: The Weekly Times Community leaders fear elderly people using wood for heating and cooking are most vulnerable to the bans across northern Victoria. For the first time since European settlement, publ
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NZ biosecurity is top class

A review of global biosecurity undertaken by Scion Principal Scientist Dr Eckehard (Ecki) Brockerhoff and colleagues from the University of Pretoria highlights the urgent need for a global biosecurity strategy for planted forests. Source: Scion The review was published recently in the
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Forest Wood Conference outcomes

New Zealand minister Jo Goodhew presented at the recent ForestWood Conference 2016. Source: Timberbiz In her speech she said the New Zealand Government was focused on meeting its key economic growth objectives and that the focus of the conference was how forestry and wood processing s
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Embolisms in eucaplypts can kill

Extreme droughts could lead to widespread death of eucalypts from embolisms, researchers say. Source: ABC News The trees cannot quickly adjust the size of their water transport vessels to cope with variability in water supply. Their findings, published in this Ecology Letters, show th
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Taxpayers carry cost of logging NSW

Logging of native forests has cost NSW taxpayers $78 million over the past six years for a declining industry that is also a primary risk for the state’s rising number of threatened species, according to a report by The Australia Institute. Source: The Sydney Morning Herald The
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