Australasia's home for timber news and information

NZ positive on timber future

“Challenges facing the NZ timber industry are real and significant but the industry is generally in a good demand cycle and sentiment is positive,” New Zealand Timber Industry Federation (NZTIF) president, John McVicar said. “Domestic demand for timber is very strong at the moment. “H
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New sawmill to revitalise Tambo

The western Queensland town of Tambo has turned to timber in an effort to diversify its economy. Source: ABC News The council is fixing up the town’s abandoned sawmill to attract a new lessee and a new industry to town. With the help of the federal and state governments a total
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NZ Timber Design Award entries close soon

You have until the end of the month to enter the 2017 NZ Wood-Resene Timber Design Awards. Source: Timberbiz Stage One entries close on Friday, 28 October, which is less than three weeks away. Entries are already coming in, but if we don’t have yours it can’t be considered, said NZ Wo
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Prefab comes at right time

The capabilities of engineered-timber construction was a major focus for this year’s prefabAus conference. Source: Architecture & Design As the organisation’s members gathered for the third national conference in Sydney, a spate of prefab timber development is was underway all ove
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SA embraces prefab wooden apartments

Timber-based prefabricated apartments being built in Adelaide could give momentum to the South Australian Government’s push for more inner city development, the Housing Industry Association (HIA) says. Source: ABC News South Australia’s first wooden apartments are being bu
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Back to the future for Tasmanian forests

Tasmania may rekindle its bitter forest wars by ending a moratorium on logging in 400,000ha of native forests protected under a 2012 peace deal. Sources: The Australian, ABC News The Hodgman Liberal state government flagged that the moratorium, in place until April 2020, could be prem
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NZ considering incentives for forestry planting

The New Zealand government is looking at measures to encourage more forestry planting as it examines whether locally grown forests will be cheaper than buying foreign carbon credits to meet its climate change targets. Source: NBR Climate Change Minister Paula Bennett told the Climate
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VicForest boss heads to New Zealand

VicForests CEO Robert Green is leaving VicForests to pursue a career opportunity in New Zealand. Source: Timberbiz Mr Green will be taking on a position as CEO of Kaingaroa Timberlands in New Zealand, one of the world’s oldest and largest softwood plantations. He will remain with VicF
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India slow to implement forest law

Indian officials have been slow to implement a landmark law giving rights to forests to indigenous people because they view it as a handicap to projects spurring expansion in the fast-growing economy, a land rights campaigner said. Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation The 2006 Forest Ri
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Can’t see the wood for the trees

During a recent survey of trees in the Queen’s garden at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, Scotland, botanists were shocked to discover the presence of two elms thought to be extinct for nearly a half century. Source: Gizmodo The two trees belong to a species known as the Went
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