Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARES) has release a new report on Australia’s coniferous and broadleaved plantation estate that indicates that it has increased by 7600 hectares in 2010-2011 to a total of 2,017,000 hectares compared with 2,009,000 hectares in 2009-2010. Source: ABARES
In 2010-2011 the total area of coniferous plantations was 1,025,000 hectares with the total area of broadleaved plantations 980,000 hectares and around 12,000 hectares was classified as other categories.
About 9600 hectares of new plantation areas were established in 2010-2011, this is the smallest area of new plantation established since the early 1990s.
This increase was offset by the removal of existing plantation areas of around 2000 hectares, that growers deemed commercially unviable.
In 2010-2011 the proportion of private plantation increased to 1,487,000 hectares.
Victoria had the largest area of plantations, followed by Western Australia and New South Wales.
Western Australia had the largest area of broadleaved plantations, while New South Wales had the largest area of coniferous plantations.
Broadleaved plantation estates are dominated by blue gum at 55.1% and shining gum at 24.1% both mainly for pulpwood production.
Coniferous plantation estate is dominated by radiata pine at 75.5% and southern pines at 14.7% both primarily for sawlog production.
This information was taken from an ABARES report conducted under the auspices of the National Plantation Inventory (NPI) program.
More information is in the ABARES report titled Australian Plantation Statistics 2012 Update available for download from daff.gov.au/abares/publications
