The likely new owner of Victoria’s biggest blue-gum plantations is planning to revert some of its blocks back to farmland. Source: The Weekly Times
Investment manager New Forests is waiting on court approval to take control of the former Great Southern plantations across 80,000ha mainly in southeast Australia.
Liquidators of the failed managed investment scheme have applied to the Supreme Court to approve the sale.
New Forests managing director David Brand said the sale would be one of the last phases in the restructure of the forestry industry.
“Our goal is the build a sustainable forestry business, create jobs and, where forestry is not viable in the long term, return the land to agriculture,” he said.
Taxpayers spent billions of dollars buying valuable grazing land in southwest Victoria after being encouraged to invest in “approved” agribusiness schemes during the late 1990s and 2000s.
Critics of the now-failed MIS giants Timbercorp and Great Southern said the frenzy to plant blue gums often failed to consider the costs of harvesting, particularly distances to port.
Brand said his company’s primary interest was in consolidating and maintaining a high-quality plantation forestry estate.
“This means areas that are economically viable as productive, commercial timberland will stay as timber plantations,” he said. “Other areas … will be reverted in whole or in part to agriculture.”
Brand said individual plantations would be checked for productivity of the trees, the market outlook for hardwood chip and other products, the costs of harvest and distance to port.
The new sale, for which the price has not been disclosed, would consolidate ownership of the trees as well as the land, which New Forests already manages.
Meanwhile, a group of South Australian businessmen, including Malcolm Fricker and Stephen Mann, is selling seven blue-gum plantations in the Western District. The plantations total 874ha for Tree Farm Investments and are for sale through Colliers International.
