More than 35 landowners attended the inaugural Forest Field Day hosted by Parkside Timber and Private Forestry Services Queensland (PFSQ), educating landowners on the benefits of sustainable forestry and the importance of ensuring that timber meets Responsible Wood forest certification. Source: Timberbiz
For John McNamara, CEO of Parkside Timber, the field day was all about providing landowners with options and choice; with timber harvesting providing landowners with a variety of benefits.
“For Parkside Timber, it’s all about resource diversity, we are happy to work with landowners to harvest unused timbers on properties,” he said.
“The benefits for landowners are many and not only provide landowners with an additional source of income but also provide improved pastoral coverage across the property.”
According to Sean Ryan, Executive Officer for PFSQ, forestry must play an important role in managing silvopastoral lands for generations to come.
“We talk about smart farms, especially in landcare and land management, but responsible forestry plays an important role in optimising the value of silvopastoral lands.”
The purpose of the field day was to demonstrate to landowners that by removing poor quality trees and leaving healthy actively growing ones, it is the only real way to improve the forest’s long term value in the timber supply chain.
“And for landowners to maximise their returns, they must manage the forests by three simple rules, retain only healthy quality trees, remove any trees with fault and poor crowns, and maintain optimal stocking rates of around 130 stems/ha,” Mr Ryan said.
“We do need to look to innovative ways to achieve this now and biofuels and small diameter veneer billets will play an important roll in removing the large volumes of previously non-merchantable trees that have been left in the stand in the past.”
Timber Queensland, the peak state body for the industry, also attended the field day and congratulated the efforts of PFSQ and Parkside in promoting greater awareness of the benefits of active private forest management.
“Field days such as this provide first-hand knowledge of the commercial opportunities and land management benefits available to landowners and graziers,” Timber Queensland CEO Mick Stephens said.
“Not only can good forest management deliver additional income sources from timber, it can provide healthy growing forests with improved environmental outcomes and ground cover. This can assist in the utilisation of otherwise underutilised areas for both timber and grazing.”
