Focus on forestry at expo event

The National Wood Innovation Showcase is part of this year's Winning With Wood festival which started in Rotorua last night.

Rotorua is hosting the PF Olsen Forestry Industries 2011 Expo on Monday and Tuesday and the Forestry Industries Conference and industry clinics at the Energy Events centre this week.

That will tie in with the Kawerau Woodfest this weekend and the Fitec forestry training organisation's regional awards on Wednesday.

The Forest Industries expo is expected to be the largest wood-processing event in New Zealand to date, and a new Bay of Plenty Forestry and Wood Processing Strategy will be released.

The strategy is aimed at adding value to more than 70 per cent of logs harvested in the region by 2020.

In the next 10 years, the log harvest in the Bay of Plenty and Central North Island is forecast to increase by between 3.2 million and 5.3 million cubic metres a year.

If no new or additional wood-processing facilities are built in this time, the increased harvest will be exported as logs, with only a modest contribution to the region's wealth.

The week will also include an innovation breakfast, the opening of Waiariki Institute of Technology's forestry training building and gasification plant at Waipa and an industry dinner cruise on Lake Rotorua.

It is hoped the event will attract industry participants among the 85,000 overseas visitors expected for the Rugby World Cup.