COMMENT
In this competitive market, forestry is not just about growing trees. It's about growing the best trees, and turning them into products as diverse as this newspaper and laminated beams in buildings.
The economy depends on sustainable plantation forestry. The industry was built on advanced silviculture science and leading-edge tree improvement
programmes. The next challenge is one of application.
New Zealand pine is one of nature's most versatile materials. It is a blank canvas for our talented scientists, engineers and designers, who transform raw materials into new, value-added products the world wants to buy.
Forestry is already one of the largest industries, contributing 4 per cent of GDP, with annual exports of about $3.5 billion a year. It aims to be the number one foreign exchange earner by 2025.
With harvest volumes set to stabilise over the next five years after a decade of significant growth, capturing the full value of the harvest depends on effective segregation and processing.
Unlike many other primary sectors, the forest industry doesn't have a commodity levy to help with industry-good research.
Funding has been built on a voluntary basis and last year wood-based industries invested roughly $38 million in R&D, alongside a Government investment of about $26 million.
This needs to grow significantly in the face of stiff competition from forestry exporting giants in Canada, Brazil, Chile and Russia.
Canada has just signed a deal to take its products into China's timber-framing sector.
Over the years, Chile has negotiated several bilateral trade agreements providing improved market access for its higher value forestry exports.
Australia, our largest export market for sawn timber, paper and paperboard, is making significant new investment in processing capacity that will reduce its reliance on imported forest-based products.
Market access and a workable investment and regulatory environment are key factors for ensuring continued growth. But ultimately the race to sell wood will be won on innovation.
Luckily, this country has more than its share of clever people and the R&D investment made so far has yielded results. An example is Green Seal solidwood, now commercialised by Carter Holt Harvey.
Green Seal is a branded wood used in a range of applications from furniture, to flooring, to works of art.
It is radiata pine that has been specially treated to make it stronger, denser and more stable than standard pine. It looks like a premium hardwood such as beech, ash and eucalypts, and has the same mechanical properties.
Crown research company Forest Research invented the technology behind the Green Seal treatment.
The agency is charged with working on ways to promote the sustainability and health of the forests, and explore better and more efficient ways of using wood.
There are other encouraging examples of a growing industry commitment to R&D.
In July, Forest Research widened the scope of its research abilities through a joint venture with Australia's CSIRO Forestry and Forest Products.
This aims to optimise wood processes and products, link wood quality to value, ensure the place of wood in a modern market and breed better forests for maximum returns.
The research consortium WQI, a company focused on developing new knowledge for its 16 shareholders in the key area of wood quality and segregation technologies, is a successful model for co-operation, funding leverage and partnership.
The Forest Industries Council's research science and technology committee has played a large part in identifying broad R&D needs. Its pan-industry strategy outlines complementary R&D needs to support emerging market growth, processing, segregation technologies and wood quality.
We have examples of the capability and talent needed to compete effectively against other forestry nations and less versatile materials such as concrete and steel.
The stakes are high and innovation is the key to prosperity.
* Stephen Jacobi is the chief executive of the Forest Industries Council.
Opinion
COMMENT
In this competitive market, forestry is not just about growing trees. It's about growing the best trees, and turning them into products as diverse as this newspaper and laminated beams in buildings.
The economy depends on sustainable plantation forestry. The industry was built on advanced silviculture science and leading-edge tree improvement
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