Raw materials from forests, including timber, timber products and other forest materials (such as rock, stone, clay, sand, gravel).
The native hardwood sawmilling industry was traditionally comprised of a large number of small family-owned mills, but in recent years there has been considerable buy-out and consolidation into a small number of larger mills. Larger milling operations are more able to justify the investment needed to make the processing both safer and more efficient.
Compared to native forest logs, plantation logs are more consistent in size and quality thereby facilitating more efficient processing systems. Softwood sawmills cutting plantation pine typically operate at an industrial scale and mass produce timber products with lower grade products marketed for pallets, and waste sold as wood chips.
These mills are designed to produce large volumes of standard products, and as with any mass production process, the aim is to ensure a standard quality of product, efficiently and safely, at low cost, with rapid production time and high output.
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Forest PhotosDifferent photos of forestry and the industry. |
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About woodAbout Wood crossword puzzle. |
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Planet Ark - Schools Tree dayEach year in July, around 2500 schools across Australia take part in Schools Tree Day. Students nation-wide have learnt how to plant, and care for the seedlings they grow. Become involved. |
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Wild Forest Adventure Activity BookWild Forest Adventure is an activity based companion booklet especially designed for use with the Forests NSW website. |
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Wild Forest Adventure online gameThe Wild Forest Adventure section has been especially designed for students, to provide interesting and relevant information about the forest environment, in a stimulating and fun way. |
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Planet Ark - Schools Tree dayEach year in July, around 2500 schools across Australia take part in Schools Tree Day. Students nation-wide have learnt how to plant, and care for the seedlings they grow. Become involved. |
To view this link
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Going Bush - Residue from the one tree goes to make fine copy paperContinuing on with the journey of one tree in the Victorian highlands from forest floor to finished product. The lower quality parts are sent off for pulping to make Australia's only home-grown office paper at Australian Paper, Maryvale. |
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Going Bush - A Northern NSW timber family answering the industry’s challengesMeet a tight-knit timber family from northern New South Wales, which has responded to the vagaries of the forestry industry by getting bigger when the option was to get out and vertically integrating their operation so that in years to come a significant share of their resource will be harvested from their own plantations. |
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Going Bush - A plan to energise the NSW South Coast with woodchip wasteWe look at the commodity side of forestry at the country’s oldest woodchip plant near Eden. While the mill struggles to meet demand for the fibre strength chips from Australian hardwood forests provide, it is also looking to the future with plans for using its own waste for power generation on top of a plant making pellets for domestic use. |
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Going Bush - A timber product for the future from an antique Newcastle factoryWe visit a factory near Newcastle that looks as ominous as a horror movie set … and that’s just what it doubled as for the filming of Tomorrow when the war began a few years back. But from this archaic looking mill comes an all-natural cladding product fit for the 21st century. |
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Going Bush - Latrobe Valley environment benefits from factory upgradeAt Australia’s biggest paper mill and only office paper maker in Victoria’s LaTrobe valley everything is on a BIG scale. Andrew and Nick discover that flows through to Australian Paper’s approach to environmental improvement. As part of a $600 million plant overhaul the company not only introduced a bigger proportion of recycled material into production lines but dramatically improved its standard and quantity of effluent and through co-generation produces more than enough electricity to power the plant. |
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Going Bush - Timber harvested nearby makes a NSW south coast social magnetWe visit Bermagui to see how the controversial harvesting of a nearby forest has resulted in the creation of a new focal point for the town. The natural log pillars and timber cladding and decks, milled just down the road at Eden, of the Bermagui Fishermen's Co-op underline the South Coast's joint heritage of timber getting and fishing. |
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Going Bush - Tracing the power poles back to North East Tasmania’s forestsYou see them along the roadside throughout the land and they’re an easy fallback for long road trip games of I spy with my little eye … PP? Power poles of course. We go bush to find where the tallest and straightest trees grow and how they’re handled with kid gloves to provide the poles to carry electricity cables. |
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Going Bush - Value addingThis series of 'Going Bush' presents valuable information on value adding to our native forest resource from harvesting, through processing the various grades of saw logs and defect wood, to end uses in high value flooring and furniture, and low value pulp wood and waste for paper and electricity production. It highlights the valuable contribution the native forest industry makes to supplying hardwood solid timbers in Australia, and the importance of sustaining this industry into the future. |
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Wild Forest Adventure online gameThe Wild Forest Adventure section has been especially designed for students, to provide interesting and relevant information about the forest environment, in a stimulating and fun way. |
To view this link
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