Global Forestry Industry

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Practices Authority 2012, State of the forests Tasmania 2012, booklet by the Forest Practices p3,4,5) in 2011 Tasmania had 3, 388, 000 hectares, or 50 per cent, of its land forested and native forest makes up 91 % of this and plantations 9 %.

The area of Tasmanian forests has changed over years and these changes are evaluated against the area assessed in 1996 for the Regional Forest Agreement. Between 1996 and 2011: the total area of forest

Heidi Zuwail, [26.01.16 03:46]

has increased by 1%, the native forest area has decreased by 4.2 %, the area of wet eucalypt forest has decreased more than other forest types (-7.6 %), plantations have increased by 114.5 %, the contribution of hardwoods to the plantation area has increased from 43 % to 76%, the contribution of plantations to State forest has increased from 3.4 % to 7.3 % and the contribution of plantations to forested private freehold land has increased from 11.2 %to 19 %.

In a recent publication (Schirmer J , 2010,P3,5,8) Tasmanian forest industry is undergone a major change. The period from 2006 to 2008 is considered to be a period of growth caused by expansion of hardwood plantations and investment in the processing sector but was followed by a major downfall that arose out of a lot of factors that includes reduced demand for wood and paper products caused by global financial crisis, the environmental non-governmental organizations successful campaigns, reduced investment in new plantations and also the uncompetitive older processing facilities that has been closed.

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As a result of the loss of business turnover during the downturn many issues have emerged including the inability to attain finance to invest in new capital, failure to sustain and finance existing capital equipment, loss of skilled workers and uncertainty about the future of the industry. In order to deal with the downturn businesses are now following some strategies such as shifting to work in other industries or targeting new markets within the forest industry, reducing the business hoping for getting out of the downturn before expanding again and finally taking out loans to keep the business running.

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