Even if you can’t eat wood

One predictable thing about trees is that you know how much tree you are going to have for harvest three or four decades later.

Not much else in life is that certain these days, as global geo-political tensions grow, and technology instantly disrupts and dates what was cutting edge only a few months previously. We do know climate change is increasingly determining international products and policies.

The New Zealand dairy industry is rapidly swapping coal fuel for wood to power its powder driers. Not because of government trade regulations, but because international customers are saying they will not buy dairy products from coal users.

That’s a good opportunity for the forest industry. Wood waste which needs cleaning off the slopes after harvest, but wasn’t worth anything, is now potentially valuable as an alternative fuel source in dairy factories.

Ironically, as dairy farmers turn to wood chips for their stand-off pads, a competition for supply is developing between these farmers and their own companies.

But the re-emergence of wood doesn’t end with wood chips. International experts predict the world’s plantation forest area will double by the end of the century, reaching 264 million hectares by 2100.

This global growth will provide another 4.1 million cubic metres of wood a year by 2050. That’s 100 times New Zealand’s wood production.

This worldwide expansion derives from attempts to ward off climate change, just as much as quitting coal use for dairy driers.

Even if slowing in China, throughout the world people are still migrating in huge numbers from the countryside and into cities. They need somewhere to live.

Their governments are increasingly turning away from building with concrete and steel to house them. Using these materials is not good for their carbon accounting.

But they can’t use local trees – because they need them to stay in the ground for that same carbon arithmetic.

This is where New Zealand forestry has a huge opportunity. Our plantation forests grow quickly enough to maintain a basic sink of carbon through rotations.

Seizing a market share will not be easy though. With some exceptions, New Zealand does not have a sophisticated wood processing industry. Our own domestic market has not grown in 20 years.

But even if we export into frequently subsidised markets, we already manage to supply overseas customers with as much processed timber, as we use domestically.

New Zealand primary producers are used to compete in protected markets, and so long as