THE GREEN TRIANGLE REGION
The Green Triangle region comprises south western Victoria and
south eastern South Australia. The region covers about 5.3 million hectares and
has a broad range of primary industries including agriculture, dairying,
viticulture and forestry. There is also a significant marine environment which
supports a commercial southern rock lobster fishery. The region is also noted
for its substantial environmental reserves including the RAMSAR listed Coorong
Lakes system and the Grampians and Glenelg National Parks.
PLANTATION FORESTRY
From a forestry perspective, the
Green Triangle region represents the largest area of plantations in Australia.
Radiata Pine (Pinus radiata) has been planted since the 1870’s and that
resource that now represents about 18% of Australia’s softwood area (177,535
hectares, 2010), supports a wide range of processing facilities producing saw
lumber, particleboard, treated posts and poles, wood chips for export and
pulpwood for paper manufacture at the Kimberly Clark Australia plant at
Millicent.
Byproducts include
biofuels used by mills for heat and energy and the conversion of wood waste,
sawdust and residue into mulch and garden products.
Since the 1990’s, a eucalypt or
hardwood plantation resource has been developed. The principle species is Blue
Gum (Eucalyptus globulus) and about 177,643 hectares (2010) has been
established on formerly cleared agricultural land across the Green Triangle
region. While the pine plantations are generally managed with several
intermediate harvests, or thinnings, and clear felled between 30 to 35 years,
the Blue Gum plantations have been developed to yield wood chip for pulp and
paper production. Blue Gum plantations are planned to be harvested between 10 to
15 years.
EMPLOYMENT AND ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION
The pine plantations in the Green
Triangle region produce between 3 and 4 million tonnes of wood annually and the
volume of wood harvested across the region will increase dramatically when the
Blue Gum harvest commences.
Forestry
contributes $778 million to gross regional product (2003/04), or 16% of the
total regional economy. Interestingly forestry represents 30% of total primary
production from about 10% of the landscape.
In addition, forestry and downstream
value adding accounts for about 12% of the total jobs in the Green Triangle
region, and about 23% of all employment in the region’s primary industries.
Directly and indirectly the industry employs 8,765, of which approximately 830
are in the forestry growing sector, with flow-on indirect employment totalling
almost 4,600 jobs.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
While the pine plantations provide
for the domestic market, the wood chip from the Blue Gum plantations is destined
for overseas export (via the Port of Portland). To cater for this new and
emerging market, new export handling facilities have been constructed at the
Port and a wood chip mill has been established at Myamyn to process logs into
wood chips; the alternative being infield chipping.
Currently with a
mature processing capacity in the region, the supply and demand for pine is
roughly in balance and therefore there is scope to expand the pine estate,
especially as current Australian softwood estate has been static or in decline
over the past decade. In addition Australia needs to import about 25% of its
sawn softwood requirements.
Wood, being a
renewable energy source, and its residues, provides opportunities for the
production biomass, biofuels, wood pellets, biochar etc. There is considerable
interest in assessing the opportunities for these energy forms within the Green
Triangle region and one company, Plantation Energy, has plans for two wood
pelleting plants in the Green Triangle region.
The Green Triangle region has a vibrant
forestry sector covering growing processing and export. The region offers many
opportunities with growing, processing, employment, training etc. in a growing
region.