The Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) has today launched a multi-media campaign to bring into focus the plantations crisis facing the national forest products industry.
The first salvo in the campaign is a YouTube video.
This video explains that – in a world in which population growth is rapidly outstripping available resources – the globe must turn increasingly to those resources which are truly green and renewable – and that means forestry.
Chief Executive Officer of AFPA, Mr Ross Hampton said, “The world needs much more, not less, of this sustainable, renewable and truly green resource. And it needs more of it from Australia.”
AFPA is also placing advertisements in regional newspapers in key plantation areas such as the Green Triangle in South Australia and Victoria, central tablelands and southern NSW, south east Queensland, and southwest WA.
Softwood and hardwood plantations provide more than 80% of the wood fibre and timber for our national forest product industries. However, investment in new plantations in Australia has effectively come to a standstill.
Mr Hampton said, “Although we have just experienced a record boom in construction, much of the growth has been filled by sawn softwood from as far afield as Europe. This is, in part, because we aren’t providing sufficient plantation resource in this country for our domestic sawmills. AFPA will be shortly releasing a comprehensive new policy solution to this crisis.”
07 09 2015 AFPA launches multimedia campaign to restart plantations