Plantation Sustainability - economic
Who invests in plantations in Australia?
A total of 72,319 hectares of new plantations were established in 2008, about 20% less than in 2007. Managed investment schemes funded about 81% of new plantations in 2008 which is similar to the average of the previous 5 years. Government agancies planting on public land, and joint ventures on private land accounted for 14% of new plantations. Timber industry companies and other private owners accounted for 5%.
The Queensland government is about to privatise its plantation estate.
Plantations are owned by:
- Governments: The major owners of softwood plantations in Western Australia, South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory are governments. Tasmania's government retains 50% equity in the softwood plantations on public land in that state. The total area of publicly owned plantations on public land is 33% of the national total.
- Managed Investment Schemes: Participation in managed investment schemes has soared since the mid 1990s. MIS investors now own over 722,000 hectares (35%) of Australia's plantations.
- Timber Industry Companies: Several companies that manufacture sawn timber, woodchips, paper and other products in Australia own plantations that supply logs to their mills. Since the early 1990's, pulp and paper industry companies and industry organisations based in Japan, Korea and India have started over 20 plantation projects in Australia. These projects have established about 120,000 hectares of plantations. Most of the projects are planting eucalypts and aim to export woodchips.
- Superannuation funds: Australian and international superannuation funds have purchased plantations in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. This new form of ownership is consistent with a world-wide trend for large institutional investors (Timberland Investment Management Organisations) to allocate a small portion of large diversified funds to 'alternative' investments. Superannuation funds own a little over 264,000 hectares of softwood plantations.
- Farm foresters and other private owners: Many individual farmers and other landowners own plantaitons ranging from a few hectares to a few thousand hectares. A recent (2008) survey indicated that farm forestry (including MIS leases on part of a farm) accounted for around 8% of the national plantation estate.
Source: Australia’s Plantations 2009 (pdf), Bureau of Rural Sciences.
OTHER INFORMATION ABOUT PLANTATION INVESTMENT AND OWNERSHIP IN AUSTRALIA
The Forest and Wood Products Research and Development Corporation report 'Impediments to Investment in Long Rotation Timber Plantations' , published in 2005, also provides some excellent general information about investment in plantations in Australia.
Download Impediments to Investment in Long Rotation Timber Plantations (PDF)
