The traditional form of timber production involves the exploitation of natural forests. Due to increasing wealth and world population, many raw materials, including natural forests, are being exhausted. In the tropics, this leads to annual deforestation of 12.3 million hectares. According to many scientists, the consequences of this ‘slash and burn’ management are also manifested in climate change, the so-called ‘greenhouse effect’. Because of this, the call for the protection of natural forests is growing ever louder. Exhaustion and the protection of natural forests is leading to decreased availability of hardwood.
Plantations are uniquely suited to efficient and cheap timber production. Smaller areas with good infrastructure produce a great deal more timber than harvesting from natural forests and tropical rain forests. Reports issued by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) show that production on plantations can be up to 6 to 20 times higher than harvesting from natural forests.
An additional benefit is that plantations, assuming a good spread and professional management, are low-risk. The cash flow for plantations is relatively easy to forecast, and the growth in asset value increases with the growth of the trees and price increases.
Large-scale, highly professional plantations of eucalyptus and conifers for paper and industrial timber have been operational for a few decades now in, among other places, South America and Scandinavia. Through innovations in the field of maintenance, seeding and inoculation, growth cycles have been reduced from 25 years to 7, and production figures increased from 15 m
3/year/ha to 45 m
3/year/ha. Technological improvements in the field of harvesting and processing wood have further improved yields.
Floresteca believes that significant productivity improvements will be implemented in the hardwood sector.
