Chapter 4
I Management Of Native Forests
II Plantations-high Productivity Resources
III Protecting The Resource
IV Harvesting The Resource
V Solid Wood And Its Processing
VI Minor Forest Products
VII Reconstituted Wood Products
VIII Pulp And Paper
IX Export Woodchips
X Future Directions
XI Acknowledgements
References
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Competition within the existing domestic market for forest products will continue to be an important stimulus for technological change in some sectors, for example wood-based panel products, but increasingly growth will be sought by expansion of the total market. Some improved products may be developed to recover markets lost to competitive materials such as plastics and concrete; some new uses for forest products may be also created, as has already occurred in the fibre-reinforced cement products industry. In the longer term the renewable nature of the forest resource and the relatively low energy requirement of many forest products will be important considerations in the future growth of the industries. More immediately, however, the most significant prospect would appear to be export to the expanding markets of the Western Pacific region, particularly through the establishment of pulp or paper mills of world-competitive scale.
The need for both domestic and export producers to control costs and quality at acceptable levels will require further upgrading of processes, plant and control systems in some areas and where necessary this will be accompanied by further rationalization. Technological trends likely to continue to be significant will include increased mechanization of labour-intensive operations such as harvesting, wider application of computer-optimized control systems such as in sawmilling, and more efficient resource utilization through better log sorting, high yield pulping, increased wastepaper recycling and energy production from wood wastes. Much of the technology for these will still originate in the major overseas timber-producing countries but its transfer will become progressively easier because of increased international familiarity with pine and eucalypt resources.
The establishment of export projects, such as pulp and paper, on a large scale will be a major challenge both commercially and technically, as we will have to compete against low labour cost countries already supplying from eucalypt and pine plantation resources. To do this successfully we will need to make full use of our advantages, such as a well-developed infrastructure, proximity to the markets and a large resource potential for both softwoods and hardwoods. But in addition we will have to look to the development of 'competitive edges' in our processes and our products by grafting on to the best of overseas technology our own innovative concepts and by designing products that take full advantage of the characteristics of our own resources.
The development and use of creative technology, encouraged by an entrepreneurial business spirit and backed by the knowledge that comes from research, has been an important factor in the past success of the Australian forest products industries. How much more important this technological trinity will now become as these industries face the new challenge of adaptation to an increasingly competitive and international market.
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Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering |  |
© 1988 Print Edition page 246, Online Edition 2000
Published by Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, using the Web Academic Resource Publisher
http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/261.html