Guest Speaker- Ben Boxall, Co- Founder and Director “Good 4 Wood’

Ben spoke about the changes in the forestry industry, moving from harvesting native forest timber to using commercial native timber. This a big challenge for the industry and we need to move quickly to establish plantations so we can meet the domestic demand for wood. At the same time, we have the impact of climate change specifically a hotter and drier climate. There has also been a marked reduction in biodiversity, we also need to reduce emissions, increase the drawdown of Carbon (from the atmosphere to the soil) and increase the use of renewable resources.

 

These challenges have caused a re-think about the way we do agriculture, specifically for forestry ways of growing forests that can address the issues outlined above. The aim is to produce forests that are cultured and curated to over time become sustainable forests that add to diversity, store carbon and provide for our timber needs. Ben showed an example of a forest planted on degraded/ eroded land and the transformation is remarkable.  The plantation starts in the traditional way with dense plantings, once the planation is 10 years old it is ‘selectively harvested’, thinning out the plantation which allows for the development of an under storey and more mature timber trees. The forest continues to grow and develop, larger tress are removed but developing trees take their place. Ensuring the long term capture of carbon.