Plantation Types | Current plantation resource | Key plantation issues

Australia’s plantations – resource, management and current issues

Most of Australia’s plantations are located in areas with reliable rainfall of more than 700 mm (28 inches) a year, and where soils are suitable for tree growth.

Plantations and timber production bring significant employment and income to towns such as Mt Gambier, Tumut, Myrtleford, Oberon, Albany and Gympie (see the Plantations 2020 Community section). There is great potential for other towns in suitable regions to reap similar benefits if the plantation area is expanded.

Timber production provides an opportunity for some rural and regional communities to diversify their production.

Plantation Types

Major plantation growing programs began in Australia in the 1960s, and there are now more than 1.6 million hectares of hardwood and softwood plantations. Around 61% of these plantations are softwood (pine).

Timber is harvested from pine plantations several times during their 30-35 year life-cycle, and used for a range of products including paper, posts and sawn timber for house frames and furniture.

Hardwoods (mostly Australian native eucalypts) make up around 39% per cent of the existing plantation area. There is great interest in planting eucalypts and they constitute more than two-thirds of the new area planted in the late 1990s.

Hardwoods can be harvested after around 10 – 12 years for pulpwood, but generally require more than 40 years growing time to produce sawlogs commercially.

The plantation sector

More than 80 per cent of plantations in Australia are owned and/or managed by State government agencies and private sector businesses. There is a growing trend in Australia to the commercialisation of State government assets, initially facilitated by corporatisation.

The process of corporatisation involves restructuring the public sector organisation to emulate a private sector organisation, and instituting a profit focus for the business.

There is also an increasing number of individual landholders and small investors who are investing in the expansion of Australia’s timber plantation resources.

Plantation Types | Current plantation resource | Key plantation issues