WoodWeek – 12 December 2018
Click to Subscribe - It's FREE! Merry Christmas from your WoodWeek news team! With less than two weeks until the festive holiday break, this is the last issue of WoodWeek for 2018. Thank you to all our readers for your support and contributions this year, and we are looking forward to getting back in touch in the new year. WoodWeek will be back in your inbox on Wednesday 16 January 2019.On that note, this week’s issue includes the FIEA and Innovatek events planner for next year – make sure you get out those 2019 diaries and mark these events in. You don’t want to miss them! Moving on to export news: while log exports to China have been growing, other parts of Asia are not looking so healthy. We have the statistics from the good team at Champion Freight for you. In another part of the world, things are in full swing getting ready for the next North American part of Innovatek’s steep slope logging series – HarvestTECHX – due to be held in Vancouver in March. Registrations are open, and there is only one week left to get hold of the Super Early Bird Rate. Don’t miss out! Back in local news, the Government has lobbed a bomb at the forestry industry, slamming a lack of progress in finding ways to reduce emissions of the ozone-depleting pesticide methyl bromide. The industry has responded saying the deadline was “self-imposed” by the government and could lead to “significant economic disruption”. Also in New Zealand, a new report looks at the impact on jobs if New Zealand boosted its forestry and horticulture industries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It finds there could be more jobs, but also social dislocation. Finally, to round the year off and to get you in the Christmas spirit – take a look at this year's Christmas contribution from our national airline. From the team here at WoodWeek News, have a safe and happy Christmas, and a prosperous New Year.
This week we have for you:
China: Port considering fumigation banIt has been reported that Taicang Port is considering a ban on fumigating North American logs because of the risk of water pollution. If implemented this could further limit the supply of North American logs to China.Supplies from North America have fallen in recent months as a result of trade friction between China and the US. Log imports through Taicang Port from Canada and the US fell slightly in the first three quarters of 2018 and it is predicted that the impact of the fumigation ban at Taicang Port will further impact imports. In the first three quarters of 2018 log imports through Taicang Port were about 5.64 million cubic metres. Of the total, 39% were from New Zealand, 32% from Canada and the US, 11% from the Russia Federation with the balance from Australia, Uruguay, Japan and Spain. Methyl bromide: Government slams industry
The Government has lobbed a bomb at the forestry industry, slamming a lack of progress in finding
ways to reduce emissions of the ozone-depleting pesticide methyl bromide.In a letter to industry groups, Environment Minister David Parker says he and his colleagues are "very concerned" that it appears a deadline to have all methyl bromide emissions recaptured by October, 2020 will be missed. While there had been collaborative efforts through the industry group Stakeholders in Methyl Bromide Reduction (Stimbr), he said, "it appears that to date most companies have not been willing to invest sufficiently in effective recapture technology or infrastructure". He called for a meeting of stakeholders early in the new year to discuss solutions. The industry has hit back, saying in a response letter that the deadline was "self imposed" by government and could lead to "significant economic disruption". Forest owners have also fired a broadside at the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), accusing it of delays in ruling on an application to register a chemical it hopes will be a replacement for methyl bromide. More >> Log exports: Only China growingChampion Freight's report shows that while log exports to China are growing, other parts of Asia are not doing as well.While exports to India and South Korea have gone up by small percentages when comparing October 2017 to October 2018, the year-on-year comparison shows India, Japan and South Korea down on this time last year. See the graphs below from Champion Freight. Source: Champion Freight  First T-WINCH Traction Assist machine in NZ
High tech forest harvesting company FORCO have announced their dealership agreement with ecoforst, an innovative Austrian company that produces the T-WINCH. FORCO are now the dealer for ecoforst products in both New Zealand and Australia. They’ll also be involved, along with most major equipment and technology suppliers to wood harvesting operations in this part of the world in the wood harvesting event, HarvestTECH 2019, being run in Rotorua next year on 26-27 June 2019. More than 80 original T-WINCH 10.1 machines have been sold all over the world through dealers based across Europe, North America, South America and now New Zealand and Australia. The T-WINCH 10.1 is used with tracked feller buncher machines, skidders, harvesters and forwarders. FORCO will be supporting a customer that has purchased the first ecoforst T-WINCH 10.2 in New Zealand. The machine is scheduled to arrive late this year and be operating by February 2019. The T-WINCH 10.2 is the second T-WINCH model produced by ecoforst and is an upgraded version of the 10.1 with more power. Demand for a machine with even greater power and a faster line speed was strong, so ecoforst developed the powerful T-WINCH 15.1. This machine has been designed with customers from Chile in mind. It is ideal for use with skidders because of the fast line speed, up to 8 kilometres per hour. The T-WINCH has an innovative computer system, which allows for fully automated operation. The operator sets the tension required via remote control in the cab of the attached machine, and the T-WINCH does the rest. The computer has one simple command “maintain the tension”, which enables the operator to effectively “set and forget” as the computer will pull rope in if the machine is traveling uphill or let rope out if the machine is traveling downhill. Tension on the cable is constantly maintained as the computer controls an advanced closed hydraulic system, preventing the cable from sagging or bouncing. The smooth and reactive operation avoids shock loading on the cable and ensures maximum traction on slopes. So, mark the dates into your diary for next year, 26-27 June 2019. It’s shaping up to be another major gathering of wood harvesting contractors and harvest planners. Stop Press: The two-day programme for the June 2019 event has just been posted onto the website. You can check out what's been planned, what's been covered and who will be presenting at this regions major two-yearly wood harvesting event, HarvestTECH 2019 from the event website, www.harvesttech.events.  Vancouver for next HarvestTECHx conference
Globally, technologies are transforming forest management and harvesting. Control innovations for harvesting equipment are removing workers from the ground while improving safety and productivity.A few years ago, innovative logger Dale Ewers recognized how the speed of technology could transform his operations. He brought his experienced loggers into the office to work with application and research specialists. They learned from other industries as well. Now, they are poised to bring step-change technologies to the forest. As one of the keynote speakers at the HarvestTECHX 2019 Conference in Vancouver in March, Dale Ewers, internationally-recognized logger and innovator from DC Equipment (DCE) will outline the development his 15 logging sites are beginning to pilot test in their operations. DCE now has advanced beyond camera grapples (operated by one man safely housed a machine cab) to realizing a 5-year dream – a yarder mounted tree-felling head for steep slope logging, achieving the vision of no men out on the steep forested slopes. The steeper, more challenging ground in working forests means loggers only get interested when it is one of their own who makes a real technology breakthrough on the forest floor. This is now happening at pace and the innovators at DC Equipment are close to achieving the vision of “no man on the hill; no hand on the saw.” It’s now only a few steps from becoming reality and disrupting the logging industry globally. These plans, concepts and latest pilot-stage and proven technology developments are at the core of the 2019 “HarvestTECHX” Conference. It runs on March 13 at the Sheraton Vancouver Airport Hotel in Richmond, BC. Delegates are also invited to an evening welcome reception on March 12. Register at: https://harvesttechx.events/. On March 14, limited places are available for an in-forest workshop hosted by BC Forest Safety Council and WorkSafe BC on steep slope safety guidelines and practices. See photo in inset of DCE Equipment’s prototype Falcon Felling Carriage. Also see >> 2019 Technology Events – mark your diaries
Again, after an incredibly busy year, the Forest Industry Engineering Association (FIEA) has in
conjunction with a wide cross section of industry, in both New Zealand and Australia, developed a
Technology Events Planner for next year. With very high turnouts again at all FIEA technology
events run this year, we’re really excited with what 2019 holds. The Events Planner (FIEA and Innovatek) will enable forestry and wood products companies to pencil the dates into your own calendar for next year. For industry associations, research organisations and those involved in setting up your own programmes for 2019, the calendar will enable you to take note of the dates (and ideally look to dovetail in to the tech events timing and location to add value to those attending). For product, equipment and technology providers and service suppliers, we hope this forward planning will also enable you to schedule your involvement and to budget early on in the year. For overseas suppliers, it will enable you to lock in a time to plan visits to your key customers or distributors in Australia and New Zealand and to link in to the relevant technology events in this part of the world next year. Please click here to access the calendar of 2019 technology events. Mark the dates into your 2019 calendars. As often presenter opportunities and exhibiting spaces are booked out in advance of the event running, at any time, please get back to us (details on the attached planner) if: - You’d (or a company you are representing) like to put your name forward to present at a 2019 event. - You’d like to be sent further information on exhibiting or sponsoring any one of the events being planned. - You’d like to be considered to run a short workshop alongside one of the events being planned in 2019. This increasingly is being used at our technology events. It optimises the time at the conference for delegates and of course capitalises on the expertise being brought in for the event. Boost jobs and cut emissions?Report: Planting push could cut emissions and boost jobs - A new report looks at the impact on jobs if New Zealand boosted its forestry and horticulture industries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It finds there could be more jobs, but also social dislocation, reports Eloise Gibson (for Newsroom).New Zealand could one day have more jobs in agriculture for about half the greenhouse emissions, according to new modelling from Motu. But the change wouldn’t come without social upheaval. The work is part of a joint project by farming industry groups and government departments to work out how to reduce farming’s emissions of methane and nitrous oxide with the least pain. On releasing a major report last Thursday, farming groups and government ministries agreed that significant changes to how we use land are “reasonable” to expect in the next 30 years (and noted that we’ve survived similar transformations in the past). While previous decades saw New Zealand’s landscape shift from sheep and beef to dairying, researchers are now looking at what would happen if we grew a lot more forests and farmed more plants, such as vines and orchards. The latest contribution to the conversation comes from the Biological Emissions Reference Group (BERG), a group including Fonterra, Federated Farmers, Beef & Lamb NZ and the ministries for primary industries and the environment. BERG has commissioned nine reports from third-party experts and the first tranche, released today, confirms that merely improving farming methods won’t achieve New Zealand’s Paris goals. More reports are expected early next year. At most, farming’s greenhouse gases could fall by 10 percent if all farmers adopted existing good practices, such as once-a-day milking, fewer-but-more-efficient cows, and planting marginal land, research for BERG concluded. Even achieving that modest drop would be difficult and expensive for some farmers, the report says – although other research for the group found that farmers would adopt progressively more of the helpful management tactics with an increasing emissions price. Existing regional council policies aimed at cutting water pollution would also, as a spin-off benefit, cut greenhouse gas emissions by about 4 percent, the report noted. While every little reduction helps, achieving the bigger gains needed to meet New Zealand’s Paris commitments will require changing the mix of what we farm – ideally helped by technological breakthroughs, BERG found. It will also require better information for farmers. More >> 
New report for forestry-inclined farmersA report on alternative plantation forest species is now available on the New Zealand Farm Forestry Association website – It details the characteristics of a wide variety of tree species suited to steep, erosion-prone land which have root structures that may better resist landsliding after harvest.The report was written by Dean Satchell, of Sustainable Forest Solutions. Farm Forestry Association president Neil Cullen said land and forest managers were lacking information for steep, erosion-prone terrain. "This report identifies the considerable amount of research still required, but does go a long way to providing guidance on the options for land owners preparing resource consent applications to plant or replant land now zoned Red under the new National Environmental Standards for Plantation Forestry (NES-PF)," Mr Cullen said. More >> Source: NZ Herald Most forestry folks knew this alreadyThe Best Technology for Fighting Climate Change Isn't a Technology - Forests are the most powerful and efficient carbon-capture system on the planet.The latest IPCC report (click here for a copy) doesn’t mince words about the state of our planet: we must act now to achieve global change at a scale that has “no documented historical precedent” in order to avoid the climate catastrophe that would result from a 2 degree C rise in average global temperature. Climate change already disproportionately affects the world’s most vulnerable people including poor rural communities that depend on the land for their livelihoods and coastal communities throughout the tropics. Indeed, we have already seen the stark asymmetry of suffering resulting from extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, floods, droughts, wildfires and more. So far, advocates and politicians have tended to focus on reducing fossil fuel consumption through technology and/or policy, such as a steep carbon tax, as climate solutions. These proposals are, of course, essential to reducing manmade carbon emissions—71 percent of which are generated by just 100 fossil fuel companies. For this reason, fossil-fuel–related emissions reductions rightly figure heavily in the national climate commitments of the 181 nations that signed the global Paris Agreement. Yet the international focus on fossil fuels has overshadowed the most powerful and cost-efficient carbon-capture technology the world has yet seen: forests. Recent scientific research confirms that forests and other “natural climate solutions” are absolutely essential in mitigating climate change, thanks to their carbon sequestering and storage capabilities. In fact, natural climate solutions can help us achieve 37 percent of our climate target, even though they currently receive only 2.5 percent of public climate financing. Forests’ power to store carbon dioxide through the simple process of tree growth is staggering: one tree can store an average of about 48 pounds of carbon dioxide in one year. Recent research shows intact forests are capable of storing the equivalent of the carbon dioxide emissions of entire countries such as Peru and Colombia. For this reason, policy makers and business leaders must create and enforce ambitious policies and incentives to prevent deforestation, foster reforestation of degraded land, and support the sustainable management of standing forests in the fight against climate change. Protecting the world’s forests ensures they can continue to provide essential functions aside from climate stability, including producing oxygen, filtering water and supporting biodiversity. Not only do all the world’s people depend on forests to provide clean air, clean water, oxygen, and medicines, but 1.6 billion people rely on them directly for their livelihoods. T'was the night before a (Kiwi) ChristmasTwas the Night before Xmas and all through the bach Not even a weta was making a scratch Woolly socks were hung by the pot belly with care In the hopes that Santa soon would be there The children were snoozing in a light summer's breeze Whilst dreaming of spongy pud and lime green cream freeze And dad in his walk shorts and me in my jandals Had just settled down for a couple of handles When out on the lawn I heard such a ruckus I sprang from my Lazy Boy to see what the fuss was I ran to the sliding door, gasping and wheezing Threw open the curtains and upped the venetians The moon on the sand and the Trailer tarp Lit the beach up just like Eden Park But still when I saw, I thought I was asleep A miniature Kingswood, pulled by eight tiny sheep With a little old driver, sipping a Fanta I knew in a moment, it had to be Santa Faster than Phar Lap on steroids they came And he coo-eed and shouted and called them by name Now, Kevin! now, Sharlene! now, Rangi and Beck! On, Darryl! On Shazza! on, Bilbo and Shrek! To the top of the Pagoda, to the top of the wall Get in behind, Get in behind, Get in behind, All! As sandflies around a bar-b-que fly When they sniff the sizzlers and take to the sky So up to the top of the bach they flew With a boot full of toys and Santa Claus too With a handbrake stop, they arrived on the roof Four Goodyear tyres and 32 hoofs And as I quickly turned and ran to the lounge Out from the chimney Santa came with a bound He was wearing boardshorts, and gumboots on foot And his Mambos were covered in six-month-old soot A bundle of toys he had on his back As if on OE with a brand new Macpac He looked like he'd come from the beauty parlour With rosy red cheeks like pohutakawa A gorgeous big grin and white as white hair With wee little tufts growing out of his ears He had a broad chest and a round beer gut That shook when he laughed like Jabba the Hutt He was chubby and plump, a right jolly hobbit And I laughed when I saw him, I couldn't stop it He gave me a wink and a bonza thumbs up And I quickly realised he wasn't a nut He went straight to the socks without saying a thing And filled them with barbies and Shrek 2 keyrings Then giving his nose a jolly good scratch He flew up the chimney with an almighty flash He jumped in the Kingswood and cranked the ignition And then they took off, like some NASA mission But I think I could hear, as he drove out of sight "Merry Christmas to all, have a bloody good night!" Jobs
Buy and Sell
... and finally ... The Nicest Christmas Ever
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