The worsening Coronavirus situation in China has forced DANA/GINGKO to relocate its forestry trade conference to Melbourne, Australia with organisers checking with all speakers to see if they are willing to come to Melbourne. The event was to be held in Shanghai, China from 16-22 March and centred around forest investment, woodchips and biomass. Source: Timberbiz
The organisers will update the program including adding several more Australia specific speakers into a full two-day program if necessary. It is expected that a new website for the Melbourne event will be live this week.
They are planning for:
Sunday March 15th – At noon, Field Trip delegates assemble at a Melbourne hotel (TBA) and we drive to Mount Gambier in South Australia,
Monday March 16th – Possible sawmill visit, and then softwood (pine) and hardwood (eucalyptus) plantations to view planting, management and harvesting, and for eucalyptus, infield woodchip chipping,
Tuesday March 17th – Visit the world’s largest woodchip export Port at Portland Victoria to view hardwood and softwood woodchip export chipping, log export storage and ship-loading terminals and softwood and hardwood log storage areas (confirmed) and (possibly) visit a new pine sawmill and return to Melbourne, and/or a probable brief visit to the major hardwood and softwood woodchip export facilities at Geelong in Victoria,
Wednesday and Thursday March 18th and 19th – Conference in Melbourne [including additional Australia- specific topics/talks – extra to Shanghai programme
Likely presentations include:
- The impact of recent Australian bushfires on the future of woodchip and biomass exports from Australia
- The (additional) associated impact (anyway) of the age class structure of Australian hardwood plantations on harvest capacity out past 2021-2022
- Uses for Australian plantation eucalyptus logs in China
- Impact of these fires on the future log volumes available for domestic Australian softwood and hardwood wood processing mills
- Impact of these fires on the need for Australia to increase its imports of softwood sawn-timber from Europe, Russia, North and Latin America and New Zealand – Speaker Confirmed
- Plans for the Government of Victoria to ban all harvesting from Native Hardwood Forests; What that means to wood supply in the State
- The impact of low pulp prices on the profitability of paper companies
- Overview of Russian resources, harvest volumes, log and sawn timber production and exports, and wood pellet production and exports – Speaker Confirmed.
For further information now regarding the Field Trip or Conference Programme please contact Dennis Neilson [email protected] or for assistance with registration and admin enquiries please contact Julie Bell [email protected]
