Countries

Resources
Australia has a large forest resource despite having a relatively low proportion of forest cover (about 20 percent of land area). In 2000, natural forests covered about 155 million hectares. The area of other wooded lands, however, is the largest among the temperate and boreal industrialized countries (more than 420 million hectares). Forests are mainly located in a broad coastal band extending the length of the eastern seaboard. The greatest part of the Australian forest resource is natural forest, dominated by Eucalyptus species, mixed with a variety of Acacia species, cypress pine (Callitris spp.) and paper-bark (Melaleuca spp.). Australia also has significant areas of plantation forest comprising mainly pines and eucalypts.

Of the natural forest area, about 72 percent are publicly owned and 27 percent are on private land. Of the publicly owned forests, 17.6 million ha (16 percent) were in Nature Conservation Reserves, 13.4 million ha (12 percent) were managed by state forest authorities for various uses, including wood production, 15.6 million ha (14 percent) were on other Crown land, and 66.1 million ha (59 percent) were on leasehold tenure.

Australia has about 1.4 million hectares of plantations, of which 71 percent is softwood and 29 percent is hardwood. Tree ownership in the 1999 plantation estate in Australia was equally distributed between public and private. About 8 percent is held in joint private and public ownership.

Products and trade
The forests and wood products industries, based on native and plantation forests, account for about 1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and employ over 60 000 people (June 1999). While the value of exports of forest products is substantial (US$802 million in 1998), Australia is a net importer of forest products (US$1.5 billion in 1998). Imports for sawn timber, paper and paperboard accounted for a large part of the total value of forest product imports. Most sawn timber (predominantly radiata pine, Douglas fir and western red cedar) imported into Australia comes from New Zealand, Canada and the United States. Malaysia is the main source of imported hardwood sawn timber.

At present, Australia¿s annual wood harvest totals around 21 million cubic metres, which is evenly divided between coniferous and non-coniferous wood.

Last updated: August 2002