OVERVIEW
Forestry and paper Sustainable resource management is a priority for timber companies.
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pumalanga has 40% of South Africa’s forestry resources. This fact presents an opportunity to exploit the sector’s by-products in the biomass-to-energy field. The Zebra Pellets plant in Sabie is to be converted by national utility Eskom into a torrefied pellet plant. The wood will be provided to the plant (owned by the Industrial Development Corporation) and then heated without the use of oxygen (torrefied) which creates a coal-like product without the carbon. Plans to develop an Agriculture and Forestry Technology Park are being drawn up by the Provincial Government of Mpumalanga. The Mpumalanga Economic Growth and Development Path (MEGDP) intends to expand the industrial base of the provincial economy, with a focus on beneficiation, agri-processing and value chain development. When forestry managers, contractor and forestry equipment suppliers gather at the biannual Focus on Forestry conference in White River in 2019, the theme will be “Bridging the digital divide in the African forestry sector”. Sustainability is a key area for companies in the forestry sector and advances in the Internet of Things and AI are being keenly monitored for ways to enhance margins in an environmentally sound way. The conference, which also looks at topics such as silviculture, fire management and forest engineering, alternates between Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal and will be jointly organised MPUMALANGA BUSINESS 2018/19
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SECTOR INSIGHT The Focus on Forestry conference will target digital solutions. in 2019 by the Centre for the Modernisation of Forestr y Operations (CMO), the Institute for Commercial Forestry Research (KZN University) and the Nelson Mandela University. Forestry accounts for about 8% of Mpumalanga’s gross domestic product. The sector comprises logging, saw-milling, wood product and pulp and paper manufacture. Pulp and paper are the main exports, along with sawn lumber, wood chips and wattle extract. Most sawn timber in South Africa is used in the construction sector. Mpumalanga has the ideal climate and topography for