Forestry in Wairarapa_September

24 FEATURE SUPPLEMENT

Thursday, September 16, 2021 Wairarapa Times-Age

FEATURE SUPPLEMENT 25

www.age.co.nz Thursday, September 16, 2021

FORESTRY IN WAIRARAPA What’s causing your hayfever? – It’s probably not Pine pollen It’s the time of year that spring is ushered in on a haze of yellow. Unfortunately, the clouds of pine pollen that kickstart the season for many hundreds of other tree and grass species often gets the blame for a myriad of “allergic” reactions in people. Pine trees only have a short ˜ owering season, 2 weeks over most of New Zealand starting in the late winter early spring.

Pine pollen is a large waxy pollen carrying few proteins and only 2.2% nitrogen. It is not poisonous, or toxic and does not “clog up waterways”, “corrode paint” or damage the environment. Pine pollen in fact breaks down very quickly in the outdoors, and apart from washing your car or windows more often, has almost no e° ect on our activities. Concerns that pine pollen is a cause of nitrogen build-up in waterways

are unfounded. Nitrogen contributed to waterbodies is very low and for a short time only given the brief pollen season.

Pine pollen is not very allergenic, and research from Scion has shown less than 5% of people show any allergic reaction to pine pollen. The large pollen grains do not penetrate deeply into the nose. Tree species known to cause the worst reactions include birch, wattle, ash and olive. As pine pollen is so large, visibly bright yellow, and often is produced at the same time as other more harmful pollens it tends to get the blame. This is a case of mistaken identity.

The plant causing the biggest problem here is the perennial ryegrass covering 49% of New Zealand. It is the biggest pollen producer of all and the major cause of springtime

hay-fever. The majority of people with allergies are sensitive to it. The pollen, being small, will travel in the wind for many miles and our exposure is dictated by proximity to grasslands and the prevailing wind. In New Zealand the pollen season varies, from October to February, and often symptoms are blamed on other causes as the pollen is invisible to the eye.

So there is one very likely cause of your hay-fever and the hint is in the name. It’s probably hay, or associated grasses.

While there have been no proven health beneÿ ts of pine pollen, at the most it is a mild annoyance, and nothing that a quick splash with a hose won’t ÿ x. Embrace the yellow, it’s a sign that winter is over.

Wood workers gift a beautiful piece of Wairarapa The recent New Zealand Institute of Forestry Conference in Masterton provided a perfect excuse for organisers to utilise the skills of the Wairarapa Woodworkers Guild who made exquisite turned wooden bowls from specialty timbers as gifts for the speakers from around New Zealand.

If you visit the Guild’s workshop on Pownall Street in Masterton, you will ÿ nd huge dusty rooms ÿ lled with specialist timbers quietly drying on racks, obtained from local gardens and farms. The smell of sawdust and huge technical machines ÿ ll the space where local wood-working enthusiasts hone their craft.

Barry Smith, secretary of the Wairarapa Woodworkers Guild, was proud to arrange the 100 hours of work that members put into making the beautiful turned wooden

public would like to order or purchase their work, contact Barry Smith or message via email or their Facebook page.

bowls. Barry’s family has a long history of involvement with forestry. His father, Russel Smith, co-founded the Wairarapa branch of the Farm Forestry Association in 1956 and was National President from 1963 to 1967.

Their family farm, “Te Hau”, has some of the original pine trees planted in Wairarapa and won Best Tree Planted Farm in the late 1950s.

Wairarapa Woodworkers Guild comprises of 50 members from the Masterton and Carterton areas and was formed by volunteers interested in sharing and improving their wood working skills. Part of a national association, the Guild holds yearly competitions where competitive members get to hold an exciting “Master Chef” style of contest to design and construct a wooden-inspired item within a timeframe of one

Barry Smith from Wairarapa Woodworkers Guild presents bowls commissioned as gifts for the forestry conference.

afternoon. Members meet regularly to work on projects and share their skills in crafting increasingly complicated wooden articles often showcased and sold at Con Art next door to Aratoi in Masterton.

Currently the Guild is fundraising for a new 7K bandsaw and the commission of the

wooden bowls for the forestry conference have contributed towards this. Speakers from the conference expressed their delight with the quality of the bowls and the gifts may now turn into an annual commission. The Guild is always looking for ways to raise new funds for timber machines so if any member of the

If you have a passion for quality timber work, wish to improve your skills or join with likeminded individuals you can contact the Guild to become a member and share in the extensive workshop facilities and fellowship. 10-week wood working courses are also managed by the Guild in their extensive workshops at a cost of $75 per person for any age or family groups. The perfect “bubble” activity to book in for.

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Thanks Barry and all the members of the Wairarapa Woodworkers Guild for the little pieces of treasure that our speakers took home with them!

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www.facebook.com/ Wairarapa WoodworkersGuild (06) 3799198 email: croziernd@yahoo.com

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26 FEATURE SUPPLEMENT

Thursday, September 16, 2021 Wairarapa Times-Age

FEATURE SUPPLEMENT 27

www.age.co.nz Thursday, September 16, 2021

FORESTRY IN WAIRARAPA Why is forestry so investible?

As Masterton company Forest Enterprises prepares to release its latest investment, the team are talking with potential investors about why forestry is so investible.

Giving investors access to the best There are very few opportunities for individuals to invest in forestry in New Zealand due to the scale required for successful forestry operations.

For nearly 50 years, Forest Enterprises has been helping kiwis grow their wealth through investments in sustainable forestry. They o˜ er an a˜ ordable entry into forestry investment with exceptional land and high quality, proven plantations.

Their forests are in some of the best forestry sites in New Zealand.

The future is in trees As the world pursues a low carbon future, renewables are increasingly being sought to substitute carbon intensive alternatives like steel, concrete and plastic. This is driving

Log export report

timber demand. Uses include engineered timber products for construction, appearancegrade products for interiors, for industrial products, and consumer goods.

Forests are valued for their carbon storage and are essential if New Zealand is to achieve its climate change goals. Forests will help remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere in the short term, while strategies for eliminating or reducing greenhouse gas emissions are sought in the longer term.

Diversiÿ cation and other investment beneÿ ts Investors have turned to forestry investments as a hedge against volatility in markets and ° uctuations in the value of other investments.

Investing in assets like forestry can be complementary to equities, interest bearing deposits, ÿ xed income and property for diversifying and lowering the risk in an investment portfolio.

Forestry is a good way to

SEPTEMBER 2021

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With most of the New Zealand log producing regions back into action at level 3, its good to see log trucks back on the road, crews back to work and the tail end of planting season getting completed. While lockdown will have ongoing ripple e˜ ects with some crews that have only just recovered from the ÿ rst one, it was very timely in that the NZ supply chain was bursting at the seams with record production numbers. July and August saw massive issues with vessel wait times in Gisborne and Tauranga which then started to ° ow on to other ports such as Napier as supply was diverted.

Congestion issues started at Gisborne Port in June as the port company undertook repair works to its berth which, when combined with long periods where vessels couldn’t be loaded due to wave surges, led to vessel wait times of around 20 days.

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When you have a vessel costing in the mid to high $US30,000 per day, things start to get very ugly, very quickly. The Gisborne port company then stopped all top-deck loading of logs as the lashing of this log cargo on the top of the deck takes signiÿ cantly longer than stowing into the under-deck hatches. As topdeck cargo must be fumigated (or debarked) on port before loading, there are only a limited number of ports that this can be carried out on. This shifted the top-deck problem on to Tauranga which in turn led to wait times there of around 14 days.

When vessels are parked in a queue, they are basically out of the supply chain which is not helpful when you’re running at full throttle on the supply side and vessel supply is tight. As we require a smaller class of vessel in NZ due to the draft and berth limitations of many of our ports, we very quickly become price takers when vessel supply dries up as these ‘Handy Class’ vessels

are only in limited supply and are in hot demand globally.

If we hadn’t already created enough problems for ourselves with vessel wait times in NZ, some China port regions started seeing signiÿ cant outbreaks of Delta and several ports were shut down without warning, speciÿ cally in the Yangtze basin.

This has created congestion issues at the delivery end as available berthage has reduced around 30% resulting in around 10-day wait times there also. If you’re chartering a vessel at the moment, it’s a bit like sitting in Auckland tra˙ c in a taxi watching the fare tick over as you go nowhere. On the ° ip side, it’s good times to own a bulk carrier as you’re getting paid while you’re bobbing around at anchor playing cards.

What does this mean for forest owners? Unfortunately, with commodities, it’s the primary grower that generally ends up owning the majority of the supply chain cost increases, and this situation is no di˜ erent.

September At Wharf Gate (AWG) prices are reasonably ° at with August in the mid to high $120s/ m3 for A grade down from around $170/m3 in June. While some of that is a reduction of in-market sales prices (CFR) courtesy of price regulation by the Chinese Government, a large chunk is the freight costs.

While CFR prices are down to around $US170/m3 from around $US195/m3 in June, this is still around $US35/m3 higher than the 3-year average. These price ° uctuations pretty much mirror what has happened in other commodity markets such as iron ore and copper, but it is important to note that before the recent price spike, CFR prices have only broken through $US160/m3 for two months in the last quarter century.

There’s plenty of hand-wringing happening with forest owners at present over current AWG pricing levels as many still have the eyewatering June and July numbers ÿ rmly burnt in their mind. There’s a reasonable belief that this is the bottom of the

cycle, and we will expect to see some increases in AWG numbers, albeit subdued, heading into late 2021 and early 2022. Current AWG numbers are very close to the 3-year average and if, 3 years ago you had have said we’d be worrying about A grade in the $NZ120s AWG being the bottom of the cycle, you’d have wondered what the fuss was all about.

If you’re a forest owner that’s going down the carbon route, the hand-wringing would have been hand-rubbing late last week as the spot carbon price hit $60/NZU after the Government auction at which all units were sold at $53.85 from the cost containment reserve. This auction saw all of the 11.75 million carbon tonnes allocated being sold and a further 7 million tonnes worth of bids going unÿ lled. This will be making James Shaw pucker somewhat as it is likely that there is a fair degree of speculation in carbon rather than pure demand from emitters.

Statistics Log Prices (S/tonne) Export A $127 Pruned $205 Sawlog $130 110 China Log Inventory 4.7M +0.5M

Carbon ($/Unit) $59.40 +8.24

Export Log Market Volatility Indicator Price Reduction

The Southern North Island Wood Council provides a collective voice for the forestry sector in Taranaki, Whanganui, Manawatu, Wairarapa, Tararua and Wellington. Members have a common interest in ensuring the long-term success of the sector. Membership is open to any company or individual with an interest in the local wood industry.

Erica Kinder, SNI Wood Council CEO, can be contacted for more information. sniwoodcouncil@gmail.com

0273 290 498

sniwoodcouncil.co.nz/

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