Australia’s plantation estate has shed nearly 300,000 hectares over the past decade, with demand for timber, engineered wood and renewable carbon continuing to grow. Now, a new white paper from the Rozetta Institute says the answer isn’t just planting more trees — it’s getting two to three times more out of the ones already in the ground.
The paper, A National Pathway for High-Productivity Forestry and Renewable Carbon Supply, argues Australia can rebuild its wood supply by getting more from existing plantations — before turning to expansion.
Authored by forestry strategist Steve Walker, Principal of Terrafolia Advisory, it is supported by Professor Mark Brown of the University of the Sunshine Coast’s Forest Research Institute, Dr Lyndall Bull, Director and Principal Consultant at Lynea Advisory, and Dr Rob Waterworth, CEO of FLINTPro, Co-Director of Moja Global and CEO of Mullion Group.
Today, Wood Central spoke to Walker and Dr Bull — formerly of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations — about the growing opportunity to align what Australia’s plantations produce and what the country needs.
“The most immediate value creation opportunity in forestry lies in optimising existing estates through disciplined investment in productivity,” Walker said. “Stepping back from the policy framing, the underlying issue is one of asset productivity and capital discipline.”
The numbers tell the story.
Australia’s plantation estate — the backbone of the country’s structural timber supply — has hit a 20-year low, largely fuelled by the ongoing conversion of hardwood plantations to other land uses. Last year, the Australian Forest Products Association warned that Australia was importing over $6 billion worth of wood products, 25 per cent of which was used to produce timber for housing.
“That divergence is not simply a land-use story — it is a national portfolio performance story,” Walker said.
The productivity opportunity is significant.
Australian plantations typically produce 15 to 18 cubic metres per hectare per year. The best international systems — using modern genetics, clonal propagation, precision silviculture and site-matched species — routinely deliver 30 to 50 cubic metres. Dr Bull, who has worked on forest product market development across Asia-Pacific and global supply chain policy, said the opportunity was well understood internationally, but the pathway for closing it right here in Australia had not been clearly set out…until now.
The paper puts forward three pathways.
The first is to do more with the existing harvest. That means lifting recovery, expanding engineered wood processing and pulling higher-value products from small-diameter logs and residues.
The second is to deploy what the paper calls Next Generation Perennial Plantations, or NGPP. The system applies precision genetics and silviculture to existing species and landscapes to lift productivity two to three times on suitable sites. “NGPP is not a new species or crop,” Walker said. “It can be deployed without major land-use change or within integrated agricultural landscapes.”
Whilst the third is targeted expansion — but only once productivity gains and secure offtake are in place.
The potential is substantial. According to Walker, a 50,000-hectare NGPP estate operating at two to three times current productivity could supply one to two million tonnes of biomass each year. That would support major renewable carbon facilities, strengthen engineered wood capability and displace high-emission industrial inputs.
In dollar terms, that represents more than $100 million in fibre revenue and also represents $200 to $300 million in regional value-added per year. And more than one million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent avoided.
“The question for investors is not ‘Should we plant more trees?'” Walker said. “It is ‘How do we construct a high-productivity, risk-adjusted renewable carbon platform that integrates with the downstream industry?'”
The white paper lands at a key moment for Australia’s plantation sector.
In January, Wood Central reported that a new ABARES productivity report had confirmed plantation managers were already lifting output. Softwood mean annual increment has been holding steady or showing moderate increases over the past 15 to 20 years. Those gains were driven by improved silviculture, advances in genetics and better harvesting and processing practices.
But where the ABARES report described steady gains within the existing system, the Rozetta white paper goes further. It argues that step-change improvements are both technically feasible and commercially necessary — especially if Australia wants to meet rising demand without relying solely on estate expansion.
Scaling NGPP will require coordinated leadership across government, industry and investment. The paper proposes a staged roadmap: pilots first, then regional scale-up, then national deployment. The aim is to align plantation productivity with emerging clean-industry precincts, renewable carbon demand and advanced timber manufacturing.
Walker said forestry was increasingly part of energy transition portfolios, industrial decarbonisation strategies and sovereign manufacturing capability: “That evolution requires integrated thinking across biology, logistics, processing and capital — not just hectares,” he said.
Please note: Wood Central will have further coverage about the report in the coming weeks.
