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Forests already deliver what the nature-positive agenda is asking for: biodiversity, carbon storage, water regulation, renewable materials and livelihoods. The difficulty is not identifying these benefits. It is creating systems capable of protecting them and managing them together in a holistic manner. Source: Timberbiz This challenge shaped the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) side event on the co-benefits of tropical forests, held on 15 July 2026 during the Global Nature Positive Summit in Kumamoto, Japan. The session opened with remarks from Mr Tanimura, Deputy Director of Japan’s Forestry Agency, who recognised ITTO’s contribution to tropical forests over the past 40 years. He also highlighted Japan’s continuing commitment to forests and forestry, including a new policy emphasis on greater private-sector engagement and vitality. Moderated by Jennifer Conje of ITTO, the panel brought together perspectives from research, conservation, business and certification. Ronald C. Estoque of Japan’s Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute examined the different pressures affecting tropical forest landscapes. Shinichi Kawai of WWF Japan addressed the difficulty companies face in tracing location-specific impacts through supply chains. Junko Kikuchi of Nippon Koei reflected on community participation and human rights. Thorsten Arndt, PEFC International’s Head of Advocacy, considered how sustainable forest management and certification can support implementation. Across these perspectives, one point stood out. “The central question is not how to ask more of forests, but how to recognise, manage and reward the benefits they already provide,” Thorsten said. Tropical forests make this challenge especially visible. They are ecologically significant, but also lived-in landscapes that provide food, income, and materials to millions of people. Any approach that separates environmental outcomes from the socio-economic realities of forest communities will remain fragile. The nature-positive agenda reflects the direction set by the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework: halting biodiversity loss, enabling recovery and strengthening ecosystem resilience. Research presented during the session showed why implementation must respond to different forest conditions. Where degradation has reduced ecosystem functions, recovery may require active intervention. Forests under pressure need timely action through sustainable management.  Relatively intact forests need continued stewardship before degradation expands into them. Thorsten compared them to apps: each is designed to do something specific, but none can operate effectively without an underlying system connecting it to what happens in the forest. “Frameworks can be compared to apps – they need an operating system,” he said. “For forests, that operating system is sustainable forest management, supported by credible certification.” Sustainable forest management provides the foundation. Certification contributes the assurance structure through which broad objectives can be translated into verifiable management requirements, stakeholder participation, independent assessment and evidence of responsible practice. It also connects common global expectations with national and local realities. A credible system must provide consistency and confidence while remaining workable for the people responsible for implementation. The task is not to replace that operating system each time a new framework emerges. It is for certification to is to strengthen it so that new tools and expectations can build on a sound foundation. This is why biodiversity tools and frameworks are valuable: they help identify higher-risk regions and commodities, structure assessments and prioritise action. Panellists noted however, that global tools cannot replace local assessment and traceability. Nature-positive ambition will not strengthen forests simply because more frameworks exist. It will do so when those frameworks lead to better decisions in the forest. The discussion also highlighted a gap in many nature frameworks: their social foundations remain less developed than their environmental metrics. Community engagement cannot be reduced to consultation after decisions have already been made. The rights, knowledge and priorities of local communities need to shape projects from the beginning. Forest communities are often expected to carry the costs of conservation while the benefits are distributed much more widely. Where sustainable management cannot compete economically with conversion, forest loss reflects the incentives built into the system. Certification cannot solve this problem alone, nor can it replace effective public policy, finance or strong local institutions. It can, however, make responsible management visible, verifiable and connected to markets and institutions that value it. Thorsten stressed that nature positive can only succeed if it is also people positive. Forest owners, workers and communities need to see a viable future in managing forests sustainably and keeping them standing. Ultimately, nature-positive ambition will be judged by whether forests remain valuable to the people responsible for their future.

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Environmentalists say European forests need to be managed differently. With France and Spain struggling to contain raging wildfires, and others from Germany to Greece on high alert, Europe is discussing how to stop this happening again next year. Source: Eurativ Europe experienced its worst wildfire season on record in 2025 – a record it is on track to break over the coming weeks. “For the next days, the risk is again going to rise, and not only in Spain and France, but also in Greece,” an EU official told the press on Monday. But while Brussels is deploying personnel and aircraft to help local firefighters, an emergency response alone will not be enough to contain the flames, the European Commission warned on Monday. “When you’re on the ground and you’re seeing flame lengths of over 15 metres, as we’ve seen in Spain, in France … there’s nothing you can do,” the official said. Addressing the root causes of wildfires, such as increasingly frequent heat waves, will require long-term policies. But there are ways to reduce the risk in the short term, said Tammouz Eñaut Helou, secretary-general of the French forest owners’ association UCFF. This includes raising awareness about how to prepare for outbreaks of fire, Helou said, such as “maintaining access tracks through forests to allow firefighters to operate more effectively during interventions”. This is an area where Brussels can play a role beyond simply sending aircraft once fires are already raging, Helou added. “The future Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) should continue to allow funding for the creation and maintenance of these forest access routes.” Another key measure is clearing scrub land and stubble to reduce the amount of flammable biomass and slow the spread of fires. “It is very important to have actions that manage the vegetable fuel that is available in the territory,” the EU official said. In France, vegetation clearance obligations currently apply only in certain areas, mainly along roads leading to homes rather than within forest plots. Helou argues that more needs to be done. Environmentalists say it’s the entire structure of our forests that needs to be rethought. “The fires burning in France, as well as the largest blaze near Madrid, are spreading through timber plantations. These monocultures are more than twice as likely to burn as natural forests,” the director of UK environmental group Earthsight, Samuel Lawson, said in a LinkedIn post on Sunday. This issue is particularly important during replanting, Sylvain Angerand, director of French association Canopée told France Inter last week. According to him, France is increasing wildfire risks by replacing diverse broadleaf forests with fire-prone maritime pine plantations – especially in the Landes region that is now burning. Helou, representing the planters of such forests, disagrees. “Under the conditions we are experiencing today, everything burns, broadleaf forests or conifers, highly diverse forests or less diverse ones,” he said. “The real problem is climate change and how we prepare for it.”

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Data published by Samaritans and the Office for National Statistics in the UK has highlighted an increase in the number of deaths by suicide, particularly among men between 45 – 54. This is of significant concern to the forestry sector where a large proportion of the workforce is male and fall into this high-risk group. Source: Timberbiz People working in the forestry industry are also frequently exposed to other risk factors for poor mental health (rural isolation, lack of financial stability, and transient nature of job roles). In 2024, growing concern, driven by deaths within the community, and increasing reports of pressure, prompted forestry professionals to come together and advocate for better well-being, identify industry-related stressors, and provide useful tools and interventions to help. An animation produced by the Royal Forestry Society with funding from the Forestry Commission sheds light on the experience of tree workers when the public respond negatively to essential forestry work. In the 2025 Breaking Points Survey a recurring theme among foresters and arborists was the impact of verbal abuse in response to their work. The video aims to show why felling trees is necessary for managing habitats, keeping public spaces safe and producing sustainable materials, and why an angry response to local forestry workers doesn’t help them or the trees they manage. To better understand the scale and nature of the issue, the working group commissioned the Breaking Points survey in the summer of 2025 designed to identify the key stressors felt by people working in the forestry sector. The Breaking Points Report brings together the findings of the survey to provide clear evidence to support the lived experiences that drove the concern of this working group. It is intended to inform and guide future interventions, supporting organisations to improve mental health and well-being for those working in the forestry sector. “By exploring the experiences of people across the forestry workforce, this report highlights the special nature and severity of the challenges they face, and also the opportunities we have to better support them and make our forestry workforce more resilient. We simply must address the mental wellbeing of those who work in our sector, and I sincerely hope this report will provide the evidence and impetus to bring about the change we need to see,” Christopher Williams – Royal Forestry Society said. Most people working in forestry know someone who has been severely affected by issues surrounding mental health. It’s not always the big things. Sometimes it’s the tone. The pressure. The silence. View the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMUyqSZG6Xw

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HQPlantations has released an Expression of Interest (EOI) for harvest and haulage services across its South East Queensland plantation estate. Source: Timberbiz The harvest volume is approximately 600,000 tonnes per annum from Fraser Coast Plantations, Beerburrum Plantations and Bribie Island Plantations. The harvest capacity sought is 5-7 harvesting crews including harvesting, extraction and log loading. The harvest contract term is for five years. The commencement date is from 1 July 2027. There are multiple contract packages available. Interested parties can access the EOI documentation below and register their interest via the online registration form. Any questions: Kevin Ford Project Commercial Lead Email: kevin.ford@hqplantations.com.au Submission of an EOI is a registration of interest only and does not guarantee participation in any subsequent procurement process. The registration of interest form is at https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=Ny3BvTV-XEORmjE6gpD-24UnKUrCK7NEsoqpfzb2vSNUODVDNE5SUUNZS01WSVg4UUtZOTBHSFhaWC4u More information is available to download here.

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The need for a national deer management strategy to manage native forest decline in New Zealand is highlighted in a new research paper. Source: Timberbiz Led by Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury (UC) Emeritus Professor David Norton, the paper Deer in the headlights: sleepwalking our way to a native forest catastrophe warns of a slowly developing crisis that is often hard to see. “Our mature trees can live for three, four or  five hundred years, so we’re looking at centuries-long replacement cycles and aren’t seeing changes happening overnight,” Emeritus Professor Norton said. “You can walk into a forest and see a beautiful canopy, but there may be nothing underneath it except moss because deer have taken out the intermediate layer. The forest is still there and looks beautiful, but when it goes through its replacement cycle, a lot of those elements like seedlings and shrubs aren’t there anymore.” The damage caused by deer go beyond just eating plants, Emeritus Professor Norton says. “Deer also damage forests by trampling the forest floor. Unlike moa, the large native birds that once moved through New Zealand forests on broad, avian feet, deer have narrow, cloven hooves that exert much greater pressure on the ground. This removes leaf litter, compacts the soil and can affect water infiltration and overall soil health,” he said. “While as an ecologist I would like to see no deer in New Zealand, this is not going to happen because they’ve also got social value, so I think we need to look at New Zealand native forests and ask: what areas are high priority for biodiversity conservation and climate change resilience, areas where we should be trying to get rid of all deer, and where can we accept the presence of a well-managed deer herd for recreational hunting? “We need to work in partnership — hunters and conservationists, farmers, and plantation foresters, government and iwi — because we all want to have a liveable country and we want this environment to be here in the future.” Before people arrived, around 75 % to 80% of Aotearoa New Zealand was covered in native forest. Today, that figure is about 25 % to 30%, Emeritus Professor Norton says. He says native forests provide more than recreational value for New Zealanders. “Our forests provide us with a massive amount of resilience. They’re a huge store of carbon, they provide habitat for so much of our flora and fauna, and they protect our watersheds and look after our downstream human communities. “If forests start collapsing or changing and we have intense rainfall events, which are increasing due to climate change, less water and sediment will be held back in the system, and we will see more damage downstream. “Broadleaf is a really good example of deer impacts. You can see the foliage starts up at the height a deer browses to and there’s nothing below that. At some point, when those trees die, there are no more seedlings coming in and it will disappear.” Deer were introduced to Aotearoa New Zealand in the late 1800s, partly to establish a recreational hunting resource. Initially protected to allow populations to become established, deer numbers increased rapidly due to abundant habitat and no natural predators. Deer numbers reached a peak in the 1950s. Helicopter harvesting then resulted in a marked collapse in numbers. Emeritus Professor Norton says commercial harvesting pressure however has since declined, while recreational hunting alone is not removing enough animals to control populations, and numbers are again approaching the levels back in the 1950s. “Without more coordinated management, repeated cycles of high deer numbers will progressively remove vulnerable plant species and alter the long-term structure of New Zealand’s forests,” he said. Emeritus Professor Norton says deer damage is a nationwide issue, although its severity varies depending largely on hunting pressure, with some remote forests such as those in South Westland experiencing particularly significant impacts. “We need to look beyond short-term cost and focus on long-term benefits. There will be not only environmental benefits, but also direct economic benefits of a coordinated approach to controlling deer in the long term.” He says these long-term economic benefits could include reducing the cost of flood and erosion damage, protecting water supplies and infrastructure, and retaining the carbon stored in native forests. “I think our native forest is still recoverable. We haven’t crossed that divide yet, but if we leave it too far into the future, it will get much harder.”  

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The Forest Products Commission (FPC) owns and manages approximately 73,000 hectares of softwood plantations in the southwest of Western Australia. The softwood species radiata pine (Pinus radiata) and maritime pine (Pinus pinaster) have been planted over many years to help reduce Australia’s reliance on imported timbers. Source: Timberbiz FPC’s plantation estate (mainly radiata pine) supports a timber industry hub at Dardanup which includes a sawmill and timber processing plant, wood chipping facilities, wood treatment facilities, and a particleboard plant. Additionally, there is an engineered wood processing facility at Neerabup, north of Perth. FPC resource projections show that without substantial new investment, the plantation estate would diminish significantly over the next 20 years. In 2021, the WA Government announced a $350 million investment to grow the State’s softwood plantation timber estate to address declining plantation areas and future industry needs. Over 10 years, FPC will acquire and establish suitable land in the South West to help secure the future of WA’s softwood industry. Timber from these plantations will supply the softwood processing sector and support the State’s housing and construction industry, while also supporting the State’s response to climate change.

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The management of Tasmania’s forests is back on the agenda, but not by those who have the practical management of forests as their priority. It has been placed on the agenda by those who may have great concern for the natural environment, but no responsibility for it, nor any financial skin in the game. Source: Tasmanian Country Nathan Calman While the conservation movement may think they are targeting forestry activities on public land, their activism also significantly impacts privately held forests, private forestry and the management of a significant tract of the Tasmanian landscape. This point is mostly lost on the broader public and in many instances, by government. Farmers are the custodians for significant tracts of forest resources in Tasmania, around 1,000,000 ha or 16% of the state, which is more than public production forests. A full-page advertisement in a major daily newspaper on July 20 spelt out a significant disconnect between opinions and facts and the vision for the future of Tasmania, socially, environmentally and economically. What it highlighted was the progressive change in language that now seeks to end “native forest logging’’. Two decades ago, it was “end old growth logging”, before that, it was described as “protect virgin forest”. But their language never explains what native forest logging means and why are we ending it rather than simply doing forestry better? What that advertisement highlights are the claims of the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Wilderness Society, Wilderness Australia and the Bob Brown Foundation now crossing over into private forest estates. It seeks to take the management parameters away from landowners but increase the level of responsibility borne by those landowners. Native forest logging is not necessarily clear felling. Many managers of forests wouldn’t consider clear felling as a management tool but would use the judicious use of single-stem harvesting and the periodic cool burning of understoreys as a time-proven management tool, used for thousands of years before European settlement. In the process, this protects biodiversity, carbon sequestration and boosts the safety of the forest and community. This will ultimately preserve forest estates rather than conserve them – which is a very important distinction. Another term for preserving forests is to ‘lock them up”. Locked-up forests are not managed forests, and in a time of climate change to warmer and drier weather, managing fuel loads is a critical component of managing forest ecosystems. In short, if they aren’t managed, they become a huge bushfire hazard that threatens the whole community and could cause complete loss of the forest itself. Furthermore, it lists among the demands, the increased “… long term public funding across all levels of government for the protection, conservation and restoration of native forests”. At least they aren’t advocating for government subsidised new pine plantations… All farmers would understand the concept of pressure. Pressure from banks, suppliers, contractors, customers, processors, governments local, state and federal. There is the constant pressure that weather brings, the pressure to get the timing right of buying, selling, planting and harvesting. Farmers who are managing forests as a longer rotation crop, don’t need the additional political pressure of outside influences distracting government policy makers from their key objective, which is surely the sustainable and practical management of forests. Vocal interest groups such as the group of four that placed the advertisement in the newspaper are seeking to drive their own political agenda, but the real pressure is on forest managers, who are obligated to ensure the safety of the community, the integrity of their forests and the ongoing economic survival of rural and regional areas.  

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Master Builders Australia’s National Board has announced that long-serving CEO Denita Wawn advised them earlier this year that she will conclude her tenure with the organisation once a successor has been appointed. Source: Timberbiz Ms Wawn joined Master Builders in 2016 and became CEO in March 2017, becoming the first woman to hold the role since the organisation’s federation in 1890. A tireless advocate for the building and construction industry, Ms Wawn has consistently stood up for members and held governments to account, regardless of their political persuasion. Ms Wawn’s policy and campaign achievements include: Working with governments and the union to keep the industry, its businesses and workers operating during the pandemic 19 lockdowns, and to secure incentives, including HomeBuilder, to sustain building activity Leading Master Builders’ successful federal election campaigns, including the 2019 campaign that challenged the then Opposition’s positions on capital gains tax, negative gearing and the ABCC Campaigning against elements of the 2023 Closing Loopholes legislation, helping secure a government backdown on laws that would have restricted independent contracting Working with Government and Opposition to secure a bipartisan approach to the administration of the CFMEU.   Beyond these achievements, Ms Wawn has led national advocacy on housing supply, affordability, workforce shortages, women’s participation, building safety, productivity and the industry’s role in meeting Australia’s housing and infrastructure needs. National President Robert Shaw says that under Ms Wawn’s leadership, Master Builders has gone from strength to strength, cementing its place as a leading national industry association. “Denita has led Master Builders through some of the most significant challenges and opportunities our industry has faced, including the COVID-19 pandemic, major industrial relations reforms and the nation’s housing supply crisis. “She has spoken frankly and fearlessly for the industry, in public and in private, an approach welcomed by members who expect their leaders to ‘call a spade a spade’. “On behalf of the National Board, I thank Denita for her remarkable contribution and wish her every success in the next chapter of her career,” said Mr Shaw. The National Board has today appointed a recruitment firm to lead the search for the next CEO with the process to commence immediately.

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The HIA has congratulated Ben Carroll on becoming Victoria’s new Premier and looks forward to working constructively with his government to increase housing supply, support industry confidence and deliver the homes Victorians need. Source: Timberbiz “The election of Mr Carroll has avoided a prolonged period of political uncertainty at a time when Victoria’s home building industry needs stability and certainty,” said HIA Victoria Executive Director Keith Ryan. “Builders want to get on with the job of delivering homes for Victorians. Further disruption from the Government was the last thing the industry needed after what has already been a challenging year. “HIA is seeking an early and clear commitment from Premier Carroll that increasing housing supply will remain a central priority of the Victorian Government. “We also urge the Premier to minimise changes to Cabinet and portfolio responsibilities. With a state election only months away, there are significant building and contract law reforms due to commence, while critical regulations are still awaiting public consultation. “Continuity in both policy and leadership is essential to maintaining industry confidence and investment certainty. The residential building industry should not become collateral damage in internal political negotiations. “As Victoria heads towards the November election, HIA is calling on all political parties to support the priorities outlined in HIA’s 2026 Victorian Election Policy Agenda, including: Better and fairer building regulation. Reform of state property taxes. Growing the industry’s skilled workforce and attracting more young people into building trades. Bringing more shovel-ready land to market. Expanding the supply of social and affordable housing.   “A strong residential building sector doesn’t happen by accident. It requires governments to work constructively with industry and implement policies that are stable, predictable and supportive of investment. “HIA and its members look forward to working with Premier Carroll and his Government to deliver policies that increase housing supply, support business confidence, and ensure more Victorians can achieve the dream of home ownership,” Mr Ryan said.

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