Forest Products Industry

Influential forestry investment leader Dr David Brand will headline an Investor Symposium hosted by The Precinct in Melbourne this October as investors explore an initial $200 million-plus opportunity to establish large-scale engineered wood product manufacturing in Victoria’s Green Triangle. Source: Timberbiz Dr Brand, founder of global forestry investment manager New Forests, will deliver a keynote address on 14 October 2026, drawing on more than four decades of experience across forestry investment, forest management and natural capital. Russ Hughes, chair of The Precinct and former CEO of Australian Bluegum Plantations, will host the invite-only event as investors assess the commercial pathway, market opportunity and investment case for the world scale Precinct development, proposed for Portland in south-west Victoria. The event marks a return to the investment origins of Dr Brand’s work in Australia. He founded New Forests in 2005 with a single forestry asset in the Green Triangle with the goal of bringing institutional capital into the plantation sector. The business has since grown into a global operation with $10.6 billion in assets under management with a portfolio covering plantations, timber processing, agriculture, conservation, carbon and natural capital. From the outset, Dr Brand recognised that the value of a forest extended well beyond the sale of wood fibre. His work helped advance a more sophisticated view of forestry as an asset class, capable of delivering additional value through carbon, biodiversity, conservation and broader landscape outcomes. Just as carbon created a new way to value plantations, Dr Brand will explore the next evolution of the sector, transforming established plantation resources, traditionally exported as raw fibre, to be the feedstock for higher-value, domestically produced engineered wood products and prefabricated construction systems – markets experiencing strong domestic demand and constrained supply. The symposium follows the completion of the Hardwood Timber Manufacturing Hub feasibility study, which confirmed the technical and commercial pathway for the initial stage of The Precinct development. The proposed initial stage, earmarked close to port and transport infrastructure, represents more than $200 million in investment and would establish a large-scale Glue-Laminated Timber (GLT) manufacturing facility, supported by a state-of-the-art sawmill and major log merchandising facility. It will use locally grown plantation hardwood, creating an estimated 74 permanent jobs and anchoring future stages of engineered wood product manufacturing, including Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) and prefabricated building component manufacturing. The market opportunity is significant, with Australia importing close to $1 billion of engineered wood products and wood panels each year, including significant volumes of LVL, GLT and plywood used extensively in housing construction. The Precinct Chair Russ Hughes said the symposium came at pivotal moment for investors and the region’s forestry sector. “Victoria has an established plantation resource, but too much of its poten(al value leaves the region before it is converted into higher-value products,” Mr Hughes said. “The opportunity is to connect the resource we already grow with engineered wood manufacturing and prefabrication capability, so more of the economic value, skilled employment and industrial capability is retained in Australia, helping to meet our growing housing needs. “Dr Brand has been at the forefront of forestry investment for decades. His experience, including the early New Forests investment in the Green Triangle, gives him a particularly relevant perspective on the opportunity now emerging for this globally recognised region.” Under the theme “From Plantation to Product to Prefabrication”, the invitation-only symposium will bring together institutional investors, industry leaders, government representatives and project partners to consider the investment case, market opportunity and pathway to delivery. The Precinct is supported by major industry contributions and the Commonwealth Government’s Australian Forest and Wood Innovations (AFWI) and the Victorian State Government. To learn more about the development visit www.theprecinctportland.com.au

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Two research projects worth $1.43 million are building the first commercial case for native hardwood forestry at the scale between small farm woodlots and large industrial plantations. Source: Timberbiz The AFWI Centre for Climate-Smart Forestry at the University of Melbourne leads both, using existing commercial plantations in Gippsland, Victoria, as case studies. Australian Forest and Wood Innovations is investing $333,251 in the first project and $380,880 in the second, across total values of $669,635 and $762,578, with Radial Timbers and Heartwood Unlimited co-investing and supplying the working sites. The economics, ecology and social licence of medium-sized native hardwood plantations, which sit between small farm forests and large industrial estates, are not well understood. The projects measure the financial performance of current plantation management and local wood product manufacturing, quantify the natural capital the estates hold, and apply life-cycle analysis to the carbon footprint of production and processing. Victoria ended harvesting in its public native forests on 1 January 2024, and both case studies are built on plantation estates already trading in the region. The findings will inform investment decisions about medium-scale native hardwood forestry and processing infrastructure in comparable regions nationally. Jon Lambert, Managing Director of Heartwood Unlimited, said the work opened a new avenue for medium-scale private forestry. “We are delighted to be partnering in a project that is investigating a new avenue for medium-scale private forestry in Australia. This project has the potential to open many new doors via a platform of solid new data, being collected and analysed by a great team of researchers,” Lambert said in the AFWI Highlights Report 2024-2026, released in Canberra on Tuesday. Radial Timbers already runs the model the researchers will document. The company saws durable Victorian hardwoods at its mill at Yarram in South Gippsland using a radial cut that takes each log apart in wedges, cutting waste and handling the smaller diameter logs that plantations yield, and its integrated operation covers growing, milling, engineered wood manufacture and residue use. “Radial Timbers Australia is very excited to be partnering with this AFWI project as it will provide valuable, documented information on key pillars of our circular economy model which we have put into commercial practice,” Chris McEvoy, Managing Director of Radial Timbers, said. The Gippsland work sits inside a wider AFWI portfolio of 39 active projects worth more than $67.6 million at 30 June 2026, supported by a $101.5 million Commonwealth investment and hosted by the University of Tasmania. Both Gippsland projects run to February 2027.

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