Market Demand and Export of Timber

Presented by

Piyali Dias

World timber market is mainly based on primary timber products such as industrial round wood, sawn timber, wood based panels, paper, paper board and wood pulp. Moreover furniture and builder’s wood work and joinery also play an important role in the world timber market. United States, Canada and the Russian federation are the leading timber producers in the world who makes the largest contributions to the global timber production which is more than 3.4 billion m³ annually. However, more than half of this timber production is gone for wood fuel while the rest of the amount used for timber and paper products where the Europe and the United States act as the world leading timber consumers. According to the recent findings the most demanded timber product was softwood industrial round wood which was produced more than 400 million m³ of timber in the year 2013 in North America. However the highest softwood roundwood flow is going from New Zealand to China where China acts as the main importer of many timber products. Though the tropical timber market is much lower than temperate timer, industrial round woods are the most demanded item among those tropical timber products. The second most demanded item was softwood sawn wood which had a production as well as a consumption of about 96 million m³ in 2013 which was recorded from the European Union. However the wood base panels, paper, paper products and wood pulp have comparatively lower demand in global timber situation where Europe dominate the production of those products in year 2013. Among those products, particle boards have the highest production which is nearly equals to the 35.5% of the total wood based panel production. Moreover the most demanded secondary processed timber product was furniture which had recorded more than $124 million by value in the European Union flowed by the US, Italy and Germany. World furniture production is dominated by Asian countries where China appears as the highest furniture producer in the world. Sawn soft woods are the main exported product which leads the world timber exports in 2013. The Europe was the all-round exporter in each and every type of timber product including round wood, sawn wood, paper, paper board, wood pulp and wood based panels. European exports are increased by 5.6% in 2013 with 46 million m³ by volume of sawn softwood exports to the overseas markets mainly to China and North African countries. However, though the prices of timber products are slightly changing from country to country the highest market prices were recorded for paper and paper boards which is around $ 900 per metric ton while the least prices were recorded for industrial round wood as nearly $ 100 per cubic meter throughout the time period of last fifty years. In temperate region, Hem Lock, Pine, Cypress and Swedish spruce are the main traded timber species while Shorea, Dipterocarpus, Teak and Ceiba leading the tropical timber market. Though Sri Lanka is not playing any important role in the world timber situation by not exporting any timber product instead of re exporting treated, imported Kempus timber by STC while private sector is involving in exports up to some extent. But here they have to overcome some of the legal barriers such as Forest act, Import Export act and Customs act as well as some international standards which set up by world reputed certification systems such as Forest Stewardship Certification, when entering to the global export market.

NeemLife Plantatinon: Establishment of a Neem Plantation

Abstract of the presentation of

Sashi Dayarathne

NeemLife Plantation is willing to establish a plantation in Horowpathana area which is located in Anuradhapura district by using Azadirachta indica as the species. Plantation extends to 25.5 ha and it is going to be carried out in three phases. The plantation is adding value to its premises by intercropping with chili as a cash crop. The vision of this plantation is to be the pioneers of supplying Neem raw material to the local and international Neem based manufacturers and their mission is to provide good quality Neem leaves, seeds, fruits, bark to the Neem product manufacturers and provide high quality, durable timber to the sawmills and furniture manufacturers.

When it comes to the A. indica it is one of the multipurpose trees available in the country which provide a path to the commercial industries like cosmetics, aurvedic and biopesticies. One of the best thing is that Neem does not require highly fertile soils, can be grown even in barren lands. It does not support, however, marshy or acid lands. The tree physiology requires temperature that varies between 8º and 40º C. The more hot and humid climate, the faster is the growth. And also for an economic exploration it must be planted on sites in which rainfall is in between 800 and 1,500 mm per year. In very favorable conditions, the Neem can reach 10 m height in eight years and 12 m in ten years, and produce fruit up to 60 kg per year by one tree. The Neem tree contains a thousand of chemical components. It is remarkable the occurrence of the so-called “Limonoids”, which are very rare. They appear in Neem in more than one hundred types.

Neem is going to be planted with 5x5 m spacing under plantation establishment. Therefore 400 Neem seedlings will be planted per ha and can be maintained by providing organic fertilizer and proper irrigation system. Thinning can be carried out two times in its plantation rotation. One is at the age of 10 when the mean top height is up to 10-15 m and other one is when the age is 25 where the mean top height is up to 20 m.The first flowering of trees occurs in the 4th year. The production of fruits starts with only 10 kg per tree (4.0 tons per ha), going up to 60 kg per tree (16.0 tons per ha) in the 10th year. Each tree produces 2 tons per year up to 7 tons per year of leaves, produce 60 m3 volume of timber per ha.

Plantation can be benefited by obtaining tradable carbon credits for removing CO2 from the atmosphere, according to the cycle of cutting and harvesting of the plantation to be considered within the concept of green carbon. The Neem plantation is indeed an interesting tool for promoting sustainable plantation in Sri Lanka while providing high return rates to investors and social development in rural areas. As it can support organic agriculture in large scale for removing agro toxic from the traditional agriculture.

An open-grown neem tree

Melia Plantations: establishment of a Melia dubia Plantation

Abstract of the presentation of

Kuluni Millaniyage

One of the major problems in today's agriculture and forestry sector is reducing income year by year. The land values are increased and income from plantation management is reduced due to increased cost for labour, increase in cost of cultivation and increase in transportation cost. Because of that owners are selling land and looking for other business. Therefore we need to think of obtaining good income from forestry by reducing labors and increasing yield. In today's picture, the middle men are earning a good income from timber products, and the planter who produces gets less from what he produced. Since many short term crops need more labor, transportation and inventory cost, the final gain for the planters are very low. To make good revenues per hectare, we need to cultivate medium to long term crops keeping the cost to minimal.

Melia Dubia is one of the fast growing trees in the world and gives good returns. It can be used in match or biomass or plywood industries. After 3 years, 30-40 tons of biomass per acre can be harvested up to 10 years. The price of wood per cubic meter is SLR 9,900 and therefore one can get minimum revenue of Rs 1,033,200 per every hectare.

When establishing a plantation, the major importance is to decide on the best area to grow the plants. Since this species is growing well in the wet and intermediate zone, Mathugama area was selected as the destination.

Ginger which is a gold mining business itself is intercropped to utilize the land area. Ginger can be harvested within 10 months while the Melia plants will be harvested after 14 years.

Pruning and thinning is given a great importance as well as supplying the timber to plywood companies. As the conclusion, this plant can be recommended as a profitable tree with a good potential for the future timber market.

Estimation of above ground biomass of Pinus caribaea

Estimation of above ground biomass of Pinus caribaea
by
Upul Subasinghe and Gayani Munasinghe

Forests in Sri Lanka contribute to the mitigation of global climate change through sequestrating a net amount of carbon dioxide and also maintaining carbon stocks as forest biomass. Therefore it was decided to study the biomass and sequestrated carbon by forest plantations in Sri Lanka. For this study, the possibility of predicting the above ground tree biomass and carbon of Pinus caribaea (Morelet) was investigated using regression analysis. A 27 year old P. caribaea plantation was selected from the low country wet zone of Sri Lanka and the data were collected using 0.05 ha sample plots.Without felling the trees, core samples were extracted from the stems and biomass and carbon amounts of those samples were used to estimate the biomass and carbon of respective trees through volume measurements. Canopy biomass and carbon were estimated using samples of primary, secondary and tertiary branches. Leaves and the tertiary branches were considered together for the selected species. The total baove ground tree biomass and carbon were estimated by adding the stem and canopy values together.

It was found that, for 27 old P. caribaea, the above ground tree biomass was 368.9 kg and carbon was 215.9 kg which is 58.5% from the biomass. The amont of carbon of the primary, secondary and tertiary and leaves was 35.0 kg. The total above ground tree carbon for the 27 year old P. caribaea plantation was 103.63 MT per ha.

Determination of Biomass and Carbon for Pinus caribaea in Sri Lanka

Determination of Biomass and Carbon for Pinus caribaea in Sri Lanka
by
Upul Subasinghe and Gayani Muinasinghe

Forests in Sri Lanka contribute to the mitigation of global climate change through sequestrating a net amount of CO2 and also maintaining C stocks as forest biomass. Therefore a research was carried out to study the biomass and C storage by the forest plantations in Sri Lanka. 27 year old Pinus caribaea plantation from Low Country Wet Zone of Sri Lanka was selected for this study and the required measurements were taken using 0.05 ha sample plots. Core samples were obtained to calculate the stem biomass and C withoug felling the trees. In order to determine the branch and leaf mass and C values, those were representatively sampled. C was analysed using Walkley-Black method.

It was found that the above ground tree mass of a 27 year old Pinus caribaea tree was 368.9 kg and the C amount was 215.9 (58.5%) respectively. The C% of the canopy was 64.5% from the dry mass. The C% of the primary, secondary and tertiary branches and leaves were 61.7%, 59.1%, 79.6% respectively.