The global wood market, prices and plantation investment: an examination drawing on the Australian experience

Abstract

A global wood shortage generating real inflation-adjusted price increases for wood has been a long and widely-held expectation. This paper assesses the validity of this view by examining global trends in wood and wood-products consumption, developing a model to explain movements in wood prices and testing it empirically. No evidence was found of increasing real prices for wood over the long-term, indicating that there is no looming global wood shortage. A global wood shortage is not predicted because technology is increasing resource productivity, enabling wood products to be made using less wood, and also increasing wood supply. It is superficial to interpret this to mean that there is little to worry about from a native forest biodiversity perspective. The analysis presented in this paper suggests that real prices for wood are likely to continue to fall. This will discourage commercially-driven investment in plantation establishment on existing agricultural land. But industrial pressure will continue for a wood resource that is attractive in cost and quality terms, increasing the risk of biodiversity loss through intensification of native forest management and clearing of native forests for plantations. It is prudent to consider approaches that encourage plantation investment on existing agriculture land using the price mechanism. Currently, much private sector plantation investment is based on price expectations derived from an incorrect view of an imminent global wood shortage. Withdrawing old-growth forests from commodity wood supply is likely to increase wood prices in line with widely-held, though apparently false, expectations and also deliver an absolute best ecological outcome. As increasing volumes of wood become available from maturing plantations, government policy changes will be required to ensure that levels of logging in native forests actually decline rather than new markets being found for native forest wood. Despite its strategic commercial importance, little is known about the potential of the existing global plantation estate to supply wood. Addressing this information gap is a timely task that would enhance industry policy and clarify future plantation investment requirements.