Friday Offcuts – 13 June 2025
Click to Subscribe - It's FREE! Welcome to this week’s edition of Friday Offcuts.Our lead story highlights the NZ forest industry's collaboration to meet upcoming EU regulations before they come into force this December. The EU market is currently worth around NZ$100 million annually. We also cover the introduction of long-awaited legislation in aimed at reducing large-scale farm-to-forestry conversions. In innovation, we look at a new AI system developed by researchers from Monash and Charles Darwin universities, that can detect contaminated construction wood with 91% accuracy. We also report on record global forest losses due to fire, and share AFPA’s newly released guide to help the timber industry manage the risk of wood dust fires and explosions. In market news, NZ export log prices for June have reached their highest level for the start of winter since 2021. Chinese log inventories are falling, sawmills continue to operate below capacity, and we examine the drivers behind the ongoing decline in shipping rates. Finally, a reminder that applications for Timber Queensland’s growth scholarships close later this month. Please note: Friday Offcuts will be published early next week, on Thursday 19 June, due to the NZ Matariki public holiday. The deadline for new advertising is Wednesday at 1pm. Read on for another packed edition of Friday Offcuts.
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NZ forest industry collaborate to meet EU requirements
The European Union Deforestation Regulations (EUDR) will require
wood product exporters to the European Union and other
countries, for example, to Asian manufacturers who buy New
Zealand wood products/logs then remanufacture and on-sell to Europe,
to implement robust traceability processes to
demonstrate that their products do not contribute to deforestation.Although this is an added cost to business, exporters view compliance with the EUDR as essential to maintain and grow our export of value-added wood products to the EU market, which currently sits at around $100 million per annum. To support our wood product exporters and growers the Wood Processors and Manufacturers Association (WPMA) has established a cross sector Working Group. With the EUDR rules starting to apply from the 30 December 2025, good progress in terms of advancing their due diligence obligations, to ensure our export of wood products sold in the European Union and other relevant countries are deforestation-free, is being made by the industry. A central part of the progress has been the collaboration of forest growers, wood processors and government via the joint Wood Products EUDR Working Group. Some issues, such as sourcing the correct data from small block owners and working through the geolocation file requirements, are still needing further work, but overall companies are reporting that they are reasonably confident that they will be in a good position to meet the EUDR requirements come December 2025. On a positive note for our forest industry, recently the European Commission classified New Zealand as “low risk”, which means the benchmarking process concluded there is “sufficient assurance” that the production of wood products within New Zealand is not linked to deforestation or forest degradation. To make the EUDR process easier to navigate, an Interactive Starter Toolkit designed to assist wood product exporters and foresters affected by the EUDR is being developed. The toolkit, funded by industry, will provide a clear and accessible pathway for businesses to understand what EUDR entails, where to start, and how to implement the necessary data, systems, and processes for compliance. The toolkit will be delivered as a digital package featuring informative content, practical templates, visualisations, and embedded links to key resources. The final design will include a feedback loop to ensure both content accuracy and user-friendly design. Understanding the EUDR requirements will support EU market retention and growth in wood product exports, which will benefit all the forestry supply chain. In some cases, if the correct harvest data cannot be provided by the forest plot owner, then wood processors may need to adapt their sourcing strategies, prioritising log suppliers who can provide verified deforestation-free materials quickly and efficiently. At first glance the EUDR appears complex, but the best way to overcome any risks associated with the legislation and to ensure that our wood product exporters remain compliant, is for the forestry and wood processing industries to continue to work closely together on fulfilling the EUDR requirements. By taking the necessary steps to comply with EUDR, the New Zealand wood products industry can gain a market advantage in Europe and globally, which will further enhance our positive sustainable forestry and wood products reputation. Source: WPMA Final weeks to apply for Timber Queensland’s growth scholarships
Timber Queensland is calling on businesses across the state’s
forest and timber industry to encourage their employees and networks to
apply for the 2024–2025 Growth Scholarships
Program, with just three weeks
remaining before applications close on 30
June.The scholarships offer up to $10,000 in funding for early and mid-career professionals (aged 18–45) working or studying in Queensland’s forest and timber supply chain to pursue a professional development opportunity of their choice—without needing to leave their current role or rely on internal company funding. “This program backs potential and builds opportunity,” said Timber Queensland Strategic Relations and Communications Manager Clarissa Brandt. “These scholarships are an investment in the talent already working in our industry—from the forest to the frame and beyond,” she said. Thanks to the generous support of industry sponsors, four individual scholarships are on offer:
Now in its fourth year, the Growth Scholarships Program reflects Timber Queensland’s commitment to developing the future capability of Queensland’s $3.8 billion forest and timber industry. “We want to see people from every corner of the supply chain—whether they’re working in growing and harvesting, sawmilling, manufacturing and wholesaling, design, research or construction—put their hat in the ring,” said Mrs Brandt. “By backing those already in the industry, we’re creating a motivated, connected and skilled workforce ready to meet the challenges and opportunities of the future.” Applications are open until 30 June 2025. Eligible applicants must be aged 18–45, based in Queensland, and currently working or studying in the forest and timber industry. The online application process is simple, and support is available for anyone who needs help putting together their submission. More >> Source: Timber Queensland  Legislation introduced to restrict farm-to-forest conversions
Agriculture and Forestry Minister, Todd McClay, this week
introduced long awaited legislation that will put a stop to large-scale
farm-to-forestry conversions – delivering on a key
election promise to protect the future of New Zealand food production.
“For too long, productive sheep and beef farms have been replaced by pine trees in the race for carbon credits. That ends under this Government,” Mr McClay says. “The Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme - Forestry Conversions) Amendment Bill will restrict wholesale conversions of farmland to exotic forestry by stopping LUC 1-5 land from entering the ETS and capping new ETS registrations on LUC 6 land. “It will also protect farmers’ ability to diversify – allowing up to 25 per cent of a farm to go into trees, while stopping the kind of blanket ETS planting that’s been gutting rural communities in places like the East Coast, Wairarapa, the King Country, and Southland.” As previously announced, the new restrictions will take effect from 4 December 2024. The law will:
“This Government is backing farmers, restoring balance, and making sure the ETS doesn’t come at the cost of New Zealand’s rural economy. “This policy is pro-farming, pro-food production, pro-commercial forestry and pro-rural New Zealand.” The legislation is now before Parliament and is to come into force October 2025. For more information: Forestry ETS Changes Source: Beehive.govt.nz  AI detects contaminated construction wood with 91% accuracy
A new AI system that can automatically identify contaminated construction and demolition wood waste has been developed by researchers from Monash University and Charles Darwin University (CDU).Published in Resources, Conservation & Recycling, the study presents the first real-world image dataset of contaminated wood waste - a major step toward smarter recycling and sustainable construction. The research team, led by Madini De Alwis with Dr Milad Bazli (CDU), under the supervision of Associate Professor Mehrdad Arashpour, Head of Construction Engineering at Monash, trained and tested cutting-edge deep learning models to detect contamination types in wood waste using images. Contaminated wood from construction and demolition sites often ends up in landfill due to the difficulty of sorting it manually. But by applying AI models the team found strong precision and recall across six types of wood contamination. “We curated the first real-world image dataset of contaminated construction and demolition wood waste,” said Madini, a PhD candidate at Monash’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “This new system could be deployed via camera-enabled sorting lines, drones or handheld tools to support on-site decision-making.” While computer vision has been explored in general waste streams, its application to contaminated wood waste has remained limited, until now. “By fine-tuning state-of-the-art deep learning models, including CNNs and Transformers, we showed that these tools can automatically recognise contamination types in wood using everyday RGB images,” Dr Bazli said. Wood waste is one of the largest components of construction waste globally. Most of it can be recycled, but contamination from paint, chemicals, metals and other construction residues makes sorting difficult and costly. “This opens the door to scalable, AI-driven solutions that support wood waste reuse, recycling and reclamation,” Dr Bazli said. By integrating AI with waste management practices, the study supports Australia’s circular economy goals and the global push for greener construction. “This is a practical, scalable solution for a global waste problem. By enabling automated sorting, we’re giving recyclers and contractors a powerful tool to recover valuable resources and reduce landfill dependency,” Madini said. More >> Source: Monash University  Managing dust and fire explosion risk
While fire is an obvious hazard in wood processing plants, a
less obvious hazard is a dust explosion. Sawdust created
throughout the milling process, is not explosive on its own, but under
the right conditions wood dust can cause flash fires that, if contained
within a full or partial enclosure, can produce an explosion due to the
pressure build up.Fire and explosion can result in catastrophic consequences, causing significant injury or death to workers and others, as well as considerable damage to property and loss of ability to operate. The Dust Fire and Explosion Guidance Document has been produced by the Workplace Health and Safety Subcommittee (WHSS) – a subcommittee of the Softwood Manufacturing Chamber of the Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA). The Guide, together with the companion risk assessment tool is designed to assist anyone in the timber industry operating a manufacturing site to readily identify and manage wood dust fire and explosion risk. Read the document here – Managing Dust And Fire Explosion risk. Download the risk assessment here – Sample Combustible Dust Risk Assessment Source: AFPA Fires drove record loss of world’s forests last year
The destruction of the world’s forests reached the highest
level ever recorded in 2024, driven by a surge in fires caused by global
heating, according to “frightening” new data.From the Brazilian Amazon to the Siberian taiga, Earth’s forests disappeared at a record rate last year, losing an area the size of Italy to agriculture, fires, logging and mining, according to analysis from the University of Maryland hosted on Global Forest Watch. Prof Matt Hansen, co-director at the University of Maryland’s Glad Lab, who led the analysis, described the new figures as “frightening”, while Elizabeth Goldman, co-director of Global Forest Watch, said the update was “unlike anything we’ve seen in over 20 years of data”. More >> Source: The Guardian NZ market update for June 2025
Winter, it’s not the favored season in the forestry
calendar, good for planting trees but just plain awful if you’re
converting trees into logs. Having said that, June has given us
the highest export log prices for the first month of winter since 2021
with prices generally flat from May at around $115/m3 for A grade. This
is welcome relief for those on the spot market as there was a general
expectation for a reduction with higher foreign exchange and lower in-market sales prices.Longer term fixed price deals now play a large part in the private woodlot sector with a significant number of owners opting for certainty rather than chasing rainbows with monthly spot prices. Longer term pricing mechanisms have also provided some certainty to the harvest contractor base with more consistency around future work programs. The good news is that the in-market log inventories in China have reduced again in May by around 150,000m3 to 3.35Mm3, although uplift from port has also reduced to slightly over 60,000m3/day, down 10,000m3/day from April. There’re no surprises with the reduction in uplift as the Chinese construction sector (or what’s left of it) historically slows during their hot season, however, this will be met with reduced supply from NZ courtesy of our wet season and lower spot pricing. The tariff can is still being kicked down the road and reports are that engagement from China has dwindled in recent weeks. Where this will land is anyone’s guess and it’s hard to see any sort of resolution in the short term. If you look at China with your macro glasses on, there are some interesting stats starting to emerge. China’s trade surplus surged to a record of $US165 billion in the first quarter of 2025, up 350% from $US47 billion for the same period on 2024. Much of this is thought to be due to the growth of e-commerce and tech but it does show the economic powerhouse that China has become when compared to a US trade deficit of $US425.5 billion for the same period. Federated Farmers obviously wanted something to talk about at the Fieldays and launched an attack on forestry with a very misleading ‘Save our Sheep’ campaign. The Fed’s and their broken record have pointed to forestry as the reason that the sheep flock has reduced from 70 million in 1982 to 25 million today. This is some pretty brave logic considering that total exotic forested area is still less than it was in 2002 when sheep numbers had already dropped to 38 million. Maybe, just maybe it’s not economic to farm sheep in some regions anymore and people are destocking and changing their choice of crop as a result? Just a thought, why are beef numbers not dropping, maybe beef is a better value proposition than sheep in those regions? More >> Source & image credit: Marcus Musson, Forest360 --(2022)2.jpg) Pan Pac: 2025 Sustainability Report
Pan Pac is pleased to release our 2025 Sustainability Report. In
addition to highlighting the progress we have made towards the goals
established in 2022, the report covers the impact of 2023 Cyclone
Gabrielle on our operations and how we have recovered.
Cyclone Gabrielle caused massive devastation to the East Coast of the North Island. Some of our forest estate and our industrial site at Whirinaki were severely impacted by flooding. Our Sawmill, Chipmill and Pulpmill were completely out of operation for more than 12 months, after being inundated with 2 metres of silt and water. Our workers spent months clearing the site, recovering machinery and salvaging product. The cyclone demonstrated the importance of sustainability and the need for greater resilience for our site and nearby neighbours. This report includes our forests, and the ways in which we are building resilience for climate change events, increasing environmental protection, supporting biodiversity and contributing to our community. Click here to read the report. Source & image credit: Pan Pac Log Transport Safety's Rubber Hits the Road 2.0 roadshows
The NZ Log Transport Safety Council (LTSC) is hitting the road again
with its popular "Rubber Hits the Road 2.0" roadshow series, which
started this week. Building on the success of the 2024 events, this
year's sessions aim to tackle critical issues and foster collaboration
within the forestry and log transport sectors.LTSC Executive members will be leading presentations on a range of pivotal topics, including the crucial issue of driver wellbeing, the implementation of alternative fatigue management systems, and important updates to contractor and trailer chain certification processes. Other key safety and operational matters will also be on the agenda. Tim Sandall and Mike Spiers will also present on the work being led by the FFA/FOA Transport & Logistics Committee. This joint committee of the New Zealand Farm Forestry Association (NZFFA) and the Forest Owners Association (FOA) represents a collaborative effort to address transport and logistics challenges across the forestry industry, making their insights highly anticipated. The "Rubber Hits the Road 2.0" series is an invaluable opportunity for professionals to stay abreast of current standards, contribute to industry-wide discussions, and explore avenues for improvement and partnership. Those involved in the forestry and log transport industries are strongly encouraged to attend. The initial sessions took place this week in Hawke’s Bay and Rotorua, with the roadshow's next stops scheduled for Dunedin on Tuesday, 25 June, and Christchurch on Wednesday, 26 June. The final roadshows will be in Taranaki on 3 July, and Whangarei on 17 July. Click here for further details Source: Log Transport Safety Council  New TMS report - March quarter
Softwood timber products – Quarterly price
movementsPrices for untreated MGP10 and MGP12 structural timber remained stable, while treated F7 prices declined by as much as -1.2%. Prices for treated decking and treated sleepers remained stable. Price movements for plywood C/D grade products were within +/- 0.6%, while MDF prices increased by as much as 1.1% and particleboard prices remained stable. Upward price movements for LVL and I-joist/I-beam products ranged between 0.3% and 2.2% higher. The TMS collects price data through quarterly surveys of a representative sample of timber market participants in eastern Australia. All quarterly TMS reports contain price movement information for softwood timber, panels and engineered wood products. The June and December quarter editions also include price movement information for hardwood timber products surveyed over a six-month period. Price movement data are presented in nominal terms unless otherwise stated. The TMS is prepared by Indufor and funded by eight major Australian forestry organisations: Forestry Corporation of NSW; HQPlantations; OneFortyOne Plantations; the Queensland Government Department of Agriculture and Fisheries; Green Triangle Forest Products; Sustainable Timber Tasmania; Southern Cross Forests; and HVP Plantations. Further information and the latest Timber Market Survey report is available here. Source: Indufor Why shipping rates have been fallingShipping plays a crucial role in taking New Zealand logs to world markets. Shipping typically accounts for 30% to 40% of the total landed cost in China.Since mid-2024 shipping rates have steadily declined. By the end of May, the Baltic Dry Index, which tracks the cost of shipping dry bulk cargo, had fallen by 27%. This decline followed a period of relative stability, which came after years of extreme fluctuations including a record high. So, what’s driving this trend, and could rates move even lower?  In 2024, global dry bulk cargo shipments—including New Zealand logs—reached 5.8 billion tonnes, marking a 12.7% increase from 2019. However, fleet capacity expanded even more, growing by 17.3%. Typically, when the supply of shipping outpaces demand, freight rates tend to fall. Yet, somewhat unexpectedly, the Baltic Dry Index in 2024 was higher than in 2019, suggesting that other factors were also influencing shipping rates. More >> Source & image credit: Alphametrik NZ log market review of May 2025
Market SummaryThe CFR price for A grade logs in China has stabilised around 110 USD per JASm3, but the market will be closely watching the level of log supply from New Zealand over the next few months. Log demand in China is relatively consistent so any significant reduction in log supply will reduce inventory levels. The monsoon season has arrived early in many parts of India and log demand is expected to remain subdued for Quarter 3. There is expectation (or hope) that reduced interest rates will stimulate construction activity in New Zealand, but this is not likely until Quarter 4. The PF Olsen Log Price Index fell $2 to $116. The Index is now $2 below the two-year average, and $5 below the five-year average. Domestic Log Market Many sawmills in New Zealand continue to operate below capacity. There are significantly low inventory levels through the local sawn-timber supply chain. So, when construction activity does increase, there will likely be a shortage of material. Some mill managers think this construction increase could be quite rapid, if the market has confidence interest rates will continue to fall. This increase in construction activity is more likely to oocur in Quarter 4 than Quarter 3. Mill managers report their export markets are very quiet across USA, Europe and Asia due to global uncertainty about markets and geopolitical tensions. More >> Wood leather soccer ball at Expo 2025
The buzz surrounding Vancouver’s role as one of 16 host
cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup was at the centre of British Columbia
Week in recent days at the Expo 2025 Canada Pavilion. And
the kick off, quite literally, included the unveiling of a totally new
kind of soccer ball that designers see as more environmentally
friendly. While preparations for the world-class sporting event accelerate, designers from the University of British Columbia’s Bioproducts Institute are concerned with the sustainability of soccer itself, unveiling a first-of-its-kind wood leather ball to an attentive crowd in the heart of the pavilion on June 4. “This ball is a symbol of innovation, culture, design, science, and sport aligned with Vancouver hosting the FIFA 2026 World Cup,” said Ayako Takagi, a member of the UBC team behind the ball, while proudly holding the novel piece of sporting equipment in her hands. More >> Source: Capital Current Image credit: David Eby, BC Premier Jobs
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and one to end the week on... are you superstitious?
Some very bad Friday the 13th jokes for you today - sorry! I don't worry about Friday the 13th. On Friday the 13th, I dreamt that a horse in armor was chasing me. What’s the scariest thing to do on Friday the 13th? What's a good pasta to make on Friday the 13th? I don't have to be Freddie Krueger... to be the man of your dreams. Monday the 13th sounds much worse than Friday the 13th. Why don't mathematicians fear Friday the 13th?  And on that note, enjoy your weekend. Cheers.  Brand PartnersOur Partners & Sponsors Friday Offcuts is made possible through the generous support of the following companies.
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