Japanese can take all timber

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33967, 7 October 1975, Page 22

Japanese can take all timber

The quantity of timber the Japanese are prepared to take would use all the surplus timber Canterbury has to offer, the Conservator of Forests. Canterbury (Mr J. W. Levy), said last evening.

Several gangs which had been working in Nelson have been contracted to the Forest Service to work in Canterbury forests to prepare logs for export, but the service does not know the total amount of labour required yet ibecause no contracts have been made.

The first shipment of logs from Canterbury’s windblown forests was small. Mr Levy said. They had been stockpiled “on spec” because the Forest Service had had two small gangs available at Balmoral after the storm. They would be exported from Timaru late in October or early in November. The shipment was an “act of faith” by the service, be-

cause no price had been negotiated. All of the logs were from State forests. State forests could not be expected to commit themselves on this basis, but the service had been selling timber to the Japanese for years, and had had no qualms about this shipment, Mr Levy said. Mr Levy said that the Japanese required logs of 12m, 18m, and 4m. but preferred I mostly the longer lengths. [The wind-blown timber had I to be cleared in less than two i years or it would start to rot. but the service hoped to be able to clear all of its I areas before that occurred. ; The marketing manager of the service (Mr B. Childs) ; would be in Japan next week ito negotiate with eight Japanese companies on specifications and price. Once these had been established, private plantations would be able to join the service in exporting, but would have to provide their own contractors. There had been a demand Tor timber from the People’s Republic of China, and the first shipment to that coun-j try was being made from Mt Maunganui. Any further shipments would depend on their) assessment of the first quan-) tity. If it was acceptable, logs, of a similar quantity could be! exported from Canterbury.. Mr Levy said. He said that there appeared to be a pot-| ential market in that country.

Because of the risk of insect infestation from stockpiled timber, Mr Levy said that the service did not permit timber to be stocked for more than two weeks in the forest, and six weeks on the wharf. The Sawmillers’ Association had made submissions to Treasury, and the Forest Service on the stockpiling of timber for domestic requirements. Stocks could be built up by extending the mills’; working hours. The two Government de-) partments were examining the association’s submissions. Proposals should go to the Government this week, Mr Levy said, and a decision is expected within a week or two.

The service has advised all contractors that it will insist that all equipment coming into Canterbury forests be cleaned to prevent the spread of pine needle blight, a spore infection y that affects the pine’s needles, causing the tree to shed them. This disease is well established in Nelson, and trees infected by it require spraying twice yearly. The nearest this disease has come to Canterbury so far is Maruia Springs, and Hochstetler, in Westland.