INTEREST IN PRIVATE FORESTRY GROWS: Strengthening policy reforms, initiatives

摘要

THE PAST year or so saw substantial progress towards making private forestry a more attractive and secure investment. Although reforms are still needed to ease immediate marketing problem for small growers, from an overall national perspective, 1996 was a year of action, promise and good omens. And if politicians and policy-makers needed more evidence of the level of interest in forestry, that evidence was provided by the Australian Forest Growers' (AFG) Biennial Conference at Mt Gambier, South Australia, last September. The three-day conference, based on the theme 'Farm forestry and plantations - investing in future wood supply', attracted a record number of delegates (almost 500 with dozens turned away) and a high proportion of farmers and landholders.