HVP Plantations says it has a good story to tell about the company’s climate mitigation credentials and how its Victorian operations meet, and continue to maintain, net zero.
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HVP Plantations’ estate extends from Gippsland to the South Australian border with, large plantations in north-east Victoria.
The total area of land managed by HVP is more than 240,000 hectares, with about 170,000 hectares of pine and eucalypt plantation.
The company’s majority shareholders are United States’ Manulife Investment Management and Australia’s UniSuper.
A detailed Climate Disclosure Report is being written by HVP Plantations’ Tony O’Hara.
“Our reason for being is growing trees in a natural environment and the very real changes in climate are a high risk issue for us. We need an active program around adaptation,” he said.
Climate change mitigation also includes recognition of two major opportunities for HVP — the net carbon benefit of wood compared with other materials such as steel and concrete, and potential to incorporate the generation of renewable energy such as wind power.
Pulling the right data together was important, Dr O’Hara said.
“We’ve always had good data on how fast our trees grow, but we didn’t have good data on carbon and emissions,” he said.
“The key issue about net zero is the change in sequestration, the total amount of carbon sequestered in the estate from one year to the next.
“For every cubic metre of logs we sell, something between 25 and 30 per cent of the carbon in that log stays out of the atmosphere in wood products.
“That took a lot of work to understand and the calculations are being refined both nationally and internationally.”
Dr O’Hara said HVP’s operations in north-east Victoria were unique because every single tree on the estate could be sold locally to processing mills in north-east Victoria and southern NSW.
“We are a major contributor to timber processors in Benalla, Wangaratta, Tumbarumba and Tumut, producing pulp and paper, plywood, MDF, panelling and truss timbers from lower grade as well as higher grade logs,” he said.
“No other part of the estate is like that ... it is a unique market and a very strong forestry market.
“Notwithstanding the losses from fires in 2019-20, it is still a very strong forestry market.”
The 2019-20 bushfires impacted 6000ha of HVP’s 45,000ha in north-east Victoria.
In comparison, Forestry Corporation, which manages more than two million hectares of State forests in NSW, had 40,000ha out of about 80,000ha lost or burnt by the fires.
“The fact so much of the plantation estate is close to large areas of native forest, interspersed with agriculture in various forms, makes it challenging to manage the fire risk,” Dr O’Hara said.
“We are taking a much more landscape approach to fire prevention and suppression ... there has been a ramp-up in exploring with other landholders on how we can work together.
“With climate change that challenge is going to become bigger and not smaller.”
He said HVP regularly re-examined its plantation management.
“When we replant areas, after either routine harvesting or bushfires, we explore issues around plantation design. For example, should we orientate the rows differently and do we have a few more breaks in the middle of the plantation to make access easier?
“We may make the firebreaks around the plantation edge a bit wider, providing a bigger gap between a neighbouring property and where our plantation starts. That’s because the vast majority of fires will start outside a plantation rather than in it.”
Another major area of work for HVP is getting better information on fuel usage for operations undertaken by contractors.
“In the past we have used averages for fuel usage, which is by far and away the biggest emission component,” Dr O’Hara said.
“... we need to carefully balance how we reduce emissions with other considerations. For example, reducing our fertiliser use would negatively impact on production and growth, so it’s about balancing emissions reductions with other opportunities or looking at alternatives.
“One benefit of value being assigned to generating carbon credits and thus have an early cashflow in the life of a plantation is that it makes it more attractive to establish greenfield plantations (new rather than replanted).”
Dr O’Hara said the broader environmental credentials of wood, as well as reducing emissions, also supported the expansion of greenfield plantations, by making them more attractive to investors.
“This is not about converting entire landscapes to plantations — the economics simply do not support that — but there are significant economic and environmental benefits to increasing our wood supply that will underpin plantation expansion.
“That will make it more attractive for farmers to put small stands on farms. They will see the financial and environmental value of it, with revenues providing welcome income diversification.”
This case study is part of the North East Catchment Management Authority’s Embedding Climate Adaptation in Agriculture project. Find out more at: www.necma.vic.gov.au