The man who spent more than 11 years “selling sunshine” for Responsible Wood now runs the peak body for Australia’s timber importers, with plans to help members through “any challenges”, from illegal logging laws to codes and standards. That is according to Simon Dorries, who spoke to Wood Central on his first day at the desk as general manager of the Australian Timber Importers Federation (ATIF).
“My ambition is to assist and support ATIF members and provide whatever support and assistance is required, whether this be in standards, codes, Illegal Logging and through developing compliance systems,” Dorries said, with growing the ATIF membership base also high on his agenda. The federation, which represents companies that import and wholesale timber and wood-based products, already offers a special membership arrangement to single-site firms with fewer than 20 employees.
Dorries was hired in 2015 and led the Australian Forestry Standard through its 2017 rebrand as Responsible Wood, the National Governing Body for PEFC in Australia. Before that, he spent nine years leading the Engineered Wood Products Association of Australasia. He is a respected product specialist and chairs the Standards Australia committee responsible for product standards for plywood, LVL, and other glued wood products.
It comes as the Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) presses Canberra for origin labels on timber and a dumping case on Russian wood glued into LVL in China. Robert Cairns, a director who has served as ATIF’s interim general manager, told Wood Central last month that builders turned to imported LVL after native forest closures in Western Australia and Victoria left them short of structural hardwood.
“LVL producers and importers are being innovative where solid timber producers are not,” Cairns said of the surge in imported LVL on Australian building sites. He said local sawmillers “have to look at what they can do to sell timber products into export markets instead of trying to restrict imports.”
At the same time, Cairns says a mill in China buying certified New Zealand logs can produce the paperwork importers need under Australia’s illegal logging laws. Those documents “do not misrepresent the product’s origin”, he said, even when the finished timber reaches Australia labelled Made in China.
Cairns also expects “significant push back” from local producers if origin labels became compulsory for their own timber, much of which has no Product of Australia mark either. He said the federation had written to AFPA in the hope that the two bodies could settle on an industry view “rather than local versus imports”.
Editor’s note: Wood Central’s publisher, Jason Ross, spent four years working for Simon Dorries as Marketing and Communications Officer for Responsible Wood, PEFC’s national governing body in Australia.
