It’s official. The first joint Australia and New Zealand Forest Valuation Standard was formally launched at the 2026 Forest Valuation Summit in Melbourne today, with Forestry Australia President Dr Michelle Freeman and New Zealand Institute of Forestry President James Treadwell cutting the cake in Melbourne today.
Keith Lamb, convenor of the Forestry Australia Valuation Committee and principal of Araucaria Advisory, said the standard reflected the sector’s collective best thinking at a critical juncture for forest asset reporting. “We are proud to celebrate the launch of the new ANZ Forest Valuation Standard — it reflects the latest thinking and best practice in forest valuation across both countries,” he said.
The framework consolidates national standards last revised in Australia in 2010 and in New Zealand in 1999 into a single trans-Tasman benchmark covering plantation and native forests alike, developed with support from Forest and Wood Products Australia. The launch was accompanied by the release of the Australian Carbon Standard Exposure Draft — the first formal step toward standardising carbon accounting within the sector’s valuation framework.
Dr Freeman said the milestone reached beyond valuation practice to forestry’s standing as a global asset class. “The merging of the separate country-level standards held by Forestry Australia and NZIF reflects the strength and value of ongoing collaboration and partnership between our countries, our industries and professional organisations,” she told 160 delegates at the summit
And whilst the standard is designed to resolve longstanding cross-border inconsistencies, Freeman confirmed it retains the flexibility to accommodate national differences, and will continue evolving as markets, reporting expectations, and sustainability considerations shift.
For Treadwell, the launch represented the culmination of more than three decades of voluntary professional work across the Tasman. “This joint Australia and New Zealand Forest Valuation Standard is an important step forward — it reflects the strong professional relationship between NZIF and Forestry Australia and provides a consistent framework which will strengthen valuation practice across both countries,” he told delegates.
Day 1 of the summit opened with Professor Rodney Keenan of the University of Melbourne, before a joint session tracing the evolution of both country standards, featuring Liley and Lamb. The afternoon turned to good practice in forest valuation, examining governance, future rotations, managing uncertainty and audit perspectives, ahead of a closing session on natural capital — drawing presentations from Nick Ping of Manulife Investment Management, Ross Hampton of the International Sustainable Forestry Coalition, and Dr Eleanor Tew of Forestry England.
Forestry Australia CEO Jacquie Martin said the standard and the summit were about equipping every part of the sector with the tools to navigate a rapidly shifting landscape. The timing is deliberate: as Wood Central reported ahead of the summit, the standard arrives weeks before Australia’s first mandatory sustainability reporting obligations under AASB S1 and S2 come into force — requirements neither national standard was built to handle.
