Australian ports are overflowing with containers of imported timber, primarily engineered wood products from China and a significant volume from Europe, which must be tested under biosecurity requirements to meet the country’s strict timber preservation standards.
However, some of these timbers do not meet these standards, with a source revealing exclusively to Wood Central fears of a “black hole” where articles that fail stringent testing are nonetheless sold un-treated into the Australian market.
Timber preservation is crucial in ensuring that timber Products are compliant with Australian conditions, amongst the most demanding on earth – with importers required to provide certificates for heat treatment, methyl bromide fumigation, controlled atmosphere treatment, sulfuryl fluoride fumigation and insecticide treatments to customs officials as a condition of entry.
Under Australian law, treatment for fumigation, treatment, irradiation and permanent timber preservative must be performed by an “offshore treatment provider” approved by the exporting country’s National Plantation Protection Organisation (NPPO) or “onshore” via an approved arrangement as outlined by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.
“It is a serious concern that timbers without compliance certificates aligned to Australian and New Zealand standards are unknowingly sold through the country’s timber merchant network,” according to a Wood Central anonymous source.
Under AS/ZS 1604: 2021 (Australia’s standard for preservative-treated wood-based products), importers should be legally obligated to ensure that all timber products, including EWP, are compliant with the relevant Hazard level under the standard for their intended use. This will ensure better consumer protection.
The stakes, according to the Australian Department of Agriculture, are enormous, adding that “if pests (through ill-preserved timbers) can establish themselves in Australia, they could have a detrimental impact on agriculture and forestry industries, natural environment, food security, timber in service (furniture, houses) and the economy.”
The problem is only going to become more acute, according to a source, given Australia’s increasing dependence on imported lumber and logs to meet future demand.
“Now that the Victorian and WA government have closed the native hardwood resource, and with the NSW government potentially looking to reduce the size of coups via the Glider Protection and Great Koala Park, we now have a major hardwood deficit,” they said.
“Then there are softwood plantations, which are now at a 20-year low, further exacerbated with the medium to long term impacts of the Black Summer bushfires,” they said, before adding, “we will need to lean on European, Asia-Pacific and even Latin American softwood imports for many years to come.”
Australia, which traditionally imports about 20% of its domestic supply, now numbers AU $6.9 billion and is expected to rise sharply in the coming years, given the squeeze on local forest supply – and its implication for local production.
To address the concerns, the federal government is now looking to shift the responsibility for biosecurity from overseas importers to Australian-based distributors of imported timbers.
Such a move, according to Wood Central’s source, “will be crucial in closing the black hole in ill-treated and untreated timbers, which risk Australia’s local industry.
