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  7. The Forest Resource Use Model (FoRUM): A spatial-temporal model of Australia’s forest industry

Secondary ABARES

  • Forest economic research
    • Australian wood volumes analysis
    • A framework for developing medium term projections of traded wood products
    • Economic potential for new plantation establishment in Australia
    • Future opportunities for using forest and sawmill residues in Australia
    • Illegal logging regulation: analysis of regulated importers by business size
    • Productivity and efficiency of the Australian sawmilling industry
    • Responsiveness of demand for structural pine to changes in timber and steel prices
    • Short-term forecasts of selected wood product sales volume: Method and assumptions
    • Upscaling the Australian softwood sawmill industry

The Forest Resource Use Model (FoRUM): A spatial-temporal model of Australia’s forest industry

Author: Peter Lock

The sustainable management of natural resources is important to policy makers around the world; Australia’s forest resources are no different. The Forest Resource Use Model (FoRUM) was developed to inform this debate by evaluating the economic impacts of changes in the Australian forestry sector.

FoRUM has been used extensively over the past three decades to inform both state and national forestry policy development. Initially FoRUM was used to estimate the economic impacts of closing native forests to harvesting to inform the establishment of the 10 Commonwealth and State Regional Forest Agreements (Dann et al. 1997).

More recently Burns et al. (2015) used FoRUM to model the potential long-term outlook for Australia’s forest and wood product sectors. Since 2015, FoRUM has been used in both published reports and to inform government policy. Examples include:

  • estimating potential plantation investment (Whittle, Lock and Hug 2019),
  • evaluating options for utilising forest and sawmill residues (Lock and Whittle 2018), and
  • estimating the importance of sawmill size on plantation establishment (Whittle and Downham 2019).

FoRUM makes decisions such as which plantations to establish or which processors to upgrade, across space and time, subject to physical and economic constraints, to maximise national forest industry profits.

This paper presents an overview of current state of FoRUM, the datasets, modelled equations, and the general structure of the model. Work will continue to refine and update the data sources and modelling approach in line with future research projects.

Download the report

The Forest Resource Use Model (FoRUM): A spatial-temporal model of Australia’s forest industry - PDF [1.55 MB]

The Forest Resource Use Model (FoRUM): A spatial-temporal model of Australia’s forest industry - DOCX [3.50 MB]

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Page last updated: 06 October 2022

We acknowledge the continuous connection of First Nations Traditional Owners and Custodians to the lands, seas and waters of Australia. We recognise their care for and cultivation of Country. We pay respect to Elders past and present, and recognise their knowledge and contribution to the productivity, innovation and sustainability of Australia’s agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries.

Artwork: Protecting our Country, Growing our Future
© Amy Allerton, contemporary Aboriginal Artist of the Gumbaynggirr, Bundjalung and Gamilaroi nations.

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