Australian forest and wood products statistics

September and December quarters 2020

Overview

ABARES Australian forest and wood products statistics (AFWPS) is a compendium of data on key indicators of activity in the Australian forest and wood products sector, This issue includes 2019−20 data for key domestic indicators of forestry sector activity—including:

commercial plantation areas by type and jurisdiction
volume and value of logs harvested by type and jurisdiction
production and trade of wood products

This issue includes 2019−20 data for key domestic indicators of forestry sector activity—including Australia’s commercial plantation estate, and volume and value of logs harvested—and data on production and trade of wood products. This report is supported by summary tables in excel format that may be accessed below in the Download section. This AFWPS also has a Power BI data visualisation that provides users with an interactive dashboard to interrogate the data.

The latest socio-economic variables relevant to the forest sector draws from the ABARES 2011 and 2016 Census of Population and Housing.

Table 1 Overview of the forestry sector, 2019–20

Volume	Unit	2019-20	% change from 2018-19
Commercial plantation-logs harvested	million cubic metres	25.8	-10
Native forest-logs harvested	million cubic metres	3.7	-8
Total logs harvested	million cubic metres	29.5	-10
Total value of logs harvested	$ billion	2.6	-7
Total value of imported wood products	$ billion	5.6	-5
Total value of wood product exports	$ billion	3.3	-16
House commencements	‘000	102	-9
Other residential commencements	‘000	69.3	-18
Total dwelling commencements	‘000	171.3	-13

**Figure 1 Logs harvested from hardwood plantations declined in 2019–20, with production volume falling further than production value**

**Figure 2 Logs harvested from softwood plantations remained steady in 2019–20**

**Figure 3 Native forests sawlog production continued a declining trend in 2019–20, while native pulplog production remained steady**

**Figure 4 The total value of exported wood products decreased by 16% in 2019−20 to $3.3 billion**

**Figure 5 The total value of imported wood products decreased by 5% in 2019−20 to $5.6 billion**

Data visualisation

Source: ABARES

This Power BI dashboard may not meet accessibility requirements. For information about the contents of these dashboards contact ABARES.

Scope and coverage

The AFWPS datasets include a number of long time series including as far back as 1939 for commercial plantations, as well as comprehensive coverage of current period data for the entire industry.

The data is represented at the state, national and international scale for forestry imports and exports.

For the gross value of production (GVP) value and volume data, the Australian Capital Territory’s data is combined with New South Wales. Northern Territory data is combined with Western Australia for confidentiality.

The list of regions covered are outlined in Table 2 below for domestic and international. The majority of the datasets are not modelled or estimated by ABARES, except for gross roundwood equivalent consumption and sawnwood production. In some instances, it may have been necessary to estimate incomplete data. Where this estimation has occurred, this will be reported in the notes section of the published dataset. The notes section also provides a description of each dataset and its limitations

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Table 2 List of Domestic regions

Dataset	NSW	VIC	QLD	SA	WA	TAS	NT	ACT	Australia	International
Native Forest	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Production									Yes
Census employment									Yes
Plantations	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Dwelling units commenced									Yes
Apparent consumption of wood products									Yes
Value and volume of logs harvested	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Gross roundwood equivalent consumption									Yes
Industry sales									Yes
Industry value added									Yes
Sawnwood production	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Imports										Yes
Exports										Yes

Table 3 List of ABS forestry data

Dataset	Data detail	Source
Industry sales	By industry, state, time series	ABS, Australian Industry, cat. no. 8155.0, Canberra; ABS, Experimental Estimates for the Manufacturing Industry, various years, cat. no. 8159.0, Canberra.
Industry value added	By industry, time series
Wages and salaries	By industry, time series
Census Employment	By industry, time series	ABS, Census of Population and Housing, 2006, 2011, 2016, Canberra.
Dwellings Commenced	By state, time series	ABS, Building Activity, Australia, cat. no. 8752.0, Canberra.
Apparent Consumption	By product, time series	ABARES; state and territory forest services; forest industry associations; private industry; ABS, Canberra.
Recovered Paper	By product, trade, time series	ABARES; ABS, Information Consultancy Services, 2007, cat. no. 9920.0, Canberra.

Download the overview report and datasets

Previous report

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Document	Pages	File size
Australian forest and wood products statistics datasets report PDF	14	1.1 MB

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For historic and archived versions of the Australian Forest and Wood Product Statistics report, please use the ABARES Publications Library.

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