As this blog has been sponsored by Greenwood Management, I wanted to have a direct discussion with the management team at Greenwood in order to get a feel as to how they saw the forestry industry at present, and what direction Greenwood Management saw forestry trends moving towards generally.
Also I wanted to get an overview of what they considered to be the best forestry investment opportunities within the industry, from the Greenwood Management perspective obviously, and how they viewed the coming decade for forestry investors generally.
I have to say, I got the distinct feeling from our discussions that it was the wood energy and biomass markets that were the main focus in Greenwood Management’s planning for their future forestry plantations investments. The eucalyptus plantation investments have been well received by their investors and the end use market visibility in Brazil appears to extend as far as the eye can see. The drivers for demand here are abundantly clear to Greenwood Management and a significant programme of expansion is well underway. A eucalyptus species, specifically grown to produce higher growth rates by the Greenwood Management agroforestry research team in Brazil is expected to be a key product for the future.
What was also news to me was the Australian Oil Mallee project currently in Greenwood Managements research pipeline. I wasn’t able to draw much from Greenwood Management on this but they certainly appeared to be quite enthused by the product, with a promise of more tangible information as soon as they are able to pass it on.
From now on, I hope to keep in touch with Greenwood Management on a more regular basis with more meetings and updates.
So watch this space!
Forestry Invest is sponsored by Greenwood Management. For more information on investing in Forestry please click here
November 18th, 2009 at 9:56 AM
Is it possible that you can you tell me something of the Greenwood Management and how they are operating in their plantations please? My last comment to you tells how I am particularly watching deforestation in Brasil and how important for me are the ways of running plantations, especailly for regarding the manual workers who are living in the campos there. I will be very interested in your knowlegde of Greenwood Management in this area.
November 19th, 2009 at 12:32 PM
Paco, thanks for your interest and I fully understand your points on the effects of forestry plantations on the local communities, as its something I have always attached a very high importance to myself in the past. Naturally I have spoken on this subject to Greenwood management at some length and understand that Greenwood take all issues like the ones you raised very seriously. Greenwood Management have put into practice a matrix system of compliance procedures at local levels to address these kind of issues. Local workers are recruited and are registered with the regional authorities. Both the infrastructure and local economy benefits from the incoming investments (this benefit is wide ranging in terms of the all the service sectors which gain traction).
November 26th, 2009 at 7:56 AM
ok that is good for me to hear things are like this from the management technical of greenwood. is it possible to aska little more of this matter of the land for the peoples that are already living in the region? Is the land before used in farming for inhabitantes tht are now working at the forest for Greenwood Management? and what becomes of the farmers if this passes?
January 13th, 2010 at 1:50 PM
HI Paco…really sorry for the delay, your comments somehow slipped through my net. Again I can only say my answers are from the various notes I have taken in the meetings with Greenwood Management, so it might be better for you to contact them directly rather than go via forestry invest. Getting back to your question, as I read it, the land on which Greenwood Management produce the forestry plantations in Brazil will obviously have differing histories due to the size of the various plantations. What is vital from my understanding ( but please confirm for yourself ), is that the land used has always been degraded in some way, shape or form, to meet the criteria of their business model and Greenwoods sustainability commitments. Re the workforce, I believe the plantation workers are generally recruited from areas close to the plantations for obvious logistical reasons but there are some specific , technical staff that are occasionally brought in.
Hope this helps, John Barnes