If the Forestry Exit Strategy, that is currently ruling the management of Grabouw’s plantations, is not reversed within eighteen months, it will be too late to save the region’s 100-year old forestry industry, with the loss of 12,000 jobs. Within just eighteen months there will be so little timber to process that remaining sawmills will…
As a modern building material, wood offers exceptional possibilities. Its potential for engineering and infinite shapes is limitless and it shows additional benefits as one of the most environmentally sustainable building materials in the world. So said the introduction to the fourth Wood Conference held this February at the CTICC in Cape Town. Architects, engineers,…
Trees naturally convert carbon dioxide into a light, strong and versatile building material. Trees sustain life, cool the environment, are renewable and require very little maintenance. The entire tree can be utilized, from sawn timber to chips and biomass for energy. Building with renewable timber is therefore an effective way for the construction industry to…
The early settlers used the natural building resource provided to them by the indigenous forests around the Cape. “After nearly 40 years of exploitation, Simon van der Stel realised that there was going to be a shortage of timber and one hundred young oaks were ordered to be planted on each grant of land in…
A Report of the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in 2011 posted on the Parliamentary Monitoring Group’s website, best explains the policy: “The South African Forestry Company Ltd (SAFCOL) was established in 1992 to manage state owned plantations on a fully commercial basis and to report a profit. The state’s commercial plantations were…