Australia’s commercial timber plantation estate is fundamental to the sustainability and competitiveness of the Australian forestry sector and growing the estate has been a key Australian Government policy objective for some time (National Forestry Policy Statement (1992) and Plantations for Australia: The 2020 Vision (1997)). However, after decades of substantial growth in Australia’s commercial timber plantation estate, the area of plantations declined from 2.02 million hectares in 2011–12 to 1.97 million hectares in 2015–16. This raises questions about the future availability of plantation logs and consequent impacts on the forestry sector.

In light of this decline, Forest and Wood Products Australia and ABARES jointly funded research into the long-term potential for new timber plantation establishment in Australia. This report examines the economic potential of new timber plantation establishment to 2050 under current conditions, referred to as the base case scenario. The modelling builds on previous land use change modelling developed by ABARES (Burns et al. 2011) and incorporates a range of factors such as productivity of agricultural land for growing trees, value of land under existing agricultural production and proximity of land to wood-processing facilities and markets. Policymakers and industry can use these projections to anticipate and adapt to expected changes in the industry and to better take advantage of new opportunities.