With the purpose of representing timber growers in South Africa, Forestry South Africa (FSA) is both South Africa’s foremost and largest forestry organisation, numbering among its membership all 11 corporate forestry companies active today in the Industry. It seeks to enhance long term sustainability and profitability while promoting the growth and development of forestry in the country.
FSA has something of a dual aim informing its actions, namely to represent the best interest of all its members and those of the South African Forestry Industry. Its status as the definitive body representing the industry accounts for its large and representative membership base, giving members not only a powerful collective voice, but also allowing them to benefit from FSA’s own lobbying actions and from the result of industry based interventions. This might include research, or indeed forest protection.
The forestry sector in South Africa is among its most important. It employs around 165 900 workers, providing in the region of62 700 direct jobs as well as30 000 indirect jobs.The resultant livelihoods provide support to some 652 000 people in the country’s rural population, while some 20 000 workers are employed in sawmilling alongside 2 200 in the mining timber industries. In correlation with these figures, the land use of the sector is significant, with an afforested area of nearly 1.3 million ha equating to around 1% of the entire South African land area.
Forestry and associated products make an apt contribution of about 1% to the South African GDP, with forestry in KwaZulu-Natal leading the way regionally with 4.4%, followed by Mpumalanga’s 3,7% and 0.6% in both the Eastern Cape andLimpopo. The Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, or DAFF, has created the Forestry Livelihoods Programme to eradicate poverty through the provision of firewood, construction poles, medicinal plants and edible fruits, all of which are critical to the livelihoods of the rural poor.
Afforestationin South Africa is taking place in rural areas where it remains unfeasibleto offeralternative opportunities for job creation and economic growth.In turn, developing these additional raw material resources will have the effect of attracting greater processing capacity through sawmills, board mills, chipping and treatment plants, with such plantations potentially able to generate an additional R500 million per year. In keeping with this focus on development, among FSA’s core objectives is to bring the emerging, small scale timber grower sector into the wider market and mainstream of forestry activities by joining the Association.
FSA’s members consists of approximately 1 300 commercial timber farmers and some 20 000 emergent small scale growers, between them owning or controlling 93% of the country’s total plantation area. Thestructure of the Association is designed to best serve its membership, with three separate and distinct entities existingunder theumbrella of its overall Executive Committee. These are the Large, Medium and SmallGrowers Groups, catering for corporate timber growers, commercial timber farmers and emergent timber growers respectively.
There are several key objectives at play here, a large part of which are geared toward creating a unity of purpose amongst its diverse members, growers of all commercial tree species. As such, it seeks to promote the development and well-being of the South African Forestry Industry in the country and beyond, as well as the commercial production and usage of timber and forest products in an environmentally sound manner and the use of natural resources without detriment to their long-term sustainability.
Concerns around sustainability are ever more crucial to the future of the forestry industry. Despite forests’essential role in life on earth, half the world’s forest cover has been lost in the last 50 years and only 7% of the remaining forests are protected. The National Forests Act of 1998 and the Forestry Laws Amendment Act of2005 set out the vision for the future of forestry in South Africa. The emphasis is on sustainable forest management, and how people and communities can use forests without destroying them. They provide rules for protecting indigenous forests and ensure that the public can access state-forest land for recreational, cultural, spiritual and educational purposes. South Africa contains a rich spread of more than 1 700 tree and shrub species, with some threatened, and 47 species protected under the Act.
David Everard, divisional environmental manager at Sappi Forests and chairman of Forestry South Africa’s environmental management committee, says that narrow-sense sustainability concerns the industry’s ability to grow trees and provide timber for the market as it requires without adversely impacting on future generations, while broad-sense sustainability applies to issues of how to manage plantations and their impact on the environment.
He says that if one looks at long-term sustainability, one finds yields are increasing, for the reasons that, “we are growing better trees through choice of the more vigorous and suitable genetics and improving silviculture —the way we look after the trees, plant them and remove weeds.”However, from a broad-sense perspective, forestrystill faces a number of issues.
“First, there is a general perception that forestry guzzles water. The truth is eucalyptus trees do use more water than the vegetation they replace, but they are also extremely efficient water-usage trees providing more timber per litre of water than any other tree. South African forestry timber plantations are also in the process of withdrawing from all wetlands, riparian and areas in which water accumulates.”
This September, Africa will host the XIV World Forestry Congress in Durban, which aims to ensure that forestry is an integral part of sustainable development. It also sets out to propose technical, scientific and policy interventions to promote forest sustainability. Africa’s interests will be represented by the Forest Stewardship Council with regional offices in South Africa, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and with FSC-certified forests in 19 African countries.
Chris Burchmore, the regional director of FSC Africa says: “This congress is a crucial event for the sustainable use of Africa’s forests, which in turn are linked directly to biodiversity and livelihoods on the continent and ultimately, to life on Earth. It’s high time Africa hosted this important event. It will bring together the global forestry community, including government, NGOs, business and scientists to review and analyse the key issues and to share ways of addressing them. It will be professionally and culturally rewarding, but challenging too, as participants engage in defining a vision and strategies for the sustainable future of forests. “