Employment and Training in Farm Forestry and Plantations

The Plantation industry in the Lower Great Southern Region has around 158,000 hectares of Blue Gums planted for pulpwood. With the commencement of harvest, export volumes of woodchips out of the Port of Albany to Japan have increased from 40,000tonnes in 2002 to 1.5M tonnes in 2008/09. Timbercorp Forestry and Integrated Tree Cropping process timber by in-field chipping, transporting the woodchips directly to the Albany Chip Terminal at the port, a state of the art woodchip handling facility built as a joint venture between the two companies; www.treecrop.com.au. Great Southern Ltd and Albany Plantation Export Company process their timber into woodchips at a static chip mill located at the Timber Processing Precinct, transporting into the port by rail; www.apecchip.com.au. The industry is now managing the second rotation. So far the region has provided 840 full time jobs including the harvest and transport and handling sectors of the industry. Jobs in the industry now vary substantially, with apprenticeships and traineeships available with excellent opportunities available for young people. Some examples below:

• pneumatics
• hydraulics
• tyre fitters
• welders
• harvesting
• forwarder and grader drivers
• diesel mechanics
• truck drivers
• saw doctors
• electricians 
• boiler making
• foresters
• office and administration 
• chainsaw operators
• coppice and roppice management for second rotation

 Employment Agency Profiles of Timber 2020 Members

In 2008 companies took on 10 School Based Trainees from years 11 and 12. The schools participating are Albany Senior High School, Mt Barker Senior High School, Denmark Agricultural College, North Albany Senior Highschool and St Joseph's College with forestry busnesses including Timber 2020 & Great Southern Ltd - Business & Administration, Blu-Chip Haulage - Mechanical, Forest Products Commission - Forest Growing & Management, Southern Transport Industries - Mechanical, Quechinup Forestry - Horticulture, Mt Romance Sandalwood Factory - Retail, Forest Training Centre - Mechanical Harvesting. In 2009 the numbers in the School Based Traineeship Programme have declined.