Developing a local industry to supply essential wood products, rather than importing them, makes sustainable sense.
There are around 50,000 wooden cross-arms on power poles in the Marlborough network and a further 60,000 serve the Otago area. These wooden cross-arms – for safety reasons – regularly need replacing. The arms are made from imported hardwood that is necessary to provide the strength required. That's a lot of wood, and transportation costs, not to mention money going offshore.
Then there are at least 19 million vineyard grape-posts dotted across the Marlborough landscape that are currently made from treated pine. The posts are quietly decomposing; leaching chemicals into the soil and they cannot be safely disposed of by burning.
Marlborough Lines became involved as a foundation member of a new project that aims to grow suitable hardwoods here in New Zealand for commercial use.
In the past we imported hardwood for cross-arms – such as ironbark or blackwood – sourced from tropical native forests in places such as Malaysia and Indonesia. However, we don't believe in using timber from native forests and at present we import about 9,000 metres of ironbark, tallow-wood and spotted gum per year from sustainable sources of supply in Australia.
The New Zealand Dryland Forest Initiative research project – undertaken with Canterbury University – is based in Marlborough and aims to determine the optimum, highly durable hardwood species that can be grown in the region. The first phase of the research involves trialling six Eucalypt species and will cost $1.2m over the next five years, with Marlborough Lines providing financial support. The project has already received some initial funding from the Agricultural and Marketing Research and Development Trust (AGMARDT).
Marlborough Lines plans further practical support by allocating land for planting and trials. The Company has a number of staff with strong interests in forestry who will be keen to observe and contribute. In addition, we will be represented on the project's management committee.
The project is not starting from scratch; Marlborough-based environmental planning and forestry consultant, Mr Paul Millen, together with his brother Ash, has been trialling Eucalypt species in the region for the past 25 years.
“Marlborough Lines' support at this stage of the project is very significant to its success,” he says. He points out that Marlborough Lines is the only lines company in the country to have contributed to the project and that the outcome has national implications. He is confident Eucalypts suitable for cross-arms can be sustainably grown in the region and is pleased that the Company expects to acquire land in the future for this specific purpose.