Rural

The plan to reopen logging to stimulate the Tasmanian timber products industry could backfire and cost jobs, an independent politician says.

The head of Tasmania's largest native sawmill warns no-one in the industry wants a return to the "forest wars" and says wood from forests the Government is proposing to reopen to logging may go unclaimed.

Tension is building between Australia's first publicly listed timber company and the country's largest abalone producer, over a proposed multi-user wharf on Kangaroo island.

The Forestry Corporation buys 7,000 hectares of pine plantation and plantable land near the timber towns of Oberon, Tumut and Tumbarumba.

Environmentalists step up their campaign against the harvesting of timber in north-west Tasmania over fears logging will threaten the giant freshwater crayfish population.

A packed community meeting at Heyfield in regional Victoria hears that without the local timber mill the place will become a "ghost town".

The owner of the Heyfield sawmill in Gippsland asks the Victorian Government to fund a $40 million refit of the mill to take smaller logs.

Indian sandalwood producer Tropical Forestry Services buys a Northern Territory banana and melon farm in Douglas-Daly.

A timber supply shortage at Heyfield sawmill Australian Sustainable Hardwood sparks a push to increase plantation timber.

European settlement has altered Australia's environment in ways we're only now beginning to understand, and nowhere is that more clear than in WA's South West.

A Queensland council becomes the first in the state to adopt a wood encouragement policy that will see it prioritise timber in its construction projects.

The Labor Party in Tasmania is still considering its position on the Government's plan to open up more areas to logging, Upper House MP Craig Farrell says.

Blue gum farmers in WA have managed to get through the industry unscathed.

A south-east SA timber mill will be transformed into a $20 million timber veneer plant providing around 80 new jobs, says Wattle Range Council.

TasPorts joins forces with a private operator to establish a forestry exports terminal at Hobart's Macquarie Point.

Residents in South Australia's south-east have the chance to get their hands on a free pine Christmas tree this year, thanks to a festive giveaway from two local organisations.

A Papua New Guinean villager's six-year battle to stop logging around his home has won him an international human rights award and given him the chance to lobby the United States Government for help.

Forestry Tasmania dismisses concerns harvesting timber from two coupes containing wedge-tailed eagle nests on the Frankland River will threaten the nests.

Protesters stop logging operations for a second time in a week in the south-east forests of New South Wales, claiming Forestry Corporation of NSW has breached regulations.

A looming shortage in hardwood timber could put the Aussie tradition of a locally-made verandah out of reach for many home builders.

Environmentalists want the Tasmanian Government to scrap a 20-year forest industry deal they say is outdated and irrelevant.

A team of scientists, naturalists and amateur scientists have coalesced on the Tarkine wilderness in north-west Tasmania in the latest step in the campaign to declare it a national park.

The Tasmanian Government is persisting with plans to unlock quarantined forests, despite a major timber processor revealing it is opposed to the the move.

Tasmanian sawmiller Matthew Torenius warns Government plans to outsource felling in forestry reserves could spark anti-logging protests.

Australia's paper industry is seeing more than a 12 per cent hike in demand for Australian produced packaging paper, and pine plantations need to expand as a result.