SPFL-Forest Manager

Forest Manager - Southwood Export Limited

SPFL have appointed Southwood Export Limited (SWEL) as Forest manager.

SWEL is a chip mill owner/operator, plantation forest owner and forest manager based out of the mill office at Awarua, and works alongside SPFLs' General Manager (in Melbourne) and Invercargill Representative (Invercargill) to manage SPFL's forests.

SWEL was established in 1981 to process indigenous logs into chip for export to pulp and paper mills in Japan. With increasing constraints upon indigenous hardwood chip production, SWEL converted to processing exclusively plantation grown timber, principally of eucalyptus and radiata pine.

SWEL has been managing plantation forests since 1987, when it began establishing eucalyptus plantations to fill the void left by the demise of indigenous chip production. In addition to its own estate, SWEL manages the plantation forest estates of SPFL and Kodansha Treefarm New Zealand Limited (KTNZ). Of the estates that SWEL manages and processes logs from, only that of SPFL is currently FSC certified. All forest estates managed by SWEL are located in Southland or South Otago and have a total current net stocked area of approximately 12,300 ha.

Besides chipping operations, logs can also be debarked at the mill, as currently happens with pine logs (eucalyptus logs are debarked as they are harvested). The mill has the potential to process 300,000 GMT of logs annually. All wood chip is stockpiled and exported through the port of Bluff. In July 2004, SWEL attained FSC Chain of Custody certification for its mill and port operations (SW-COC-1257).