Timber from coconut logs — at a price

Taupo Times, Volume 23, Issue 51, 27 June 1974, Page 9

Timber from coconut logs — at a price

Trunks from coconut palms — brought to the Waipa sawmill at Rotorua from the Pacific isiands recently — have proved suitable for timber, according to the sawmill's generai manager, Mr A. W. Oakley. He told the Taupo Chamber of Commerce that tests had shown the coconut stems could be used on the isiands to produce timber — but at a high cost. "We have been experimenting further to see if the timber could be treated, but the results are not out yet," said Mr Oakley. Coconut tree trunks left to rot in plantations on the isiands are a source of infestation, and the Waipa sawmill undertook to study a shipment of trunks to try and find a use for the wood. Suitable timber could be produced — "but costs would be high by our standards." He said there were "absolutely iinprecedented demands" for timber in New Zealand at the moment and exports had been reduced to a minimum. "But it would be to our peril to ignore our overseas markets completely. We must safeguard them against a future time when we need to market again in other countries," Mr Oakley warned. The New Zealand production of timber was 800 million board feet a year and the Waipa mill pro-

duced 65 million feet of this. About 700 people were employed at the sawmill, which was responsible for about a quarter of the timber exported from this country. The commercial division of the Forest Service made a profit of $1.44 million last year, and paid a 12.5 per cent dividend back to the service. Mr Oakley said the return on the export market was considerably better than that on the local market, where timber products had been under price control since 1936', except for a short period about eight years ago. The industry regarded New Zealand prices as "exorbitantly low and entirely superficial" because they had been held for so long, he -said.